Can You Use An Advertorial As A Sales Page?

Pop Quiz! 

Should you try and sell your product straight from your advertorial landing page? 

Unless you’ve got some sort of magic mind control dust to sprinkle on your readers beforehand – The answer is no. 

A big misconception in the native-advertising world is that an advertorial is actually a sales page.

But if you remember what we learned in our “How Advertorials Work“ post, the entire purpose of an advertorial is to warm up cold traffic BEFORE they get to your sales page. 

So an advertorial isn’t trying to SELL the product. Instead, the entire goal should be to get the reader curious and in the right mindset before you ask them for the sale. 

Some marketers call this “pre-framing” – and the goal is to get the reader to want more information. 

You see, when you pre-frame your readers, you’re actually asking them to make tiny micro-commitments to you, your company, and your product. 

Just read this headline.
Just click this one link.
Just read this story. 
Just click this next link to find out more. 

Each of those “asks” seem insignificant on their own, but as the reader moves through this process (a.k.a. the pre-sale funnel) they’re subconsciously opening up their mind and giving you permission to present your sales pitch. 

And each part of this funnel has it’s own job. 

The job of the ad headline is to get people to read the ad.
The job of the ad is to get the click to the advertorial. 
The job advertorial is to get people curious and asking for more information. 
The job of the sales page is to give them the information they need to make a purchase decision. 

And nobody should try and do anybody else’s job.

Don’t try and cross the streams!

Let your advertorial do it’s job and act as a bridge between the initial ad, and your ultimate sales process.

Side Note: Depending on your business model, your sales page may actually be a sales person. But that doesn’t mean you should discount advertorials. Just because you sell bicycle tires or gourmet popsicles doesn’t mean buyer psychology goes out the window. The same goes for different media formats, and funnel sizes. Advertorials have been successfully used for decades in television, radio, billboards, etc across all types of businesses. 

If you let customers move THEMSELVES through your funnel, then their desire for a solution to their problem will intensify naturally and will make the job of your sales page much easier. 

And now that you’re clear on the PURPOSE of the advertorial, it will be much easier to choose the most effective “big idea” (sometimes called a theme or an angle) that will help this middle-man landing page do it’s job. 

But that’s a whole ‘notha can ‘o worms. 

So tune in next week where we’ll learn how to choose the best theme and angle for your advertorial.