If you’re an entrepreneur, one of the most basic things to learn is how to write good sales copy.
Sales copy is essential for every business, especially if you’re trying to sell online. If your sales copy isn’t up to scratch then you’re going to have a hard time convincing your audience to purchase your products or services.
Thankfully, there are a few easy tricks you can use to improve your sales copy overnight
Read on to find out how to write good sales copy – including what to include and a 4 part framework to get it right every time.
Learn more about the best marketing strategies for your business – sign up for our Free Webinar Sales Funnel course.
How to write sales copy
Sales copy convinces your customers to purchase your product or service.
It is designed to show your audience how they can benefit from what you’re selling. That means it’s essential for any business trying to sell their products online.
Any text on your website is a sales copy.
This includes your home page, landing pages, blog, and more.
All these pages need to capture and hold the attention of your audience and the only way to do that is if you learn how to write good sales copy.
Sales copy can take many forms, including:
- Lists
- Bullet points
- Paragraphs
- Infographics
- Text overlaid on an image
- Video
The trick for writing sales copy is to make it easy to understand, powerful and entertaining. Your audience is made up of very busy people – you need to give them a reason to keep reading.
If you want to learn how to write good sales copy, use this 4 part framework:
The 4 part sales copy framework
How can you ensure that your sales copy is convincing enough to make potential customers want to read on?
This 4 part sales copy framework gives you a formula for creating the best possible sales copy. It includes good copy essentials like a strong opening, asking questions, and guaranteeing results.
Use this framework as the starting point for writing sales copy and fill it in with your own product or services.
Note: the four main parts of the framework shouldn’t be re-ordered but the individual items can be.
Here’s how to write copy that sells…
More of a visual learner? Check out this video:
18 tips for how to write sales copy that sells
Part 1: Grabbing attention
1. Address your audience
The first step to writing sales copy that sells is to personally address your audience.
People buy from people. If you can give your brand a friendly face from the get-go, you can get a stronger buy-in from your audience.
By adding yourself to your sales page, you can humanize your message. This gives you the chance to build an immediate connection with your prospective customers and begin to build trust. If you’re making a video, try to address your audience by their name and personally invite them to carry on watching.
Even though you’re not pitching your product to potential customers in person, that doesn’t mean you should skip the presentation part. In the world of online sales, it’s just as important to present yourself as a confident, capable and trustworthy individual.
When you’re writing your sales copy, add an intro that’s disarming and welcoming along with a photo of you smiling to welcome your audience.
2. Add a headline
If you want to learn how to write good sales copy, you first need to learn how to write a good headline.
Your headline is arguably the most important part of any sales copy you write. It is the very first thing your audience sees on your page and the main deciding factor in whether or not they carry on reading or click off.
With that in mind, here are 5 tips for writing an attention-grabbing headline:
- Include the main benefit of your product
- Explain why your offer is valuable
- Make it extra clear
- Don’t beat around the bush
- Write 25 different headlines and choose the best 5
It’s tough to condense your offer into just one line, especially if you’re learning how to write sales copy for the first time. That’s why it’s a good idea to test out 5 different headlines. See which ones your audience responds to the best and run with that on your landing page.
3. Add a byline
After the headline comes to the byline. This is the second thing your audience will read and it’s how you’ll hook them.
The byline is a short, concise sentence that adds detail to your headline and clarifies what your audience can expect if they carry on reading.
Thinkific course creator Jonathan Lee Dumas uses all 3 steps of Part 1 in action on his website homepage:
This page grabs the audience’s attention, introduces Jonathan as the friendly face of the brand, and adds a CTA directly below the byline to capture leads as soon as they arrive.
Part 2: The Why
4. Ask questions
Now comes the meaty part of your sales copy.
It’s time to start asking your reader questions.
Why? The right questions can persuade them to identify with the outcomes of your product or service. This is where your audience can start to think about the benefits of making a purchase and what they stand to gain from engaging with your brand.
Here are some of the benefits of using questions in your sales copy:
- Excites the reader about the benefits of your product or service
- Shows them how solving their problem will help them grow
- Qualifies the reader to make sure they’re the right for you
One example of questions used really effectively on your landing pages are bullet lists like ‘Who is this program for?’ and ‘Who is this program not for?’. Any readers will be able to understand immediately whether or not they’re in the right place. If they are, these lists help them to feel like your product is designed especially for them.
