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Complete Step-by-Step Guide

To
Outlining High-Paying Landing Pages
In 60 Minutes or Less
So that you can then WRITE FAST, and make $70 to $100 per hour,
any time you want.

Key to creating highly effective landing pages fast: LIMITED FOCUS: One Audience, One
Purpose, One Step in a “Funnel”

In this lesson, you’ll create an outline for a fast, easy, highly effective and high-earning landing
page.

You should use this document over and over, every time you write a landing page for practice or
for a client – until it’s all second-nature.

For the purposes of a practice landing page, choose a company and an offer from real life.

You can choose anything you like. Just Google “software for _________” (for restaurants, or for
teachers, or for trucking companies, etc). Then choose an offer from the company to write a
practice landing page for. The offer could be to “sign up for a free trial,” or “purchase a pro level
membership,” or whatever they’re actually offering on their website.
Or choose any kind of company selling anything. It doesn’t have to be software. (But my best
advice is to choose something lucrative such as software, AI services, renewable energy, or
other B2B products or services. B2B usually pays more. Much more. So I usually don’t even
mess with consumer oriented copy.)

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https://www.apollo.io/
https://www.magix.com/us/music-editing/music-maker

Answer in red

1. The Target Audience

Who are they in general? (Answer in one sentence. No need to imagine in ridiculous detail.)

Example: Teachers. C-Suite Executives. People who make more than $200,000 a year.
Mountain biking newbies who make more than $80,000 a year.

Answer in red

What is your client’s goal for this landing page? (Increase email signups? Increase sales?
Increase a webinar’s signups? Can be endless.)

Answer in red

What EXACTLY does the client want them to do as a result of seeing the page? (Click a
button to sign up? Click a button to add something to cart? Call a telephone number? Click a
button to schedule a consultation? Click a button to download a free report? Subscribe to a
YouTube channel? You don’t need the DETAILS of your client’s checkout. You just need to
know the ACTION they want the reader to take. )

Answer in red
What is the big thing they want the most, at the very top of their desires, related to the
offer? (Your client will know this answer, 99% of the time. Make sure the client tells you.)

Examples:
“They want to create lesson plans and have them available on any device.”
“They want to make all company numbers available to all managers, but securely.”
“They want to find a fee-for-service financial adviser they can trust.”
“They want to get muscle memory for mountain biking fundamentals in one month.”

Answer in red

2. The Audience’s Main Problem

There are FOUR PARTS of the problem to identify:

Part 1: The “cause” of the problem.

Part 2: External aspects of the problem (what the problem looks like to the target audience)
Part 3: Internal aspects of the problem (how the problem feels to the target audience)
Part 4: The Philosophical / Moral aspect of the problem (Should / Shouldn’t statement

Part 1: The “cause” of the problem.

(There’s no one right answer. Feel free. Find something that works for your audience. But don’t
overthink it. A good one is better than a perfect one, because a perfect one takes 3x as long,
and your time is your money.)

This is not a TRUE root cause, which would be an analytical answer. Rather, it’s an “obvious”
root cause that “everyone” in the audience knows. It’s the “cause” which the audience would
knee-jerk blame as the root cause. The face of the problem. The quick definition of the problem:

Examples:

● “Lesson plans are stuck in the 20th Century – they’re not easily available on every
device.”
● “Hackers and spies – they’re always trying to steal any company’s data.”
 ● “The whole financial advising industry is set up to reward the advisors first, then maybe
the clients.”
● “My responsibilities – they’re endless! – keep me from really learning riding
fundamentals.”

Answer in red

Part 2: External aspects of the problem

These are aspects of the problem which are outside of your target reader. These are generally
some details of the “Face / Cause of the Problem”. What external problems does the reader put
up with? What do they struggle with?

Examples:

- The school’s IT system is clunky.

- The administration demands too much paperwork.
- The printer doesn’t work half the time, so I can’t even print them to take home.

Answer in red – 4 to 9 items

Part 3: Internal aspects of the problem.

These are specifically how the problem makes the audience FEEL.

