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The 5 Pages You Need to Market and Sell Your Course

Action Steps:

1	Write your Squeeze Page
2	Outline and write your 3-step freebie
3	Write your Sales Page

Page 1: Squeeze Page

The purpose of a squeeze page is to get people to pay you for something of value with their email address.

Think of a squeeze page like a police interrogation room. It’s small, windowless and the only way out is to give them what they want!

Okay, so maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but it’s purpose is to provide your ideal customer with just enough information that they are intrigued and want to learn more, and typically the only action the person can take on the page is to enter their email address or leave.

Many marketing experts say that there should be no other links on a squeeze page. No navigation. No clickable links. No social sharing buttons.

But if you’re using a Facebook ad to drive traffic to your squeeze page you have to include a link back to your homepage otherwise you are in violation of Facebook’s policy – so keep that in mind.

Formula for writing a squeeze page

You can repeat this formula every time you need to write a squeeze page.

• Compelling Headline
• The Problem
• Bold Call to Action
• Teaser copy
• Personality
• Make it easy to sign up – ask for only name and email.
• Only 2 options – either sign up or leave (but include a link to your homepage if you’re using Facebook ads).

Writing Squeeze Page In Action

Compelling Headline Write down what you want to tell people and don’t worry about being creative just yet. Then find the what, remove the nouns and replace with teaser words or less specific nouns. I love this FREE resource for writing compelling headlines from Copyblogger.

• Every Website Needs a Squeeze Page, plus these other 4 pages = The Five Pages Every Website Must Have
• Lose Weight with Intermittent Fasting = This One Change to Your Diet Can Help You Lose Weight
• Decrease Stress With Yoga = Doing This Daily Can Decrease Your Stress Level

Identify the Problem You Are Solving With Your Freebie

• So you’ve built your WordPress site, you’ve dialed in your homepage, about page, written some blog posts, started getting subscribers with an opt-in freebie, and you even have something for sale! But no one’s buying…
• You’ve tried every diet on planet, but you’re not seeing results.
• You’re on the move all day with a million things to do. You can’t relax, and you’re not sleeping well.

Teaser copy on how this freebie will solve the problem

These are really just more headlines. Include at least 3 bullet points on how your freebie will immediately solve your customers’ problem.

• I’ll reveal the five pages you must have on your website in order to turn that subscriber into a buyer.
• I’ll share with you why timing when you eat matters much more than what you’re eating.
• I’ll show you how setting aside 15 minutes a day to do this will have a major impact on your stress levels.

Insert Your Personality Everywhere it Makes Sense.

Look for nouns you can replace with metaphors that you and your audience can relate to – but be careful to not muddy the waters. You want to be yourself, but don’t make people have to think too hard to figure out what you’re saying.

• You’ve put your heart, soul and reality-TV watching time into building your WordPress site. You’ve perfected your homepage with a Sasha Fierce style photo and copy that’s so “you” it’s like reading your diary. You’re channeling your inner Judy Blume and are publishing some binge-read worthy blog posts. You’re reeling in subscribers with a must-have freebie on your hook, and you even have something for sale! But no one’s buying…
• I’ll share with you why you should be counting minutes instead of counting calories.
• You’ve got 15 minutes to Facebook stalk your ex, so you’ve got 15 minutes to spend on helping yourself chill out.

Bold Call to Action focused on the person and the result.

Get My Free Guide or Subscribe to My Newsletter is focused on you, not your customer. Don’t do it! Instead, do this:

• Yes, I want to see more ‘Payment Received’ emails in my inbox! Send me “The Five Pages Every Website Must Have”
• Yes, I want to stop counting calories and start seeing the number drop on the scale.
• Yes, I want you to show me how to chill the eff out!

Make it easy to sign up!

Don’t collect more than the first name and email address. Then you tie this opt-in form to your mailing list provider... and then…tomorrow, I’m going to share with you the next 3 pages you must have on your website, so keep an eye on your inbox!

Pages 2, 3 and 4: The Freebie Funnel

You already know that to build your list, you need to offer a freebie in exchange for an email address. But let’s think long-term here… Eventually you want people on your mailing list to buy something from you, right?

So your freebie shouldn’t suck.

Here are the top 4 mistakes people make when creating a freebie:

1) It’s not actionable information

2) It doesn’t solve a problem.

3) It’s not enough information.

4) It’s boring.

Wanna know how I know?

In addition to getting some pretty dismal freebies in my inbox, that’s EXACTLY what I did when I started offering “5 Steps to Website Success” when I first dipped my toe into this online business thing. Talk about a dense, corporate-y, snooze-fest that only a WordPress programmer could love…

I know, I know. It’s hard to give away too much for free.

