As a health and wellness business owner offering online courses, programs, or memberships, creating an effective sales page is crucial to your success.
Your sales page has the potential to be a key conversion point in your sales funnel, leading to more sales.
Unfortunately, many sales pages written by clinicians fall short of their potential.
In this article, I’ll guide you through the common mistakes I see on sales pages so you won’t fall into the same traps.
Here’s are the typical mistakes we’ll cover:
Mistake 1: Introducing Your Course too Soon Without Warming Up Your Audience
One of the most critical yet frequently overlooked aspects of a successful sales page is the art of warming up your audience before making the offer.
I’m sure you receive CEU fliers in your mailbox and your inbox, right?
These fliers all look the same. They have the title of the course, the price, the dates, and the presenter’s name on the front page.
Since this is what clinicians are used to, this is what they often do with their sales pages.
The difference is, the online course space is much noisier. If you’re not offering courses under the umbrella of an established education company, you have to build more trust with the reader before assuming they’ll consider your course.
Alternatively, if you’re selling courses to people who aren’t healthcare professionals, you’ll want to remember that they don’t receive these fliers in their mailbox and they don’t have CEUs that they have to earn… so you must convince them that you’re the right answer.
Understanding the Importance of Connection
Building a connection with your audience is about creating a sense of understanding and trust.
Before you introduce what you're selling, it's vital to demonstrate that you understand the challenges, desires, and needs of your potential clients.
This connection fosters a relationship where your audience feels seen, heard, and understood.
Crafting the Top of Your Sales Page
The beginning of your sales page should not only draw in readers but also immediately resonate with them on an emotional level.
Here’s how to effectively structure the top of your sales page:
Highlight the Transformation or Promise:
Start with a powerful statement that encapsulates the ultimate transformation or outcome the reader can achieve by investing in your offer. This connects emotionally and taps into their desires.
Identify the Problem or Frustration:
Speak to the core problem or frustration your reader is facing. Use very specific examples rather than broad brushstrokes. This shows that you understand their situation and are speaking directly to their needs.
Remove Blame:
Now, let’s be real… your future clients may be struggling because of some choices they’ve made, right?
Unhealthy food choices, lack of exercise, or other lifestyle aspects are most likely contributing to their struggles.
But your sales page isn’t the place to point this out. (Plus, they probably already know their choices are contributing to the problem. Don’t we all?)
They’re here because they’re looking for solutions. As much as possible, point out why this isn’t totally their fault. We all know there’s not one simple reason people struggle with health and wellness challenges.
This empathetic approach removes guilt and opens up your audience to receiving help.
Acknowledge Past Efforts:
As you’re removing blame and shame from your reader, recognize what they’ve already tried. Give them credit for their effort and explain why the other attempts haven’t worked.
This builds trust by showing them your deep understanding of their journey and positions your course as a new, viable solution.
By crafting the top of your sales page in this way, you’ll meet your audience at their pain point, empathize with their struggles, and remove any sense of blame.
You’ve created a welcoming and understanding space that encourages readers to continue down the page, feeling hopeful and understood. This makes them more receptive to your offer.
It’s essentially like building rapport with a new client, right?
Mistake 2: Focusing on Features Over Benefits
You’ve created an epic offer, I have no doubt about that.
The information, resources and extras are all top notch and infused with your expertise.
But… too often health and wellness business owners spotlight the features rather than the benefits of the things they’ve meticulously included in the course.
Features of your course include the hours of videos, PDFs, quizzes, calls, etc.
While these details offer insight into the course's structure, they fall short of connecting with potential clients on a deeper, more emotional level. Also… some of these things sound like hard work, which isn’t what your clients are looking for.
The Power of Benefits
The real magic of your sales page lies in its ability to convey how your course will transform the reader's life. Benefits speak directly to your audience's aspirations, desires, and the outcomes they dream of achieving. By focusing on benefits, you tap into the emotions behind your audience's decision-making, making your offer highly appealing.
Translate Features into Benefits:
For every “thing” (feature) you’ve included in your course, ask yourself, “So what?” or “Why?” to uncover the benefits of these items. Think about why this piece of your offer matters for the client’s ultimate outcome.