This part of outlining your Landing Page goes VERY quickly. Choose only two or three.
(Remember the “Rule of Ones” that kicked off this lesson. One audience, one goal for the
landing page, one problem, one solution… That’s not 100% written in stone, but it’s a true
guide. So even here, you want to focus on only one to three internal/emotional aspects of the
problem which the audience is trying to solve.
Choose two (or at most three) from the following list:

● Anger
● Annoyance
● Sadness
● Guilt
● Fear / Anxiety
● Discouragement
● Apathy
● Disappointment
● Frustration

Answer in red

Give them a very quick explanation here in your notes. It’s probably easier if you write
these short notes from the point of view of the reader:

Example:

“I feel SO frustrated because it’s so hard to create, modify, or share lesson plans.”
“I feel anxiety because the district can check our lessons plans at any time…”

Part 4: Philosophical / moral aspect of the problem (“Should /

Shouldn’t”).
This is quick and easy. Everyone with a problem has some strong feelings about the way
things ought / ought not to be. Simply come up with a statement they would likely
strongly agree with.

You can jot down several as you choose. But choose only one of these.

Why is it "just plain wrong" for the audience to be troubled by this problem? Think in terms of
good vs evil, smart vs stupid, greatness vs unnecessary limitations, etc. Also maybe consider
the broader meaning of the problem for humanity – or at least for people like your current target
audience. How can the offer from the brand you’re writing for be positioned as a tool to fight
back against something that ought not be?

Examples:
“Writing and editing lesson plans on ANY device shouldn’t be this hard in 2023!”
“Teachers shouldn’t have to manually email their lesson plans in this day and age!”
“Teachers – and their students – deserve better technology for lesson planning!”

Answer in red – 5 to 8 possibilities

Some general examples, if you’re struggling to find a specific example:

“Bad people shouldn’t be allowed to win”

“People ought to be treated fairly”
For a consulting firm brand: “Everybody deserves to work for a great manager”
For a pet store brand: “Pets deserve to eat healthy food too”
For a travel agency brand: “Every summer should be remembered forever”

For your landing page to meet the audience’s emotional needs completely, you need to
hit all those four parts of the problem somewhere in your landing page.

3. The Brand You’re Writing For

HERO (SKYWALKER) = READER / CUSTOMER

GUIDE (YODA) = BRAND YOU’RE WRITING FOR

This is a key point. It will free you enormously. Here it is: In stories, the hero/heroine (think Luke
Skywalker) does not know how to solve their own main problem.

Your target audience is the hero. Everyone sees himself/herself as the main character in their
life. This is the genius behind why this kind of landing page is so easy to write, and gets people
to respond so well.

In a hero story, the hero is struggling with a Big Problem.

The Hero always meets a Guide who can give them a Plan. (Think of Luke Skywalker meeting
Yoda.) The guide (the brand you’re writing for) helps the Hero (the target audience you’re
addressing) solve the Hero’s Main Problem simply by giving them a plan.

A successful Guide has two basic qualities:

1) Empathy for the Hero’s needs, fears and insecurities.

2) Authority (expertise, reputation, experience) to offer a good plan.

Customers aren’t looking for a hero. They see themselves as the Hero of their own situation.
They’re looking for a Guide who can offer a Plan.

For this reason, never position the brand you’re writing for as the Hero. Your target audience is
the hero. Always position the brand you’re writing for as the Guide.

Empathy statement from your brand to your target audience

What brief statement can you make that expresses empathy and understanding?

This is short, and can seem very hackneyed. It doesn’t need to be original. It should be low-key.

Draw briefly from only one or two of the four aspects of the problem (above).

Examples:

“We know what it’s like to struggle with editing lesson plans from home [Main Problem].

Writing and editing lesson plans from all your devices shouldn’t be this hard in 2023! [Part 4:
Philosophical / Moral aspect of the problem]”

Note that in writing the Empathy Statement, you don’t have to draw from all
five. That would definitely be overkill.

Main Problem Definition

Part 1: The face of the problem / the cause of the problem.
Part 2: External aspects of the problem (what the problem looks like to the target audience)
Part 3: Internal aspects of the problem (how the problem feels to the target audience)
Part 4: The Philosophical / Moral aspect of the problem (Should / Shouldn’t statement)

Answer in red
Authority section, to establish a perception of authority in the
minds of your target audience
This one is always a section, if your brand has enough authority to populate a section. (If your
brand doesn’t have enough real authority to fill a short section, don’t worry. You can get away
with very little, as you’ll see below.)