Download the How To Write Copy That Sells Courses ebook for examples of how to use questions in your sales copy.
5. Tell a powerful story
At the heart of all good sales copy, there’s a story.
If you want to understand how to write copy that sells, look no further than the power of storytelling.
The right story allows you to connect to your audience and generate an emotional response. Using storytelling in your copy can also help readers to absorb the information you’re telling them while building up excitement for what’s to come further down the page.
A powerful story communicates:
- What problem you’re solving
- The benefits of solving it
- The drawbacks of not solving it
Think of the storytelling section of your sales copy as the intro to your product. This is how you will set up the problem before offering your product as a solution.
Once you’ve done that, you can move on to part 3: the What.
Part 3: The What
6. Give your audience proof
Once you’ve prepared your customer for the sales pitch – though they don’t know it yet – it’s time to offer some social proof.
This is where you show them who else is buying into your brand and offer up proof that your product or service delivers on what you’ve promised so far.
In this section, you can include:
- Testimonials
- Case studies
- Stories
- Logos of brands using your product
- Statistics of the number of sign-ups, users, etc.
Use the positive experiences of other customers to sway new leads to make a purchase.
These all need to be real examples of people or businesses who’ve used your product. If you don’t have any proof yet, get colleagues to endorse your brand instead.
Remember – the best social proof is super-specific. Instead of the quote that says, “I love this product!” choose the one that says, “I landed 10 clients at $2000 a month from what I learned on this course”.
Give your prospective customers a picture of the concrete gains they stand to get from purchasing your product.
7. Highlight the opportunity
One of the secrets for how to write good sales copy is to make the solution you’re offering seem like a golden opportunity.
You want your customer to feel like your product or service is too good to miss.
Here are some great phrases to take your sales copy to the next level:
- An opportunity like no other!
- Don’t miss out!
- Limited time offer!
Phrases that add urgency and anticipation to your sales copy can help you to take any landing page to the next level.
8. Introduce your product
Up to this point, you’ve been setting up your client with lots of juicy details on the transformation that your product delivers.
Now your audience is left asking – “What are you selling?”
This is the best moment to introduce your product or service.
Your reader is curious to know more so drop a look at what you’re offering. Make sure you keep it short and sweet. Your introduction should be brief at this stage. Introduce what your product contains and what customers can expect when they make a purchase.
If you’re selling a course, you’ll want to include:
- The number of modules or hours
- The core course topics
- Your USPs
Icons with a couple of lines of text work really well here as they’re easy to absorb and give your prospective customers a clear idea of what your product includes.
If they’re interested, they’ll scroll down to read the more detailed outline.
9. Provide an outline
Now’s your chance to provide an in-depth outline of your product or service.
If you’re writing a landing page for your online course, it’s time to show your customers what exactly they can expect after they sign-up.
This section is all about “What’s inside?”.
Important: this is not a list of lessons, it is a look at the outcomes.
That means you should focus on your course objectives rather than the course modules. People don’t want to know exactly what you cover in every single lesson. Instead, they want to know what they will gain from taking your course.
Top tip – You can introduce humor to your sales copy here. Rather than dry facts, try using exaggeration and superlatives to give your outline an entertaining spin.
10. Address any objections
When you’re learning how to write good sales copy, it’s a good idea to anticipate objections from your audience.
If you’re a course creator, you might find that your students have objections to your course related to their specific situation. They might be concerned that your course won’t fit with their needs or cover their interests in the topic.
If you can address these concerns, you can increase your chances of getting a conversion.
Note: You can do this at any point during part 3 of your sales copy. If you feel like it fits more naturally before your course outline, then feel free to switch up the order. Just make sure you get it out of the way before moving on to part 4.
To see how Neil Patel does it download the How To Write Copy That Sells Courses ebook.
Part 4: The How
11. Explain the value
By this stage of your sales copy, you’re getting closer and closer to revealing the price of your product.
But before you do that, you need to illustrate to your customers the value of your product or service so the price is justified.
Again, focus on the outcomes that you’re promising rather than just a list of the contents.
There are some different ways you can do this, including:
- Listing the value of the items and tallying it up to make a total
- Using social proof to highlight the real-life ROI
- Discussing the theoretical monetary value of the outcomes
Make sure you publicize any bonus items you include like downloadable templates, workbooks and other resources to heighten the perceived value of your product.