Instead of merely stating that your course includes 10 video modules, explain how these modules provide step-by-step guidance to overcome a particular challenge, resulting in a clearer path to their goals.
Use Empathetic Language:
Communicate benefits in a way that resonates emotionally with your audience. Use language that reflects understanding, compassion, and a genuine desire to help. Phrases like "imagine feeling…" or "envision yourself…" help paint a vivid picture of the benefits in a relatable way.
This may sound cheesy here, but it’s similar to setting long-term goals with clients who are currently bed bound in the hospital. They need to see what’s possible for their future so they’re willing to take action and work toward that goal.
Highlight Immediate and Long-Term Benefits:
As you know, if we focus only on long-term goals or benefits, it may feel too big or overwhelming. The solution is to highlight both immediate and long-term benefits. This highlights the comprehensive value of your course without just saying something vague like, “This course will help you now and well into the future.” (Because that doesn’t feel tangible, right?)
By shifting the focus from features to benefits, your sales page becomes a powerful narrative that aligns with your audience's deepest needs and desires. This approach not only elevates the perceived value of your course but also significantly enhances the likelihood of conversion.
Mistake 3: Being too Inclusive by Trying to Speak to Everyone
(If you’re thinking, “TOO INCLUSIVE?!? WHAT?!” keep reading, I’ll explain.)
You entered the health and wellness field to help people, right? And most likely, you've been taught to offer services to everyone and avoid excluding anyone.
Or, you know your services COULD help a wide variety of people with different problems, even if they're not your ideal clients.
This is the Achilles heel of health professionals from what I’ve seen.
When it comes to writing your sales page, you have to narrow down who you're talking to. If you're talking to everyone or trying to include everyone, then you're actually speaking to nobody.
The Pitfalls of Broad Messaging
When you try to address multiple groups of people who have different needs and frustrations, your message becomes vague and less compelling.
Potential clients visit your sales page, but then get the impression that your offer isn’t specifically for them. The key to effective communication is precision and personalization.
Strategies for Focused Messaging
If you get hung up here, remember that specializing doesn’t mean serving less people… it just means serving more of your most ideal client. Knee doctors fix knees, hand therapists only treat UEs, and sports therapists see athletes. If you think about it, you probably want a specialist when you have a health challenge too, right?
Here’s how to narrow down your focus:
Define Your Ideal Client:
Start by painting a detailed picture of who your course is perfect for. Consider their specific challenges, goals, and where they are on their health and wellness journey. The more detailed you are, the more targeted your message can be.
Speak Directly to Their Needs:
Once you’ve identified your ideal client, craft your sales message to address their unique needs and desires. Use language and examples that resonate with their specific situation. They should feel like you’ve been looking into their life when they read your page.
Highlight Exclusive Benefits:
Make it clear why your course is the perfect fit for people just like them by emphasizing benefits that directly address their needs. This reinforces the feeling of exclusivity and personalization.
Testimonials and Stories:
Include testimonials and success stories from clients who closely match your ideal customer profile. This not only adds social proof but also allows potential clients to see themselves in the stories of others.
Be Unafraid to Exclude:
It can be challenging, but effective marketing often involves making clear who your offering is not for. This clarity helps attract your true ideal clients and sets the stage for a more successful client-course fit.
When you refine your ideal client and messaging, you create a sales page that resonates deeply with the people you want to work with most.
This focused approach improves the conversions of your sales page and increases the satisfaction of your clients, who will feel seen and understood from the first click.
Mistake 4: Dry, Boring Bios
Your sales page should include your bio, but not your resume. It shouldn’t sound like the “about the author” section on a dissertation either.
Even though it seems like people reading your sales page should already know who you are, it’s important to introduce yourself and connect with the reader to reinforce who you are and why you’re the right person to help them.
The bio section of a sales page is more than just a space to list qualifications and achievements from your health and wellness career too. While credentials do play a role in establishing credibility, they don't necessarily foster a connection with potential clients.
The Limitations of a Credentials-Heavy Bio
A bio that focuses solely on credentials, degrees, and professional achievements may impress, but it often fails to engage the reader on a personal level. Potential clients are looking for solutions to their problems, and they want to know that you understand them and can help.
