3 Reasons For The Opening Paragraph In A Sales Page
When writing a sales letter, your headline grabbed your reader's attention and brought their eyes down to the next line, which should have been a sub-head to further clarify to whom you are speaking and why they should read on. So their next stop is the opening paragraph, which is almost as important as the headline because it leads the reader into the slippery slope of the rest of the sales page. But that is not it's only purpose. Your headline should fulfill one or more of three purposes to effectively do its job!
Start To Tell A Story
Your opening paragraph is going to want to tell a story of pain and suffering that the reader, if properly qualified from the headline and sub-head, will identify with. Maybe that reader is dealing with the same pain and suffering that your are talking about. Make it believable, but at the same time, really pour it on!
A good story will cause a willing suspension of disbelief, which means that the story causes the reader's mind to open up to the possibilities of what you are talking about. You want to begin the story, but do not take it to any conclusion, it is, after all the opening paragraph. The story should lead into another segment of the opening paragraph, or build up to a point where the reader has to get to the next section to find out more.
Expose The Problem That Your Product Or Service Will Solve!
The problem should not be the white elephant in the room that nobody is talking about. You should be parading it around the room and letting it trumpet loudly so that people can feel the pain. Explain in fine detail how much the problem irritates and how much it has cost you in lost time, etc. If you can quantify it, do so, because you want the reader to see how much they are losing by not purchasing your product!
Open up the wounds from their pain, jam a stick in it, then twist the stick and finally rub some salt in the wound. Your opening paragraph should be in the process of making them feel so bad about their problem that they will do about anything to find out how you can make it go away. But you are not ready to reveal that yet. In fact, you will not even reveal the other solutions that don't work yet, because you are just beginning to make them squirm!
Reveal Who You Are And Why You Can Help Them!
When you offer to help people with their problems, they instantly get suspicious. Why are you qualified to help them? What is your background in this field and why should they listen to you? Your opening paragraph needs to bring you into the light of being the expert who can help them, and why you are the only one who can help them!
People want to know that they are in good hands, and you will be telling your readers why they should consider you an expert either because of your status, your certifications, your title, your experience or your education. Often, showing yourself in a photo either dressed in a professional outfit, or in a setting surrounded by opulence can do the same thing, in which case you might touch on it and move into your story. You should have something to do with the story, either because you had the same problem and had to train, take courses, work hard or whatever the reason is that made you want to find a solution to the problem and now you can help others with that same problem.
Shoehorns? Or Just Good Writing?
Obviously, that is a lot of material to cover in one paragraph, and you may have to continue into several other paragraphs, but your main task is to use the opening paragraph to develop the hooks that will lead the reader into the rest of the story. It all begins with the ability of the copywriter to pull the reader from the headline into the opening paragraph and then push them down the slippery slide into each successive paragraph. The ability of the writer to put multiple hooks into the reader in one paragraph without creating chaos and confusion is a great way to make the opening paragraph work for the ultimate goal of getting readers to decide that your product is the solution to their pain and that they would be silly to leave without the product.
Micheal Savoie is the editor for Easy Selling Success, a video training workshop that explains the workings of sales pages and videos. Sign up now for free access with no upsells, no sales pitch and no fees! easysellingsuccess.com
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