Here's Why Your Sales Letter Isn't Converting

Copywriting is one of those easy to learn, hard to master essential skills of online marketing that is dogged by so many small mistakes that can add up and bring down even what seems like the most incredible piece of content upon first inspection.

This is specifically about uncovering some of the weak points of many sales letters, and squashing them out of your own. Let's jump right into it.

Your traffic is misaligned

Alright, curveball, this doesn't have to do with your copywriting exactly, but it is a reason why your sales letter isn't pulling the weight you wanted it to. Sometimes, people craft an amazing piece of copy only to find out (if they're luck they find out, at least), that what they've made isn't striking a chord with the people who are actually visiting the site.

In fact, it's all too common to find that the traffic sources feeding your cite are the root of your conversion problems.

Your customers are smarter than you give them credit for

More and more often, it's not just career marketers who cringe at cheesy headlines and too-good-to-be-true testimonials and claims. As most markets become more educated and used to doing research and business online, there's an increased level skepticism that needs to dictate how you write your copy. Namely, you can't make the same claims you did in 2005 unless you've got some really kickass, indisputable evidence to back them up. Even then, you'll have to be good to make them believe that evidence is as real as you say it is. Just look at the outrage over various election and voter fiascos this election cycle – people are paying more attention, and social media makes it exceedingly easy.

Your design is detracting from your words

If you can't write you content like it's ten years ago, you can't design your site like it either. It's absolutely insane the same kind of longform, cheesy, over the top sales letters exist right now for products that are still relevant and could still be selling extremely well, if only their approach was changed.

Sometimes having bad design on a sales letter page is just the result of too much DIY spirit or of a poor designer hire, but more often it's that people have gotten comfortable with a working sales funnel, even as it slowly declines over time, and haven't gotten around to reworking and testing all over again.

Your pricing is too low

Interestingly enough, it's been shown that people tend to think that a lower case indicates a lower quality, and when people have more skepticism of the online marketing world in general right now, it's not hard to see how they might not see your $27 ebook as the epitome of quality and complete solutions. This is especially true if the price has remained constant over a long period of years where other goods have inflated and increased in cost.

Of course there are other issues - plenty to go around! - with sales letters, but these are a few that more than a few people have forgotten to consider, and have ended up losing out on sales for it.