Your aim in this section is to make the reader’s purchase decision a no-brainer.
12. Reveal the price
Now you want to reveal the price of your product.
By this stage, you’ve laid the groundwork for your reader to be fully convinced of the value of your product.
They’ve listened to the justification for the price and if you’ve done it right, they’ll be excited to find out how to make a purchase and how much it’s going to cost them.
By waiting until now to reveal the price, you’ve also created a cushion to soften the blow in case the product is pricier than they expected.
Hopefully, if you’ve done a good job with your sales copy they’ll see the price and feel like they’re getting your product for a steal!
13. Guarantee results
After revealing the price, you need to follow up with guarantees to ease any objections that your prospective customers might have.
A guarantee is proven to increase conversion rates on sales pages.
It makes sense – customers are worried that they’ll be giving away their hard-earned money and they might not see the returns they’re looking for.
By providing a guarantee, you can put them at ease.
A good example of a guarantee is to have a refund policy.
Check out this example from Neil Patel’s website:
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this offer. And that’s a guarantee that no one is offering right now.
Plus, there is absolutely NO RISK TO YOU.
If for ANY reason you are not completely satisfied with the product within 30 days after getting started with your trial, simply contact us for a swift full refund.
I’m shouldering all the risk because I’m certain that my product will give you everything you need to make your investment back and much more.
If you want to learn how to write good sales copy, get in the habit of adding guarantees. Have a go at writing your own guarantee to give your copy a conversion boost.
14. Add your signature
By this stage of your sales copy, your prospective customer has everything they need to make a purchase decision. You’ve told them about your product, your offer, what they stand to gain, and minimized the risk for them.
Now it’s a good idea to address your audience personally again.
Reintroduce the human element of your brand. Remind readers that you are actually a real person.
A signature is a great way to reinforce the introduction you made at the start of the page.
This adds a nice personal touch to an otherwise impersonal digital page. It triggers memories of handwritten letters and cards, building a closer bond between you and your prospective customers.
15. Include Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
If you want to write good sales copy, you can also gain a lot from including an FAQ section. If your reader hasn’t purchased from you yet, they probably have questions about a particular aspect of your product or service.
An FAQ section gives you the chance to address any remaining questions. Try to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and imagine what they might still need to know.
To write your FAQs, list potential questions and then answer them proactively. You’re still selling your product at this stage so don’t switch off! Be encouraging, enthusiastic and offer your prospective customers reassurance.
Bonus tips for how to write sales copy that sells
16. Use trigger words
Learning how to write good sales copy involves understanding the power of words.
Words have ‘emotional value’ and the difference between two words can be huge. If you can learn how to use emotive words and phrases, you can dramatically increase your conversion rates.
A great way to find trigger words that have meaning for your audience is to refer to your audience research. What words and phrases do they use to describe their problems and the solutions they’re hoping for? Find the common words and utilize them in your copy.
Download the Trigger Words Workbook to understand which words have emotional value for your audience.
17. Remember your brand voice
As well as including trigger words in your sales copy, an important tip for how to write good sales copy is to make sure you use a consistent brand voice.
Your brand voice is the distinct personality that your brand uses in all its communication materials.
It should be easy to recognize and in keeping with your product and service. For instance, if your course content is informal and joking, make sure you use this same voice in your promotional materials and sales copy.
Throughout the 4 part framework for how to write sales copy that sells, use a consistent brand voice to help your content hit home.
18. Write for your target audience
If you want to make sure your sales copy delivers on your goals, you need to write with your target audience in mind.
It can be really helpful to have your customer avatar in front of you when you’re writing any and all sales copy for your business. Don’t write for the world or the whole of your internet, write for that one person in your customer avatar. Imagine you’re talking to them face-to-face about your product.
What do they want to know? What will you highlight? How will you persuade them to make a purchase? If you can write for your target audience, you can make sure your sales copy is effective.
Neil Patel’s tips for how to write sales copy that sells
This is the ultimate outline for how to write good sales copy. Use this 4 part framework to create killer landing pages that convert prospects into customers. For more easy and effective marketing strategies for your business, sign up for our Free Webinar Sales Funnel course.
This guide was originally published in 2021, and was updated in August 2023 with more resources..
