You’ve seen how to create content that will get read and you’ve seen how to write content that will get shared.
Now it’s time to look at what really matters in terms of writing for an affiliate marketer: and that’s creating content that will get your sales. Sales copy is going to be your number one tool as a marketer when it comes to making you lots of sales and this is what will largely make your landing pages so effective above and beyond what you would be able to do with an eCommerce store.
So how do you convince to buy something they’d never heard of before?
Introducing AIDA
The first thing to start with is your structure. Here there are plenty of options open to you but one of the most popular is known as ‘AIDA’. This stands for ‘Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action’. The general point is that when someone first lands on your sales page, they probably have never heard of whatever it is you’re selling and have no interest in staying there. You have to work from this assumption and hit hard and fast to ensure they stay on the page and they’re interested in what you’re selling.
Subtly doesn’t work. You don’t have time to reel someone in with an elaborate yarn and so what’s important is that you hit them hard and fast with a bold opening statement or a question and then immediately tell them what it is you’re selling. From there, you then have to make them actually want what you’re selling and then you have to clinch the deal by getting them to take action.
So how do you effectively do all those things? To start with, getting attention will often mean using a rhetorical question which will force your readers to engage with what you’re writing. When you say ‘have you ever…?’, this forces the reader to think back in order to answer the question. At that point, they’re then engaging with your content.
Another tip is to use a narrative structure. This is another way to keep people reading in a world when we’re constantly in a rush and constantly being bombarded with information. We have been telling and listening to stories since time immemorial, so if you give your sales pitch some kind of story, people will want to know how it ends and they’ll feel compelled to keep scrolling and keep reading.
How does this work? One common example is to talk about how you were in their position once but that all changed:
“Think you can’t make money working from home? I used to think the same thing.
And in fact, I had tried pretty much every money making method out there. So I knew it wasn’t possible.
Or I thought I knew. You see, that was before I stumbled onto something quite amazing…”
Notice how this kind of content makes you want to keep reading? We want to know what happens next. Each line is a cliff hanger, and as such we want to keep going and keep reading.
Another thing you might notice in this example is that the lines are very spaced out and very short. If you cast your mind back to our description of a landing page, you might remember that it was a narrow and vertical design that had lots of paragraphs. Remember: the more people scroll down, the ‘deeper’ they feel they have gone into your content and the more invested they become in what you have to say.
This is also great for preventing people from leaving your site as soon as you get there. The danger here is that people will see a massive block of text and then want to leave the site rather than sift through it all and strain their eyes. By using lots of short, well-spaced paragraphs, you can keep your readers scrolling through your content and give them the option to skip ahead and skim. It makes the writing that much more compelling – and using a big font works too.
From here, you then need to early on describe exactly what it is that the product you’re selling does and why people should want it. Telling them how it can help in no uncertain terms will prevent them from leaving out of frustration (if you’ve ever been to a website where it’s unclear what’s being sold then you’ll know how irritating it is!) and you’ll then be in a good position to really get them to want your item.
As we’ll see, the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of your product are very intimately linked…
Working the Emotions: Value Propositions and More
The key thing to keep in mind when trying to sell anything is your value proposition.
In fact, let’s take a step back. Understand that people don’t buy products based on logic. We don’t buy things because we need them and we’ve considered the pros and cons.
In fact, we’re often most reluctant to buy the things we need. How badly do you need a new toothbrush right now??
Instead, we tend to buy things because we want them. Most of our purchases are emotional and impulsive and based on a knee-jerk reaction to the things we want. This is why you need to press emotional buttons to get someone to buy.
And you do that by focusing on the value proposition.
What is value proposition? Simple: it’s the way in which your product promises to make life better for the people who buy it.
Another way to look at this is by referencing an old saying: you don’t sell hats, you sell warm heads. In other words, don’t focus on what your product does but why people want it to do that.
So if you’re selling an eBook on how to get great abs, what’s the value proposition? It’s not great abs. It’s that ‘feeling of confidence you get from having a sexy body’, or an improved love life, or better athletic performance.
You don’t sell a car, you sell freedom and you sell exhilaration. You sell status. This is similar to what we discussed when we talked about promoting a lifestyle rather than a product through social media. People want something that will inspire them and they want something exciting – so don’t just talk in terms of technicalities.
As well as talking about the exciting life that people could have if they bought your product though, you should also focus on what they can get away from and the drawbacks of their current situation.
So in other words, you don’t just tell people about how they will love having amazing abs, you express your understanding about how much it sucks to have a flabby stomach.
This is the equivalent of your ‘pain point’. And if you have a more straightforward product that solves a specific problem in a specific industry, then this is where you can focus on that.