You’re afraid no one will buy anything from you if put your best stuff in your freebie.

It’s just not true. Just because you solved part of your ideal client’s problem (if they even took the time to work through your freebie – let’s be real here – people tend not to value what they get for free) doesn’t mean they don’t still need your help.

Think of the freebie not as a way to get their email address, but as a way to offer a test drive of you and how you approach solving their problem.

You want to make the absolute best impression so that your ideal client will feel comfortable hiring you, right??

To motivate people to continue opening your emails and get to know, like you, trust you and eventually buy from you, break your freebie down into at least 3 parts and deliver TONS of value in each part.

This is called a funnel (I call it a freebie funnel), and it’s purpose is to move people from taking your free stuff and saying “BYE-EEE!” to thinking “Wow, if she can solve this problem for me, I trust that she’s the person I can count on to help me get x,y and z result.”

Here are the rules for what goes on your freebie funnel pages:

1. No selling allowed.
2. You must over-deliver. It should feel like you’re giving away too much for free. You should feel a little uncomfortable about it.
3. It must be super actionable information that solves a problem. It doesn’t have to solve the WHOLE problem, but give everything you’ve got on PART of the problem.
4. It must have your personality all over the place. This will help filter out people who aren’t going to like you, meaning they won’t be your ideal client.

Here’s how it works:

It’s powered by email automation, so you don’t have to do anything but dream it up in your awesome little mind, write it all down, and build the tech of it.

Press play, and move on to spending time helping your clients! For the tech part, first you’ll create at least 3 web pages packed full of your best stuff on one specific aspect of the overall problem. I’ll show you how to do that in the next module.

Then you’ll set up an email automation series with 3 emails and link to each page from within the email. (Um, sound familiar? This is exactly what I did with the Free 5 Day Website Challenge and now this email series.)

Once the person opts in on your squeeze page the emails are sent to them automatically over whatever time period you specify.

Here’s the thing – the freebie funnel doesn’t have to be pages on your site. It can be just a series of emails. BUT if you want to deliver multimedia, interact with people via comments and stuff, it should be done as pages on your site.

Alternatively, you can do a webinar in place of these 3 pages – but the same rules apply.

Your squeeze page would deliver an email with webinar details instead of the content. There are about a hundred different ways to do a webinar, I’ll share my fave with you later in this series.

No matter what method you use for your freebie funnel, make sure you have the next page set up and ready to go before you put it out there to the world.

Page 5: Sales Page

So far, you’ve convinced your ideal client to let you help them solve a small but important problem. Then you helped them solve it, and now you are going to share how you KNOW you can help them solve a larger problem (whether they already know they have the problem or not!)

Here’s exactly what goes on your sales page.

This formula is repeatable for every sales page you write:

• Defines the problem your audience is having.
• Explains why you are qualified to solve their problem.
• Details the exact solution you are offering in your online course, again with teaser copy like you wrote on your squeeze page. You don’t want to give all of the answers away!
• Addresses any objections to buying.
• Testimonials
• Price of your product
• Only option is to buy or leave – just like a squeeze page.
• Has a way to accept payment and automatically deliver the course.
• Personality! They are buying YOU just as much as they are buying your product.

Ever since I got my first diary shaped like Maggie Simpson with an actual lock on it, I’ve enjoyed writing. In college I would have taken a 20 page essay over an exam any day. Once paper that comes to mind is “The Tao of Fight Club”… I thought I was pretty smart LOL!

I’m no copywriter, but I’ll share with you my writing technique that I showed you on the squeeze page: I start by writing it all down, plain jane vanilla. At this point I don’t try to be creative and witty, I’m just factual.

Then I go back and add my personality (80’s references, bad jokes, worse puns, daydreams, things I enjoy, etc.) where appropriate – like when I”m defining the problem and my qualifications.

Next, I replace normal, boring sentences with metaphors that I would actually use, and I say things to you guys like I would say it to my real life BFF (except for she doesn’t give a crap about WordPress so she just kinda glazes over when I talk about it LOL!)

Then when I’m describing how I can solve your problem, I use the trick to write teaser copy – find that what and replace those nouns with teaser words (and I use that free Copyblogger resource. Get it, I’m not even kidding you. It will change the way you write.)

Then I publish it. And I’ll find myself on the page 2 weeks later, and I’ll have another idea, and then I’ll edit it… It’s an ongoing process for me.

The content on the 5 pages every website must have is just as important as the tech behind how to build them.

In the next module, I’ll show you exactly how to build this series in OptimizePress.