Which other customers has the brand helped in the past? Someone in a very similar or same
industry / SES / demographic would be ideal. This is where we can use references, credibility
and a demonstration of expertise.

So the best kind of Authority sections have:

1. Testimonials
2. Track record / statistics
3. Awards and certifications
4. Mentions in respected media
5. Examples of customers just like your target audience that your brand has helped.

Examples of some statements in an Authority section:

“We have assisted 1,000s of teachers in taming their lesson plans.”

“Lesson Plan Ninja empowered the Clark County, NV, school district to digitize 97% of lesson
plans.”

“As reviewed in Wired, CIO Quarterly, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Inc.”

What if the brand you’re writing for has no real track record? You can still position them
as authoritative. In a case like that, it’s all in the rhetoric.

Examples:

“That’s why we put our years of coding + administrative experience to work and created Lesson
Plan Ninja.”

Answer in red
4. The Plan which the Guide (your brand) offers to
the Hero (your target audience)
When the Hero meets the Guide, the Hero is faced with a problem. (As you remember, the
Problem has a cause, external aspects, internal aspects, and a philosophical/moral dimension.

The Hero is feeling negative emotions about the problem.

The job of the Guide is to COMFORT the hero’s negative feelings in order to give the Hero
CONFIDENCE that the Hero can SOLVE the problem.

The Guide accomplishes this by giving the Hero the following:

1. A Plan – the “Path to Success”
2. A Guarantee that eliminates their feeling of risk

At this point in the process, potential customers (the Hero) have identified your Brand as their
Guide. But they aren’t ready to place an order. Why? Because they feel it’s a risk. They could
lose time, money, and even respect from their team. They are nervous, wary, and possibly
scared.

Time to reassure and comfort them. By giving the customer (the Hero) a Simple Plan, you give
them baby steps. It’s very subtle, very strong rhetoric. It makes them feel: “It’s easy to work with
this Guide. I just take the steps in this Simple Plan.”

Giving a customer a plan dramatically increases their engagement. Never do without it. It’s the
most powerful part of this entire set of rhetorical tools.

The Plan: a “Path to Success”

A path to success is a 3- or 4-step plan that will cause a member of your target audience to take
the action your Brand wants them to take. This could be to sign up for the email list. Or make a
purchase. Or schedule a consultation. Or whatever it is that the Brand wants them to do.

Here’s the schematic outline for this powerful piece of landing page rhetoric, the Path to
Success:
 1. [The action your brand wants the customer to take]
2. [Anything that’s true, active, and sounds good]
3. [The customer’s dearest desire, which you defined at the very beginning of this
exercise.]

Example:

1. Click BUY NOW. [The action your brand wants them to take]

2. Follow the easy process to install. [Anything that’s true, active, & positive.]

3. Get easy access to all your lesson plans on any device you own. [The target’s dearest
desire, already defined from the beginning of this outline]

Another Example:

1. Click “SCHEDULE NOW” to set up a call [The action your brand wants them to take]

2. Ask us anything about our fees [Anything that’s true, active, & positive.]

3. Come away with a full understanding of how fee-for-service saves you tens of
thousands. [The target’s dearest desire, already defined from the beginning of this
outline]

Never make a “Path to Success” longer than 4 steps. Three steps is ideal.

The “Path to Success” is rhetorical, not literal. (To list all the literal steps would be overwhelming
and would turn off any potential buyer. Everyone knows it’s not literal. And almost everyone still
responds positively to a “Path to Success.” Why? It’s a Simple Plan to solve the Problem, given
by an Empathetic and Authoritative Guide)

Other, more highly-developed versions of a Plan

Sometimes the Plan from the Guide (your brand) requires more development than just a quick
Path to Success. A more-developed Plan can be written into a different section of the landing
page. You would simply show, in two or three very short paragraphs, how the Brand helps the
customer solve the problem.

Answer in red
Guarantee – (REASSURANCE)
A “guarantee” here means: any small piece of rhetoric that will alleviate their main fears about
accepting the offer. Just ask yourself that question: “What would this audience fear about the
offer, right as they’re about to say yes by buying, or giving up their email address, or scheduling
a call, or whatever it is.”

