The Purpose of Other Images on Your Sales Letter
Written by Ryan Ambrose · May 8, 2008
Why are all those different types of images on a sales letter page? The header is obvious,
but why the rest? Do you really need all those other pictures? The answer is simply that
they help. There are certain categories of images you can use beyond a header, because they
improve your conversions in various ways.
So, here’s the how and why of all the other images you might see:
The merchant’s picture: No, it’s not about the owner’s ego, although there might be a little of that too. It’s there because people don’t like buying from a faceless, impersonal web site. Therefore, many merchants selling digital products online add their pictures by putting them next to their first paragraph, in their headers, and occasionally next to their products. If you’re not already doing this, you should consider it.
The pictures of people in the testimonials: Mostly this is a means to reassure potential customers reading the testimonials that they’re not fake. Yes, some people are sleazy enough to post fake testimonials, and they’ve made their customers cynical for the rest of us. So post a picture, or if not that, a link to prove the people who are saying nice things about your product actually exist.
Digital product packages: I’m using this as a catch-all for images of ebook covers, software boxes, CD sleeves, and membership cards. They add a sense of reality to an otherwise intangible digital product, and on top of it, images and text convert better than text alone. These work best right next to the ‘Buy Now’ buttons, and are so useful you should plan to add them for any digital product you sell as a part of the start-up cost.
Red check marks: These go beautifully with benefit lists. It’s a psychological trick that helps give more selling power to them. Mine have shadow effects for some extra ‘wow’ factor.
While a header and footer image can certainly help your sales, don’t forget that other images have a purpose on your sales page too.
My name is Ryan Ambrose, and I’m one of the co-authors of Can I Make Big Money Online.
I think it is important to accompany images with any message online. They help to convey trust, emotions and often help us to take action which of course is beneficial for a sales page.
Hey Ryan,
I love reading your articles. You have great information to read about. I too like to help others make money online check my site. Tell me what you think.
Jason,
I love reading Ryan’s articles as well. This one is no different. Good images utilized well, will almost always increase your sales. Great post Ryan.
Thanks Jason. I’m glad I could help you out.
Good tips. I think I’ve got some pages to edit. Thanks.
I agree with you Ryan that one should include his customized picture which could be of merchant and of those providing testimonials on his website as it helps getting more personal with the reader.
And when it comes to selling digital products, personalization is the key.
Michael Taylor
I agree images are important past of a good sales letter but if you have a good product then you dont need all these images.
Ryan
http://www.makemoneybeta.com
How do you keep a balance between pictures and download times? I agree that pictures are very important, plain text only pages are begging for the back button to be clicked. I’m guessing you use some program to reduce the file size of the pics?
Hi Brian,
The big image to have on your web site is a header. It’s the first thing visitors see and it will help keep them glued to your page. As for the rest? Images can be reduced in size with programs like Microsoft Paint or something more complex if you happen to have it. Faces in testimonials can be kept to 100×100 pixels or so. One digital product package should also be enough, preferable accompanying the “Buy now”/”Sign up now”/”Act now” call to action most appropriate to your business theory.
I’ve seen repeating images used in the background of some sites. They only require that the repeating image be loaded once. Test conversions with and without it to see if it works for you. They’re nice, but I’ve never found them necessary if your load times are suffering because of one.
Furthermore, if you can do something with a CSS trick, those are much faster than images for a browser to resolve. CSS is nothing more than a set of instructions sent to the browser and can make things like dashed lines, colored borders, and with a tiny gradient image, title bars of varying lengths without huge load times.