#198: Quick Yet Effective Sales Page Fixes

Welcome back to another edition of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to get you excited about whatever you’re building right now, your signature course, your certification, a starter course, a live cohort, whatever it is for you, I’m here to support you every step of the way for your course creation, your marketing, and overall helping you build up the online based business of your dreams.

And we are back to weekly episodes and it is been a whirlwind. Thank you for all the feedback. Love all the comments. I love the audios you’ve been sending me, whether you’re listening while driving on a walk or working on your course, I appreciate you. It means the world to me that you’re listening in. And by the way, if this podcast is making an impact on you and touching you in any way, I would love for you to leave me a review and leave me a comment and let me know how this podcast has influenced you or your course.

Now, today I want to talk about sales is such a critical part of your course marketing, whether you’re in the beginning stages of creating your sales page, maybe you’ve launched one or several times and you’re looking to take it to the next level. I want to help you create a compelling sales page that converts. And let’s be honest, sometimes sales page don’t hit the mark, and I’ve seen hundreds of them inside my six week accelerator, and I wanted to share some of the biggest mistakes I see and how to fix them fast.

By the way, this is also a hot topic inside our upcoming Conversion copywriting playbook, a live coaching experience with Megan O’Leary, and I will review and refine your copy in real time. So if you want expert feedback on your emails and your copy, join the waitlist. Now a link to that in the show notes. And there’s honestly no one better to check out your copy than Megan O’Leary.

And I’m going to toot my own horn here a little bit. I mentioned my six week accelerator, all link to that in the show notes to where you can get your starter course done in just six weeks. And part of that program is building out a simple sales page. We have a whole plug and play process. Meg O’Leary is part of it.

She’s in the accelerator too, and we have a simple sales page formula and part of the six week accelerator is that you are filing milestones each week for six weeks and I’m reviewing those milestones. So I critique your sales page, the copy, if you build it out, I get to see it. So I’ll again link to the six week accelerator if you’re interested in that program, because I love seeing those early pages, especially new course creators who are just starting out.

So I thought, let’s go through some of the blunders that I see again and again and help you fix your sales page. By the way, not that your sales page necessarily needs fixing. Maybe you’re listening to this. Me like Gina, I got a great sales page. Well, I’m of the notion in the mind that we can always improve, we can always make tweaks and we can always get better.

So in that mindset, with that growth mindset with us, let’s see how we can really make your sales page shine. And one more tip before we get started. I mentioned this in that episode I recorded a couple of weeks ago. One great way to get some tips or some improvement points on your sales page is to put it in chapter CBT or some kind of AI bot and ask them like what you could improve and sometimes we’ll give you copy suggestions, image ideas, etc. So don’t be afraid to use AI as a tool to help you get better.

Now before we dive into all things sales pages, I wanted to talk about a recent story that completely lifted my spirits up and made me feel all the feels over the weekend and the Australian Open just wrapped up. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you know, my family and I, we are huge tennis fans and one of the biggest headlines came from American Madison Keys, who’s a tremendous tennis player, and she just won her first Grand Slam title.

Now, if you don’t follow tennis like we do, there are a ton of tournaments that happen year round for professional tennis players. It’s one of the longest and most rigorous seasons of any sports. And the Grand Slams, there’s four of them. So consider them the Super Bowl of tennis that just happens four times a year. So this year, Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and then the U.S. Open and Maddie, I’ll just call her Maddy.

She’s almost 30 or she’s turned 30, and she was quite the dynamo when she was a teenager. She was hyped up with Serena and Venus. Right. And she never quite lived up to the early height. So what changed? Well, she changed her racket. So that might sound small, but tiny changes can shift everything. I think when a professional tennis player changes their racket, it’s worth note when they change a tool like that.

She brought on a new coach, which happened to be her new husband, and he saw things that she had never seen before. He said, We’re going to modernize your game. And he made tweaks with her serve. And remember, she’s been playing tennis since she was 15 or 16. She’s been a pro, right? So she’s been doing this for a while.

So for her husband to come in at 30 and say, hey, we’re going to modernize your game, we’re going to make these changes, that probably was a little jarring for her. Maybe she said, wow, that’s that’s a big change, a racket. And then her serve. But she went for it in the media. Maddy talked about how she had used sports psychology before, but she had never used talk therapy.

She called it talk therapy to address her self-doubt and confidence and to really dig in and to get to know herself and get uncomfortable. So I think just talking to someone like that just changed everything for her. In addition to these other changes that she made. Now, I just think her story is a reminder it’s never too late to have a breakthrough and surround yourself with the best people.

In this case, it was her new husband and she has a great team, a small but mighty team that are just amazing. So she’s a complete inspiration for me. I hope she will be for you if you want to check out more about her Madison keys. And she’s just a kind, wonderful person. Now, if something isn’t working on your core business or sales page, maybe we need to be like Maddie and make some changes, right?

So maybe it’s not our racket, but we need to work on our copy or we need to work on our design. Or maybe we need to work on our inner game. So whatever it is, don’t be afraid to make that shift. All right, Let’s talk about some common sales page blunders. Now that I’ve told my little inspirational story.

And let’s fix your sales page as part of this episode. Okay. What’s a blunder that I see online? Maybe not all the time, but some of the times and it’s not having a sales page at all. Okay. Might drop here. See you later. I’m not kidding. Some people don’t have a sales page. Now. This is a great opportunity for me to say up front, why do we need a sales page?