Then write one short to medium sentence to alleviate that fear. It’s can be quite different for
every audience and every brand making the offer.

Answer in red

Remember, a “money-back guarantee” is very helpful in consumer selling, but it’s often
inappropriate in B2B selling. It can make your B2B brand look low-budget. Businesses don’t
spend significant amounts of money on services based on the best price, or a money-back
guarantee. They do it based on confidence that the goods or services they’re buying will
empower them to solve their problems.

For gathering email addresses, spam is the only real worry. So, a tiny unobtrusive mention of
“unsubscribe any time” is enough.

For scheduling a consultation, their fear is encountering a hard-sell salesperson. So, you can
say, “We’re here for your questions, and there’ll be no selling.” (This is rhetorical, not
literal. Every consultation is a form of selling. But “selling” in this case is easily understood by
everyone to mean “hard selling.”)

To write your Guarantee, answer the following questions:

1. What is the target audience most likely to be most afraid of right before they
accept the offer?

Answer in red

2. What short, unobtrusive “guarantee” rhetoric can you write that would alleviate
that fear?

Example of some possible Guarantees following this Path to Success:

1. Click BUY NOW.

2. Follow the easy process to install.

3. Get immediate access to all lesson plans on any device you own.

I think the biggest fear of the target audience as they’re about to buy is probably, “This is going
to be a hassle.” So, let’s alleviate that fear.
Possibility #1: We’ve got your back.

Possibility #2: Over 127,000 successful installs.

Possibility #3: “I was up and running in less than 10 minutes.” – Floyd S. with Clark Co.
Schools.

Etcetera.

Answer in red

5. The Call to Action

A call to action is the point in a Hero Story where the Hero is challenged to Act on the
Plan which the Guide has provided.

In a typical hero story (for example Star Wars, etc.) the call to action is a point of crisis.

The Hero must choose to embrace the Guide’s Plan, or stay still and fail to solve the
problem.

The key here is that the Hero will never Act on the Plan unless “called to action.”

In the same way, potential customers don’t take action unless they get a Call to Action. This
means the Call to Action must be crystal clear. Your brand has defined exactly what it wants the
potential customer to do. (Sign up, make a purchase, schedule a call, whatever it is.)

So, it’s simple. So simple!

Examples of Calls to Action for most landing pages:

BUY NOW
LEARN MORE
SCHEDULE A CALL
DOWNLOAD THE FREE REPORT
TAKE THE QUIZ

How easy is that? Don’t complicate it. Remember the Rule of Ones. Every landing page has
one audience, one purpose, one call to action.
Keep it simple, crystal clear, and extremely short.

Also, locate the call to action in more than one place on the page. Two or three times is great.

Answer in red

6. The Hero Must Avoid FAILURE

Every human being is trying to avoid tragic endings. People are motivated to experience
success, but they’re often even more strongly motivated to avoid failure.

In this part of the outline, you’ll come up with some examples of FAILURE that the target
audience wants to avoid. What failures and bad consequences could occur if they don’t answer
the Call to Action?

1. Make a 7- to 9-item list of the negative consequences your

target audience will experience if they don't answer the Call to
Action.

It’s ok for these to be crude right now. We’re not writing right now. So there’s no need to
wordsmith it. We are just creating notes that will allow you to write rapidly and well after the
page is outlined.

What will they miss out on? What will they lose? What are the threats?

Examples of a brainstormed list of FAILURES to avoid:

- They’ll continue to work much longer hours because writing lesson plans is so terribly
inefficient.
- They’ll show up to class unprepared.
- Their lesson plans will be lost, accidentally deleted again
- They won’t have the lesson planning documentation that the district demands.
- They won’t be able to adjust lesson plans on the fly, based on student needs
- They won’t be able to collaborate with other teachers, and continue to feel alone
 - Etc.

Answer in red

2. Next, highlight the most appropriate ones

Choose up to three from that list, to eventually include in the landing page that you will write.
Just highlight them in the list. Don’t include more than three, or four at most, because if you lay
it on too thick the audience will feel the negativity too strongly. This could cause them to
lose trust in the Guide as an Empathetic Guide.

7. The Hero Can Achieve Success

When their SUCCESS is defined clearly, the target audience will be much more engaged.

