How we grew StoryLearning.com's course sales 2.6× in 183 days

A sales page is a sales process in written form. Its job is to build an understanding in the buyer's mind about the product they're interested in. To do that, it needs to:

• Clarify where they are now (A)
• Solidify where they want to be (B)
• Get them to acknowledge that they can't close the gap in the middle by themselves

The rule of bridges then introduces your product as the bridge that takes your prospect from A to B.

Done correctly, the prospect understands the product and why they should buy it now. They have a much smoother sales experience, and they are far more likely to buy.

The problem with most sales pages

Most sales pages have an internal focus. Whether they're built by a founder or an internal team, they usually explain why the product and the company are so great. You can spot them because they use the words "we", "me", "us" and "I" a lot.

That's fine on an about page or a case study. On a sales page, those words are dangerous.

What a well-built sales page does

A strong sales page shows that you understand the person you're selling to: they're standing at location A and want to get to location B, and your product is the bridge.

You build that trust by answering the right questions in the right order. Think of a face-to-face conversation: you can't build a connection by talking about yourself, or by answering whatever question you like in any order you choose.

Yet that's how many companies still sell online. It isn't their fault: as the creator, you're product-focused by default, so you naturally keep talking with an inward focus. But that isn't the best way to turn a prospect into a buyer.

"You" is one of the most powerful words in selling. Many companies miss the chance to use it.

The page we were working to improve belonged to the international language learning company IWillTeachYouALanguage. Its traffic came from a blend of organic search and cold paid ads. Our brief was to increase sales of their Spanish course.

Here's the sales page before we rebuilt it. The blue notes on the right describe what each section contains and which questions it answers.

The original page's framework

Laid out section by section, the original page's framework looks like this:

The order isn't smooth, so it won't fully connect with the prospect. It doesn't follow the questions they ask on the way to buying. For example:

• Step 3 talks about the author's pain points from their point of view.
• Step 5 introduces the product.
• Step 12 talks about what the author wants as an outcome for the prospect.
• Step 15 goes back to the product and the outcomes.

If it were a road, it would be very bumpy. It moves around too much to give the prospect the smooth experience that puts them at ease enough to buy.

There are plenty of formulas for sales pages. A good sales page is like a good film: long enough to cover the important parts, short enough to stay interesting. Models like "Star, Story, Solution" or AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) are neat strategic overviews. But what do they mean tactically?

You need to understand:

• What level of awareness is the prospect at when they arrive?
• What is their present situation?
• What end result do they want?
• How does your product bridge the gap between the two?

Your page needs to show, not tell, that you understand this. The framework below gives the page ratios, the questions to answer from the prospect's point of view, and the sales structure that sits over them.

The top 10% of the page: the hook

The top 10% matches the prospect's awareness level, meets them there and moves them forward. It also explains what's new about your product and why it's different from the other options. The brain is wired to notice novelty, and novelty earns attention.

Here's how we added novelty to the new page (B):

Done right, the page makes the prospect curious, and they want to read on. That's how you build a hook into a page on purpose.

The hook can change depending on where visitors come from. Organic visitors may need a message based on their search term. Visitors from an ad need the page to match the ad's message, which is something many companies get wrong.

Aligning the ad and the page alone can lift sales significantly. It's a major friction point that is often overlooked.

The next 40%: emotion and story

The next 40% uses emotion. You tell your story in a way that answers the specific questions and objections already in the prospect's mind. That strikes a chord, holds their interest and persuades them to keep reading.

The remaining 50%: logic and the offer

The final 50% finishes the emotional story and switches to logic: how the product actually works and how it gets the prospect the result they want. Then it makes an offer they can take right now. It can't be a lukewarm offer; it has to be strong enough that saying no is harder than saying yes.

Together, this answers the buyer's questions in this order:

1. Is it for me, and how is this new?
2. What do I get from this product?
3. What are the product's weaknesses?
4. What is stopping me from success?
5. Who is to blame for my failure?
6. How was the solution found?
7. Can you be trusted?
8. How does it work?
9. How do I get involved?
10. What happens if I don't start now?

