Selling Health Products With Presell Pages

Selling health products online is a tricky scenario.

Mainly because people don’t buy health products the same way they buy other products online. As a health marketer, you have to get over the hurdle of trust and belief.

And at the same time position your health products as the solution, offering hope, without making any claims.

This is not an easy task for any marketer.

One way to sell health, while still remaining compliant, is to use Pre-sell Pages.

What is a Pre-sell Page?

Pre-sell Pages have been used in marketing for much longer than you may think. (At least the idea of them has been.) The concept goes back to the days of print advertising.

Back then they were called advertorials.

Which is an advertisement or sales letter, disguised as an article.

The name comes from combining Advertisement + Editorial Content.

Essentially it was a clever way for the magazine or newspaper to get the advertiser to pay to have their content published in larger blocks, as a new advertisement size for the publication to sell.

But an online advertorial page is more impactful than the old days of print. In print, you had to make your offer right there on the advertorial page but in the age of Internet marketing, it’s best to move the offer down stream when using a pre-sell page.

Let’s unpack what I mean by down stream in a bit, but first let’s examine a Pre-sell Page in more detail.

What’s the Psychology Of a Pre-sell Page?

A Pre-sell Page comes before the Sales Page. It frames the next step for the reader. But the next step may not be the sale. In many cases a Pre-sell Page peaks the readers curiosity just enough to get them to click to the next page. Which is why some marketers will refer to it as a bridge page. Since, the Pre-sell Page literally acts as a bridge to the next page.

Here’s an example of a Pre-sell Page. Notice how the Call To Action is to go to the next page to consume the rest of the story.

Conventional thinking would say this is the wrong approach, since you’re adding an unnecessary step and click. But according to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), it works because of Framing.

The Framing Technique can be used as a type of emotional amplifier. Framing works by building links in your limbic system between the amygdala and the hippocampus parts of your brain. These are literal bridges in your mind, but…

How Do Pre-sell Pages Convert More Sales?

In short, the pre-sell page sets the mind up, or frames, your mental state for the next desired action. That next desired action, in the case of a pre-sell page, is not a purchase like we saw above. It’s actually just to put you in a state where your desires and emotions are amplified to get you to consume the next piece of content, which is usually the sales letter. At the same time it creates a micro-commitment, with the click. The click to the next page, creates some momentum which propels the prospect forward.

Lessons From A Copywriting Master

But don’t take my word for it…

The legendary Gary Halbert, one of the truly great Direct Response Copywriters has this to say about Pre-sell Pages from chapter 18 of the book, The Boron Letters:

As much as possible, have an “editorial look”… and also should look like an exciting piece of editorial material.

It should have the look of an exciting news flash.

The moral is YOU CAN DO A BETTER SELLING JOB WHEN AT FIRST IT DOES NOT APPEAR YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO A SALES JOB.

How To A/B Test Pre-Sell Pages

The key to A/B testing a Pre-sell Page is choosing the right goal.

Although you should keep a close eye on the overall revenue of any funnel path, in the case of a Pre-sell Page, getting your visitor to the next step is actually the primary goal you should design your split tests for.

Let’s take another lesson from direct response copywriters and ask-

What’s the job of the headline?

You might think it’s to get you to buy or the job is to get read, but the legendary copywriters don’t think that way. In actuality, the greats like Gary Halbert, Claud Hopkins, Eugene Schwartz, think about the headline as having only one job.

To get the reader to read the first sentence.

And what’s the job of the first sentence?

To get you to read the second sentence.

And on and on and on. So the job of the Pre-sell Page is to get you to the next page. This is how you should set up your A/B testing strategy for testing Pre-sell Pages.

One reason is that the Pre-sell Page is getting the lion share of the traffic, since it’s at the very top of the funnel. So getting that page right is the first step of your funnel.

And, since it’s getting the most traffic you’ll be able to get a result much faster. Depending on the amount of traffic you might even be able to have more than one treatment at the same time in your test. So in short you can test faster if your Pre-sell Page test goal is getting visitors to the next step, vs. a sale which is further down stream.

Why Should You Use a Pre-sell Page?

When done right, the Pre-sell Page acts as an emotional amplifier for the next step in the buyer journey.

By warming up your visitors first with educational content, that peaks curiosity adds momentum, and prepares cold traffic, by setting the frame of the problem and positioning your product as the solution, you’ll maximize sales.

Discover the 3 funnels that can help your health supplement business succeed.