How Jared Polin Uses a Long-Form Sales Page + Email Marketing to Sell His Paid Products

Have a growing audience and a solid content strategy? Congrats! You’re on your way to monetizing your business with paid products or services. So how exactly can you make that happen?

We talked to photographer Jared Polin, who makes a living from selling his photography guides to his 200K+ email subscribers and 500K+ YouTube followers.

In the first part of our case study with Jared, we covered his free content strategy, where he explained his process for creating content and driving traffic to it with email.

This time around, we wanted to know how he balances his free content with his paid content strategy. To do so, we’ll look at how he created valuable paid content for his ideal audience, the strategy behind his long-form sales page and how he uses email to drive traffic to his sales page and, well, make sales!

Sound good? Let’s get started.

Know your audience before you create paid content

When you’re asking your audience for their hard-earned cash in exchange for your content, you better make sure your content is worth their investment. The first step in developing valuable paid content is knowing your audience.

“98 percent of [my audience] is amateurs or hobbyists that love what they do and maybe want to make some money on the side,” he said. “I knew that was the largest area, so I may as well reach out to them because there are more of them. Professional photographers shouldn’t need that content. Continuing your education is important, but it’s a smaller market. It wouldn’t be smart to put out advanced guides because they’d have to be much more expensive.”

Since Jared’s audience is largely amateurs, it made sense to create a beginner’s video guide to photography that he could sell for a reasonable price. Like the rest of his video guides, Jared’s beginner’s guide is three hours long. And at $67 with a money-back guarantee, it provides a ton of value.

“It’s a three hour guide on getting out of auto-photography,” he said. “If you watch this guide, you’re going to get out of auto in three hours. It’s just going to happen. I learn from watching and seeing people doing. That’s how I like to teach, and those are the people who like watching my stuff.”

Takeaway: Want to create valuable content that your audience will actually pay for? Get to know your audience first, thoroughly address their challenges in your content and offer it at a reasonable price.

Create the best long-form sales page ever

Once you have your paid content created, you need an effective sales page that sings its benefits.

“The detailed sales pages are pretty important, Jared said. “You want to entice people.”

Jared’s long-form sales pages for his guides include a wealth of information including a teaser video, a comprehensive explanation of what you’ll get when you make a purchase, a bonus video, testimonials and a money-back guarantee. Phew!

Here’s a breakdown of Jared’s long-form sales page for his beginner’s guide.

He starts out with a video that details everything you’ll learn in his three-hour guide and includes call-to-action buttons at the top of the page.

Jared then takes the biggest benefits of his guide and explains more about why anyone should bother buying it. This includes a glimpse at his teaching style, which makes this guide unique: Jared is sharing his own secrets and techniques with his audience.

As if the three-hour video wasn’t enough, Jared includes a free plan for anyone looking to make money with their newfound photography skills.

Finally, Jared’s long-form sales page concludes with a testimonials section with details about his video guide has helped others.

“The detailed sales page is simple, Jared said. “I have info about what’s in the guide and testimonials, but first and foremost a video at the top of me telling you what’s in it. It’s a look inside the guide to give you taste. It’s like a movie trailer. You know enough and now you want to buy it. If not, return it if it doesn’t help you.”

How does Jared get people to land on his long-form sales page? His free content delivers the leads for him.

“I think a lot of people who do sales pages now buy traffic and try to make a sale off of cold traffic,” he said. “I try to cultivate the warm traffic. Even if I only put up a buy button, the warm traffic still may consider buying [my guide] because I’ve given so much value with the 2,100 free videos I have out there. They want to thank me by buying something.”

Takeaway: Creating a long-form sales page takes a lot of work, but if you’re selling a hefty informational product like Jared is, it could be the perfect solution for you. Learn more about creating effective long-form sales pages here.

Jared’s promotional emails in action

As we discussed in part one of our case study with Jared, email marketing plays a huge role in Jared’s product promotion strategy. He uses email to deliver free content to his subscribers well before he promotes a paid product. This strategy has helped him cultivate raving fans and sell more of his paid guides.

“I’ve had people purchase the video guides who don’t need them,” Jared said. “They say, ‘Because you’ve given us so much value over the years, the least I could do is thank you by buying your video guide.’”

Once a new subscriber opts into Jared’s email list, he serves them with about a week’s worth of free content. His subscribers get updates on Jared’s blog, podcast and new videos on his YouTube channel.

After that, he’ll occasionally promote his paid guides to his subscribers. Here’s how he promotes his beginner’s guide using email. Notice how he describes the benefits of buying his guide so that his subscribers know exactly what they’ll get if they buy it.

Here’s how Jared promotes his beginner’s guide along with one of his most recent videos.

Recently, Jared launched a new paid guide: FroKnows Photo Guide to Video Editing. To drum up excitement and get more sales, he ran a limited-time sale on the guide. Those who didn’t buy the guide right away received this email with a countdown clock and a detailed list of reasons why they should purchase the guide.

Jared has consistently seen results from this email strategy, time and time again.

“We know that it works,” he said. “We created a four-email sequence with a countdown timer and say what people have learned and here’s what you could learn. The last email that goes out four to six hours before the sale ends crushes it really hard because it has the countdown timer saying that it’s ending. We see sales happen because of that.”

Takeaway: Only promote your products or services after you deliver plenty of free content. Once you do promote your paid content, lead with the biggest benefits and explain in detail what your paid content has to offer.

Ready to promote your paid products?

There are few things that can elevate the sales of a paid product, like a long-form sales page and email marketing. If you’re selling a paid guide like Jared Polin, this strategy could be a winning solution for you.

Want to learn more about writing emails that sell? Check out the What to Write in Your Emails to learn how to write effective promotional emails, autoresponders, curated email newsletters and more.

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