Never assume people understand how the brand can change their lives, their teams, their
businesses. You have to tell them, in very clear language.

People tend to move toward a vision of success that’s personally relevant to them. If we don’t
vividly paint that vision for them, they won’t answer the Call to Action.

So, as landing page copywriters, we have to clearly define what the target audience’s life / work
life / business will look like if they answer the Call to Action.

1. Make a 7- to 9-item list of the positive consequences your

target audience will experience if they answer the Call to Action.

Again, it’s fine for these to be crude or poorly written right now. We’re not trying to wordsmith
right now, or in any part of this outline that you are completing. We are just creating notes that
will allow you to write rapidly and well after the page is outlined.

What will they get? What will they win? What advantages will accrue to them? What are
the positive changes they can expect in their lives / work? How can they expect to feel?

Example list:
 - They’ll be able to access, write, edit, or share lesson plans anywhere, from any device
- They’ll always show up to class prepared, relaxed, ready to teach instead of struggling
technology to see lesson plans.
- Their lesson plans will be searchable and permanently archived.
- They always have at hand the lesson planning documentation that the district demands.
- They be able to instantly adjust lesson plans based on student needs or schedule
changes
- They’ll be able to easily collaborate with other teachers, with everyone’s contribution
documented, and ability to control access.
- Etc.
-

Answer in red
Feel free to include it all. Cut out only the ones that are too weak, or otherwise not good. With
these concrete examples of WINNING, of SUCCESS, it’s ok to lay it on thick. There’s no risk of
turning the reader off with multiple examples of fantastic positivity. These are often written
directly into a landing page in the form of bulleted lists.

8. Personal Transformation / Aspirational Identity

The Hero at the end of any story is a transformed person. Your target audience (the Hero in this
story) expects that too. They totally desire and expect to be a better version of themselves, from
any significant purchase that they make.

This should be a short section. Maybe just a sentence or two. If you laid it on thick, they would
distrust it. But if you concisely point out how they will be transformed into a better version of
themselves as a result of answering the Call to Action, you’ll push perhaps the most powerful
button inside them. You’ll create a strong and emotional feeling of hope, or relief, or victory, or
proving their enemies wrong, etc.

Who does your customer want to become as it relates to your brand? (Also, how does
your customer want to be perceived by others as it relates to your brand?)

1. Transformation FROM being this person …

Make a 5- to 9-item list of the negative ways your target audience is feeling about themselves
and/or the negative perceptions others may have of them, before they follow the Plan from the
Guide.
It’s ok for these to be crude right now. We’re not crafting sentences or choosing words right
now. So there’s no need to wordsmith it.

To make beginning this dead easy, you can refer back to the Internal section of the Problem
Definition. Start with those one or two negative emotions. Then expand, using your imagination
for how they feel. Imagine the target audience’s relentless inner critic. What is it saying?

Examples:
- Anxious about being reprimanded for not having all lesson plans organized
- Frustrated that their lessons are poorly planned, due to technical issues
- Ineffective teacher
- Disorganized or less organized than should be
- Always running late with paperwork
- Failing to get all the required curriculum covered
- Unprepared
- Imposter, not a real teacher [[This one is getting to be TOO strong, but it’s ok to go this
far in your notes. Just relax and jot down whatever ‘inner critic’ stuff you imagine your
target audience tells themselves when feeling down.]]

Answer in red

2. Transformation To being this new, better person …

Make a 5- to 9-item list of the positive ways your target audience will feel about themselves
and/or the positive perceptions others may have of them, after they follow the Plan.

For this one, imagine the target audience in a hopeful, euphoric mood dreaming about what kind
of person they might become, relevant to the Problem.

It’s ok for these to be over the top right now. You’re just brainstorming. We’re not crafting
sentences or choosing words right now. So there’s no need to wordsmith it or filter yourself too
much.

Examples:
- Organized
- Effective
- Relaxed
- A charismatic teacher
- Respected by colleagues and the administration
- I can be the Teacher of the Year
- Always on time with paperwork
 - Covering the required curriculum
- Prepared
- A genuine teacher, born to do this [[Getting a little over the top here, but that’s ok,
because we’re just outlining here. We want to go up to the edge of too-much emotion,
an cross it a little. You can always dial it back when you actually start writing. But this
gives you room.]]

Answer in red