Regardless what you’re selling online, whether it’s your own products or as an affiliate, at some point you’re going to have to use “words” to pre-sell your prospective customers on the many benefits of doing business with you.
Taught throughout the “old school” Internet Marketing world is a secret sales formula that’s effortlessly been filling top marketers inboxes with daily sales notifications for the last couple generations.
This formula is SO simple, yet has *consistently* proven to work for many of the best selling products you see online today.
To implement this formula, all you have to do is memorize the acronymn “AIDA,” which stands for attention, interest, desire and action. You can apply this simple formula when writing a sales letter, affiliate pre-sell page, special offer page, newsletter sign up page, or just about any type of online sales communication there is.
We’ll cover this secret underground formula starting at the top where you get your reader’s attention, right down to the bottom where you get them to take action by hitting your “buy now” button.
To illustrate, let’s go through the parts of a typical sales letter and how it relates to the AIDA formula…
Attention
First off you have your headline at the top of your sales letter, usually bold and in big font, and in quotation marks (yes, the quotes tend to increase conversions – test it yourself and see!). Just based on the emphasis, you already know the headline is the most important part of the entire sales letter. Indeed, if you don’t get your headline right, your conversions suffer greatly.
The headline’s job is simple: to get your target market’s attention. You needn’t sell them in this short headline. All you have to do is attract their attention. Your headline should say “hey, look at me! I bet you want to keep reading!”
How does the headline accomplish this? By making a big promise (i.e., promising a benefit) if the prospect keeps reading. Ideally the headline should not only attract attention, but pique curiosity as well. Your headline should also sum up the biggest benefit of your product.
Interest
Now that you’ve grabbed your readers attention, next you need to pull them into your sales copy by their shirt collar. You need to grab and hold their interest. This is what you’ll accomplish in the opening paragraphs of your copy.
It’s in these lines that the underground copywriter starts playing with the reader like a cat stalking it’s prey. At the top of the sales letter you identify with the reader, telling them you know their pain and understand their problem …and then pull them in so that they’re experiencing their solution through your words, leading them right down the path to…
Desire
As mentioned before, after you’ve agitated whatever problem they have by encouraging them to imagine their pain, all while putting their biggest problem right smack in front of them and getting their attention – then you rescue them. And this is where the letter turns from getting their interest to stroking their desire. Indeed, when you show your reader that your product can deliver them from their pain, and when they start to imagine the emotions they’ll feel using your product and all the many benefits that are in store, then you’ve efficiently won their.
It’s as if their logical brain almost shuts down, and is running purely on emotion. See, people buy based on emotion then justify it with logic, not the other way around. If you’ve done your job then the reader isn’t even really thinking about the product. Instead, they’re thinking about the benefits they’ll receive when they use your product, and all the emotions attached to those benefits. And not just the benefits, but the outcome of those benefits and how your product could play a role, possibly even by key to the solution they’ve been seeking.
And that’s an important part… while your product is likely full of features, most prospects are primarily interested in benefits. That means you can’t list the features of your product and ask buyers to make the logical leap without translating those features into benefits. Remember your reader is asking themselves “what’s in it for THEM”, not what’s in it for you.
For example, let’s suppose you’re selling a dog bed, and one of its features is that it has a canvas cover. Perhaps that doesn’t mean much until you explain the benefit of the cover – namely, that it makes the bed durable and protects against dog nails and dogs who like to chew. The outcome is a bed that lasts longer — thus saving the buyer money from not having to buy a new bed every few months.
Another example: run and grab a bottle of shampoo. See all those crazy ingredients that you can’t pronounce? The ingredients themselves are features of the shampoo. However, the benefits are what those ingredients actually DO – such as make your hair softer, more manageable, and shiny. And of course all of that translates into the outcome of the user becoming more attractive and sexy.
So how do you talk about features, benefits and outcomes in your online sales presentations? Since this is such an important part of the formula – indeed, it’s the place where you cinch the reader’s desire for your product and compel them to take their credit card out by drawing massive attention to the benefits. And the easiest way to do this is to draw out all the benefits in a bulleted list.
Now when you make your bulleted list, the best way to do it is to list a feature, state it’s benefit …and if possible, arouse some curiosity at the same time. For example, a bulleted statement for a cooking ebook might look something like this: “Now you can discover the secret ingredient French chefs use to make meat so tender it falls apart – watch your dinner guests’ eyes light up!”
The feature of this ebook is that it reveals a secret ingredient. The benefit is that this ingredient makes meat tender …and beyond that, the outcome is that you’ll delight your dinner guests.
Action
Up until now the underground copywriter has been gently molding the reader to a certain line of thinking. He’s taken them from attracting their attention to sparking an interest to motivating a desire. Now at last we come to the close of the letter where the copywriter places a call to action.
Sure, there will be a few other features along the way in the letter. For example, the copywriter takes the risk off the reader by creating a well-worded guarantee policy (this is called risk reversal). He’s already presented the product as a knight in shining armor rescuing the reader, and now the guarantee is like putting a protective arm around the reader and saying, “don’t worry, you’re safe with me.”
Do this right, and it’s another emotional trip for the reader, where they feel soothed and safe.
Now it’s time to close the deal. In the last few paragraphs of your sales letter you’ll close the deal by reiterating all the benefits, and then telling the reader the price of the product.
Now that the prospect wants your product so bad they can taste it, AND they’ve justified the cost in their mind through the value you’ve built throughout your presentation, now it’s time to close the deal. And that means you need to tell the reader exactly what you want them to do. If you want them to opt-in to your newsletter list, then tell them exactly how to do it. If your sales letter is for a product, then tell them exactly how to order the product – and tell them to do it right now (add in a fear of loss such as limited availability for better results).
Remember people buy for two reasons:
-Hope for gain
-Fear of Loss
If you follow the AIDA formula correctly then you’ll be implementing these two motivating factors into every sales piece you publish. And always assume the sale. Nothing’s worse than someone who’s not confident enough in their product to ask for the business. With every line of your sales letter, you should be writing as if the buyer has already made the decision to buy.
Don’t be wishy-washy by saying things like, “if you want to order.” That’s weak! Remember, your prospect wants to be led by a confident leader …and you should be assuming the sale. So instead of weakly whispering “if you want to order here’s how to do it,” you can proudly command, “Order right now by clicking here!”
Too many marketers have a great “pre-sell” but then unfortunately choke when it comes time to get their reader to take action. Boldly ask for their business. Tell them to click the order button, and tell them to click it right now. Be confident in your copywriting and the rest will take care of itself.
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