Well, this is the opportunity for you to explain the value of what your course or your workshop or your certification brings to the world. What is your course going to do for people? Why should they work with you about you, about the course? What are the benefits? Right? What are the features? How is it going to work? Don’t miss out on this opportunity to really promote whatever your course is about.

And I’m not going to name names here, but I did have a bigger name who said, Hey, I don’t need a sales page. I’m just going to go out there with a shopping cart and sell my course. So they send people to a shopping cart, a checkout page, no context, no persuasion, just buy here. And they did get some sales because they were a big enough name.

But I’m telling you right now, this is not going to work for 99% of us. I don’t recommend that because again, your sales page is a reason to get them off the fence to buy from you. Hopefully you’ve done your influencing previously before you send them to the sales page. Right. In terms of emails or posts or webinar and you’re stacking your marketing, you’re telling them why this is important, why they need this.

But again, you need that sales page there to reiterate the value of what you bring. So when you don’t have one, you’re giving people a reason to just walk away. So thinking about a structured sales page with one, a clear headline to who’s it for Section three benefit bullets and for a call to action at a minimum. But ultimately your sales page should remove any objections, build trust and making it easy.

Yes. Oh, and by the way, again, we have that simple sales page formula inside of the six week accelerator program. The second biggest sales page blunder is a weak hook or headline. We’re definitely going to talk about this in the conversion copywriting playbook. By the way, your headline is the first element that folks see, and if it’s vague and uninspiring, they’re out.

Headlines can be the death of every sales page. You want to make your headline clear, compelling, student focused, turn your passion into profit and launch your course in 90 days. Who Passion into profit? Yes, Please launch my course in 90 days. Specific, tangible. I know exactly what I’m getting. That’s the kind of headline you want. They’re not getting.

Here’s a week headline. Start Your Journey to Success. Yikes. Okay. There’s no specificity in there. It’s not painting a picture. I don’t know exactly what I’m getting. You want results and benefit driven and customer focused headline. So make sure your headlines have got some strong hooks. Use Getty. Use it as an exhaustive junior copywriter like Megan O’Leary was talking about an episode of couple of weeks ago.

I like this part of the headline too LGBT and I need versions that incorporate this other piece in the headline Don’t Be Afraid to Ask. Be specific. By the way, Megan told me to be nice to Chalkbeat, and I’ve been nice in applauding it and praising it, and I think maybe it’s giving me better results. All right. Third blunder of sales pages.

And I see this all the time. You make it about you and you’ve seen these pages, guys, where the bio is seven paragraphs long. It’s a page in itself, right? You’re thinking, is this a sales page or is this the about you page? Right. I care, but I don’t care that much. I don’t need to know every degree that you’ve ever earned.

I don’t need to know your major in college with psychology and you played club lacrosse. Really narrow it down to what’s relevant for your person. And what’s important for you is an authority. And then I’m great with having an about section later on down the page or including your story, especially if your story is relevant. We love stories here, but it make it relevant and make it clear and punchy enough on the page.

So it’s not just about you. This is another challenge I see where people hide themselves. They’re establishing themselves as an expert, as an authority, but there’s no picture of them. And they say to me, Well, Gina, I don’t really want to show a picture of me. I don’t like the way I’m looking right now. Well, it doesn’t matter.

People are just going to see, hopefully an expert they trust someone that they want to learn from, someone that they want to get a transformation from. So in order for them to connect with you and ultimately trust you, they need to see you. Okay? You need to show your face and a picture of you is really important. At a minimum, in an about U.S., but most likely on top as well on the top of your page.

And by the way, air has made this so much easier where you can just take a selfie and then a generator can do some backgrounds for you. Gone are the days where you had to do these big photo shoots. So there’s really no excuse to not have that beautiful picture of you. And like I said before, telling that story about you and how it’s relevant to your course.

Our fifth blunder is giving them too much information, just dumping it all out there and giving them too much detail up front. So you’re burying your great course benefits, maybe under a pile of fluff. Remember to trim the fat. I’ve got an episode about that and lead with the biggest transformation that your course provides. And then bullet points are our friends.

You want to give them quick hits. People don’t have time to read any more, right? Attention spans are shorter than ever, so you got to hit them with Quick Hits. Megan O’Leary is a genius at that. All right. Here’s another blunder that I see all the time. This is a weak call to action, passive CTAs are terrible. Terrible.

That’s not persuasive copywriting. We’ve got to talk in a way that sounds urgent. That’s action oriented. Secure your spot. 12 seats available. There’s urgency there, Right? Think about how you can make it more specific and action oriented. The final blunder is to make sure you have testimonials or quotes on the page that relate to you or the service or the course that you’re providing.

Now, I get sometimes people who say, Jean, I’ve never put out a course before. I can’t really have any reviews out of anyone talking about this course. Well, that’s okay, because they’re talking about you. They’re talking about the services you provide, maybe coaching or consulting or whatever it is. Don’t be afraid to put those quotes on the page or grab social media comments.

I don’t know about you, but I love those sales pages that just grab those raw comments that that people are posting that is so raw and authentic and great. You don’t need to get something that’s polished and professional. People are just not looking for that anymore. So get creative when it comes to testimonials. Don’t leave those quotes off.

Don’t leave an opportunity behind for people to learn more about you and what you do. All right. Well, hopefully these sales page fixes were helpful and you’re working on updating your sales page. Make sure you’re signed up for the conversion copywriting playbook waitlist for when that opens. If you want help with your simple sales page and get your starter course out to market.

Check out the six week accelerator and make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss one single episode. All right. Until next week, go create, be you and be brilliant and get it done.