This isn't a rigid checklist. A page selling a free opt-in needs far less than one selling a course for hundreds of dollars up front, and for high-ticket sales the answers may be spread across several pages, channels and a live conversation. Used too literally, the list can bloat a page.

With the framework in mind, we rebuilt the page. It got longer, because it had to do some heavy lifting: generating an up-front cash sale of nearly $300.

Again, the blue notes on the right show what each section contains and which questions it answers.

For full transparency: this is an updated version of the page we created. It offers a 7-day free trial, which was a later test and not part of our new page B. We couldn't retrieve the exact copy of page B in time, but this version is very close.

The new page's framework

This time the order takes the prospect through a very different way of thinking, one that matches how they ask questions when deciding to buy.

The page hooks the reader with a new process for learning and summarises what they'll see. It then explains the new method that will get them where they want to be, and what has been holding them back so far, which clarifies where they are now. Finally, it positions the product as the bridge between the two.

Trust builders run throughout: testimonials, and the media and events where the author has been featured or spoken. Our research process, understanding the prospect first, is what makes a page like this possible.

Here is the original page (A) directly next to the new page (B):

And here are the two frameworks side by side. Starting from a solid framework let us build a strong page, then elaborate around it.

The framework got us started, but there was much more to do. Here are three examples.

Page intro

A sales page needs a strong start for both new and returning visitors. The original opened with a logo, which looks nice but doesn't persuade.

Analytics showed that many people came back to the site to buy, so we put a buy button at the very top. Session recordings showed it led to purchases often enough that it's still live today.

We also built credibility in immediately, with logos of high-profile places where the author has spoken and where his courses have been featured. That gives every visitor a strong reason to trust the product from the first screen.

Page headline

Vague copy is a common problem. People avoid being specific for fear of excluding part of their audience, but specific copy strikes a harder chord and grabs attention.

We turned a vague headline into one that creates interest (speaks 8 languages), adds curiosity with speed (learn Spanish fast) and builds more curiosity with a new concept (StoryLearning).

Product imagery

If you can show people a picture, you don't have to paint it in their minds. That matters even more for digital products, which don't exist in a form you can hold.

People place more value on things that look tangible. It's the same reason casinos use chips instead of cash: a chip still feels like something you hold, which keeps you engaged.

Our first version of the new page sold at about the same level as the original.

With this many moving parts, friction points can be missed. The big gains come from rolling your sleeves up and doing more research.

Going through buyer data and surveys from the new page, we found a section was missing. People needed to see more detail about the product and what they would experience after buying, and they were left with questions, which is a big no.

So we added detail on how the course content is laid out and how it can be used, then helped the prospect picture themselves using it. That removed the new friction point, and you can see the result on page B above.

We also repositioned and named the product's core concept. The original idea, "learning through stories", was too vague and not very strong.

A product needs a unique, new angle, plus a single point of belief about why it works better than anything else.

Most products miss this, which is why they end up competing with everyone else. You want to be positioned as the clear best choice, not as one option among many.

The course did have a unique method, but it hadn't been built into anything specific with a name. Like the product imagery, there was nothing solid for buyers to hold on to.

So we turned "learning through stories" into a brand: StoryLearning. We introduced it as a new concept in language learning, which hooked readers into the rest of the page:

The company liked the concept so much that it trademarked the name, had to fight to buy the StoryLearning.com domain name, and rebranded the business around it. IWillTeachYouALanguage became StoryLearning.com, a brand that came out of this project. Owning an original concept adds lasting value to the company.

That's the work behind the 2.6× growth in sales. There were also off-page elements we worked on, which we'll cover separately.

Page B can still be improved; its design, for example, could be fresher. For this project we kept the original design and focused purely on sales performance.

With a 2.6× result, the project was considered a big success, and the changes were rolled out across the business.

Remember that this is part science, part experience and part art. The framework is a guide, not a rule for every page.