A list of qualifications doesn't assure them that you can relate to their struggles or that they can trust you to help them with their pain. Oftentimes, your reader won’t know what all those credentials actually mean anyway. It’s alphabet soup to most people.
A connection-focused bio, on the other hand, can significantly enhance the persuasive power of your sales page by making you relatable and trustworthy.
Elements of a Connection-Focused Bio
Open with a Human Touch:
Provide some details about you as a human, beyond your work. Think about your hobbies, interests, or fun facts that make you more memorable and relatable. It shows you're a real person, not just a list of qualifications.
Share Your Why:
Next, explain why you entered your field and specialty and what drives you to help people like the reader. This personal insight invites readers into your world and shows them your passion and dedication.
Tell Them You’ve Been in Their Shoes:
If applicable, share your own health and wellness journey or how you've helped clients overcome similar challenges. This demonstrates empathy and understanding, key components of a strong connection. People want to know you truly understand what they’re facing, and that you can guide them to their destination.
Use Approachable Language:
Write your bio in a conversational tone. Using technical jargon or overly formal language can create distance. Approachable language makes you seem more relatable and accessible. Write this section like you’re talking to them.
Crafting a bio that focuses on connection humanizes you and builds trust with your reader. This reassures the reader that they're in the hands of someone who not only has the expertise but also genuinely cares about their well-being and success.
I always find it amazing what sticks out in someone’s mind and makes them want to work with me. Be your own weird self and you’ll attract the right people to your program!
Mistake 5: Failure to Optimize Your Sales Page for Conversions
A beautifully crafted sales page describes your programs is only as good as its ability to convert visitors into clients.
Conversion optimization involves a strategic approach to designing your sales page elements, from the call-to-action (CTA) buttons to the layout and content placement.
Key Conversion Optimization Tactics
Clear and Compelling Call-to-Action (CTA):
Your CTA buttons are the gateways to conversion. You have to ASK people to take action or they won’t do anything.
Your buttons should stand out and encourage action with compelling text that goes beyond generic "Click Here." Use action-oriented, benefit-focused language like "Start Your Wellness Journey Today" to make it irresistible.
Simplify the Page Layout:
A cluttered sales page can overwhelm visitors and dilute your message. Focus on a clean, straightforward layout that guides visitors through your sales narrative without distractions. Use headings, bullet points, and ample white space to enhance readability.
Leverage Social Proof:
Incorporate testimonials, success stories, and endorsements strategically throughout the page. Seeing others' positive experiences significantly influences the decision-making process.
You can tell people what you can do, but it’s far more powerful for them to hear someone else vouch for you.
For more about how to gather and leverage testimonials, click below for a free training:
Address Objections:
Your reader already has questions and objections in their mind. When you identify and answer these objections and hesitations, your potential clients don’t have to wonder or DM you to ask. Providing answers to these concerns removes barriers to conversion.
Optimize for Mobile:
This is likely a given at this point since so many people use mobile devices to search the internet, but ensuring your sales page is mobile-friendly is non-negotiable. Test the page's responsiveness and loading times. Also make sure the text is easy to read on the mobile version.
Use High-Quality Visuals:
Whenever possible, use branded photos rather than stock photos. Images and videos can convey the essence of your offer better than words alone. Use pictures that reflect the outcomes and transformation your program promises.
Test and Refine:
Optimization is an ongoing process. Use A/B testing to try different elements (like CTA text or images) and see what works best. Regularly review your page's performance and make adjustments based on the data.
By focusing on these conversion optimization tactics, you create a sales page that effectively guides visitors towards making a commitment. Remember, the goal is to make the decision to enroll as easy and compelling as possible for your potential clients… OR help them see that they’re not the right fit for your program..
As we wrap up our guide to the most common sales page mistakes health and wellness business owners make, it's time to take action.
Review your sales page: are you engaging your audience before making your offer, focusing on benefits over features, speaking directly to your ideal client, connecting through your bio, and optimizing for conversions?
If you spot areas for improvement, make the adjustments and then monitor the effectiveness during your next launch.
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