Pain points are spending too long washing up, being tired every morning, having to wait for the computer to book up… your product needs to promise a better future and it needs to fix a pain point. The more simple and straightforward you can make this, the easier it will be to market and to sell.
Finally, the other way you need to work the emotions is by applying a little pressure. You want your customer to desire the product you’re describing and at the same time, you want them to feel anxious that if they don’t act fast – it may be gone.
If you have some flexibility in controlling the price point of your affiliate product, then one way you can do this is by introducing a special offer or discount. Otherwise you can just point out that stocks are limited and that if they don’t click buy right now, they may well lose out!
Quick Lesson: Mitigating Risk
When someone is considering acting on your advice and buying the product though, there will be a number of things holding them back and preventing them from taking action.
One of these things is the potential risk: people don’t want to buy something for $35 or more that might not do exactly what it claims to. They have no guarantee that you’re not just a scam artist and unlike being in a store, they have no way of looking over your product before they buy.
What’s more, people are naturally risk averse. That is to say, that if there’s a 50% chance of winning a thousand pounds and a 50% chance of losing three hundred pounds, a lot of people wouldn’t take the chance. Even though they stand to earn more than they stand to lose, people are more driven to hold onto what they already have than to chase after what they don’t yet have.
So your job as an affiliate marketer is to put their mind at ease and to take away their concerns while removing risk.
One way to do this is to address their concerns head on. Here, you’re simply going to second guess what they might be thinking and then prevent them from worrying in the same sentence.
So when you are selling an eBook, you say things like:
“I know what you’re thinking and no – this isn’t just another scam!”
Or how about:
“I was reluctant too – I never thought I had what it took to follow a training program and I had been burned before.”
This way, you can preempt concerns and remove them from the table.
Another strategy though is simply to offer some kind of guarantee. JVZoo and most other affiliate networks facilitate a very simple and straightforward return policy which means that anyone who buys a product you recommend can easily get their money back – and this is something you should promote front and center!
“NO RISK! FULL MONEY BACK GUARANTEE IF YOU’RE NOT 100% HAPPY!”
What you’ll find is that this makes a lot of people interested in buying your product who otherwise wouldn’t be but very few people will actually act on the returns policy.
Another option is to offer a free sample or a free trial. You can do this for instance by giving away the first chapter of the eBook, or by offering a free trial of a service that requires the buyer to cancel a direct debit to get out of (this is called inertia selling – a lot of people won’t be bothered to cancel the transaction even if they lose interest in the product!).
The best example of offering a free trial? Pet shops that let potential buyers take dogs home for a week before making a decision. It works every time!
Facts, Figures and Social Proof
Finally, you can further reinforce what you’re saying with liberal doses of facts, statistics and figures. People know that your objective is to sell to them and so anything you say they will likely question and assess. However, when you quote statistics or research, this sounds official enough that a lot of people will accept it blindly.
“70% of people saw incredible results from this product!”
“People are now earning an average of $23,890 a month using strategies similar to this one”
“The sharks-with-lasers-on-their-heads industry has seen year-on-year growth of 700%”
It is immoral to make up facts and figures but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a little selective about which ones you use. Likewise, you can conduct your own surveys and research to try and back up your key points.
A more fundamental approach is just to build on facts in order to reach your conclusions so that your readers can see a real logical progression.
“Increasing testosterone leads to more muscle mass, confidence and drive (study) à Other studies show that tribulis terrestris, tongcat ali and l-carnitine can all increase testosterone by at least 5% à So when combined synergistically into a single product, they can promise results of up to 15% à This product can lead to a 15% increase in your confidence and muscle mass!”
A similar strategy is to appeal to authority figures. Psychologist Milgram famously showed that people would do almost anything they were told if the person giving instructions was wearing a lab coat. Tell people that scientists, experts or doctors agree with your hypothesis and you’ll find that they’re far more likely to get on board.
If you can’t get a testimonial from an expert then there are other more subtle ways that brands achieve a similar effect. How about having a picture of a man in a lab coat on your landing page? Or how about giving your brand an official sounding title: like the UK supplement company ‘Dr. Organic’?
Finally, try to use social influence to further encourage sales. Humans are social animals and if we think something is popular or that other people are using something, then this tends to make us want it too. You can take advantage of this by saying your new product is ‘hot’ or a ‘top seller’ or you can just use a lot of testimonials.
Don’t have any testimonials? Just ask a few of your former customers if it’s okay to get a testimonial from them – to save time you can pre-write the message and then just ask them to sign off on it.
Combine all these different strategies into a single highly convincing sales pitch and use the tried-and-tested sales page layout and you can find it results in a huge number of sales.
