The single most important facet of your sales or marketing funnel is your sales page itself. If your sales page doesn’t convert–nothing else matters.

In a screenplay or novel authors use what are called plot points to drive the story forward. There may be half a dozen major plot points with many more minor ones.

The plot points drive the reader forward and create a tension or expectation for a resolution to the crisis within the story.

We can think of a sales page as a novel. The copywriter develops a story and hinges that story around half a dozen or so key plot points to drive the sales message forward.

Once the plot points of the sales message are identified, intermediary text can be added to carry the reader form one key point to the next.

The key plot points in a sales letter could include 1. I am a lot like you, 2. I had a problem just like you, 3. I found a solution to that problem, and 4. here is the solution and I am willing to share it with you.

Of course the solution to that problem involves the product you are promoting. One key to an effective sales letter is that each sentence must cue the reader up to the next sentence. Each paragraph must lead the reader to the next paragraph.

Tension must build through the course of the sales page until the point is reached where the copywriter states something like, “Then it hit me like a ton of bricks–the solution to my problem.”

Here the writer discloses the solution to the problem the reader has and begins pouring on the benefits of the product being sold.