During my strategy sessions, I keep getting asked about the structure of sales pages: what do I say at the top? When do I introduce the product? What’s the best structure for a sales page?
I have notes with dozens of similar questions and, essentially, they all boil down to the same issue: how do you write a sales page that, you know, sells?
In all honesty, I didn’t usually have a great answer. There are tons of copywriting formulas out there (PAS, AIDA, 4P, PASTOR, QUEST), and they all work. In fact, they’re all pretty similar, despite sounding very different.
After a client recently followed up with “yeah, but what do YOU use? Because your sales pages read different”, I spent a bit of time figuring that out (reverse-engineering your own work is fun!) and realized I do have a formula of my own.
It does two things most frameworks tiptoe around: it explains the mechanism (how the thing works) and it filters buyers before they buy.
I call it SPINES. We’ll dig into it in a second, after a quick message from today’s partner, whose offer positions you as the go-to solution owner, so that your sales pages don’t have to do all the heavy lifting on their own.
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Here’s the reason why my sales pages don’t follow any of the traditional formulas to a T: none of them paint the full picture.
You know that saying “sell the destination, not the journey”? It always rubbed me the wrong way.
I get it, sure: show people the stunning white-sand beach, NOT the crammed middle economy seat they’ll be stuck in for 6 hours to get there. But what if the journey IS a deal-breaker?
Why not tell people the whole truth? Hey, the journey takes a long time, and it might be unpleasant, BUT it’s worth it because here’s what’s waiting for you at the end?
This is what my SPINES formula does.
The SPINES formula for sales pages
S — Symptom
Open with the problem as your buyer would complain about it, not as a brand would pitch it. This is not the place for poetry or twelve-syllable abstractions.
If your ideal buyer would text “I’m spending hours making content and sales are still flat,” then that’s your opening line. When you start where they are, you earn permission to lead them somewhere better.
I call this a symptom because it’s not the core nuisance, the throbbing pain that people actually need to solve. See why below.
P — Pain
This is where urgency is born. Symptom alone gets a nod of recognition; pain makes them move. Your goal is to show what staying the same costs.
An unshipped launch → another quarter of flat revenue. A piece of content that doesn’t sell → hours sunk into work that never compounds. Fuzzy strategy → competitors eating the ground you gave up.
Pain = stakes. Stakes = motivation. When you quantify the price of waiting—time, money, momentum, trust—you flip the mental math in their head. Inaction becomes more expensive than action.
“I spend 10 hours a week on posts that never lead to clients. That’s a full work month each year when I work for free.”
I — Intervention
Introduce the offer and—this is the part most pages ignore—how it actually produces the result. Name the mechanism like you’d explain it to a clever friend over coffee.
“A guided template that forces decisions in a specific order, so you stop looping and start publishing.”
If the reader can’t picture the gears turning, belief stays low, risk feels high, and the scroll slows down.
Tell them what the journey looks like, too. You’ve surely seen BIG claims: “make $10K a month by working 10 mins a day.” Who wouldn’t want that? It sounds amazing.
In fact, it sounds too good to be true. And if your segue is “buy this and I’ll tell you how”, people will bounce. Show them the mechanism to build the trust AND the confidence that they can get there; that they can make the journey.
N — Numbers
You’ve told them it can be done, now show them.
Screenshots, a table of contents, a quick before/after, a 30-second clip, a mini case study, testimonials galore.
You’re building credibility density: enough proof for belief. For this phase, use your judgement: is a wall of testimonials better than a single case study? Do you need both?
E — Eligibility
This is your honesty gate: who it’s for and who should skip it.
Listen, nothing is for everyone, so be honest about it. Every sales page I write has a “Do NOT buy this if…” section.
Why be so blunt? Because refunds, support tickets, and buyer’s remorse are expensive. Because telling the wrong person “no” is the best trust-building signal you can send the right person. Because filtering is strategy.
This is, perhaps, the biggest differentiator in the SPINES formula. It achieves two things:
- It helps you avoid angry clients who bought even though what you were selling was not for them.
- It sends another signal to the right-fit clients. If they couldn’t see themselves in the “Do NOT buy this” section, then your offer IS for them.
Of course, this only works if you’re honest. Don’t tell people, “do not buy this if you want to stay poor”. Give them actual, real reasons why this is not for them.
Here’s what it looks like on one of my product pages:
I specifically tell people NOT to buy my strategy framework if they already have a document strategy because you don’t need a hundred strategic voices in your head. Also, since this is a product designed for micro businesses, it will have modest results for large companies, and I’m honest about that.
S — Step
Spell out exactly what they get, how access works, how long it takes, and the single action to take now. One page. One decision. One button.
If they need a treasure map to find the CTA, all your hard work will be in vain.
That’s it. That’s the SPINE of your sales page.
Wrap whatever brand voice and visuals you like around it, but keep the vertebrae.
How SPINES shows up on my own pages
Here’s a quick look at how I apply this in my sales pages. Note: I don’t always follow the same order but the vertebrae are there.
Turnkey Launch Email Sequence
- Symptom: launch paralysis and blank-page tax.
- Pain: momentum loss when a launch drifts. OR spending thousands of dollars on hiring a copywriter.
- Intervention: a plug-and-play 5+1 email framework designed to be shipped this week.
- Numbers: testimonials
- Eligibility: it’s for people who can implement templates, not folks shopping for done-for-you. It’s NOT for people who use a stern, corporate voice.
- Step: here’s what’s inside, here’s how fast you can use it, here’s the button.
Guided Strategy Framework
- Symptom: strategy work bloating from hours to days.
- Pain: decision fatigue and projects that stall while you “refine the positioning” for the ninth time.
- Intervention: the guided template with prompts—the mechanism that forces progress.
- Numbers: social proof + how it works.
- Eligibility: you have to bring your brain; I won’t do your thinking for you.
- Step: what’s included, how to access, buy button.
Audience Accelerator
- Symptom: you post, but the audience that buys isn’t growing.
- Pain: reach without revenue.
- Intervention: a repeatable system for relevant growth, not vanity.
- Numbers: “What you’ll learn” + proof.
- Eligibility: disqualifies virality hunters who refuse compounding work.
- Step: access details, CTA.
Notice what’s doing the trust work across all four: mechanism clarity and eligibility. Those two pieces make every promise feel safer and every purchase feel smarter.
Here’s how to implement SPINEs for yourself without sounding like me or anyone else:
Writing with SPINES
Just like PAS, AIDA, or any other copywriting framework, SPINES should be a scaffolding, not a rigid script.
Use it to keep the structure sound while you write like a human. And feel free to tweak it to match your style.
- In your Symptom, steal the buyer’s language. Go through emails, support tickets, DMs, reviews, community threads. Copy phrases. Keep their verbs. If you improve them too much, you’ll sand off the truth and the resonance. A good primer or audience mirroring here.
- When you articulate the Pain, pick one dimension and quantify it. Money, time, momentum—choose the one your buyer actually cares about and show the compounding effect of waiting.
- In Intervention, talk process, not magic. Two to four bullets that reveal the order of operations are usually enough. “Research → Decisions → Draft → Ship” beats vague promises like “Unlock your potential”.
- Numbers aren’t just testimonials. A quick screenshot, a snippet of a template, a before/after metric, one specific transformation. Think evidence, not hype.
- Eligibility is where your confidence lives. Write three bullets for the right buyer and three that disqualify the wrong one. If the context allows it, add a redirect: “If you actually need done-for-you, book a strategy session.”
- For the final Step, clarity is your best friend. “Here’s what you get, here’s how long it takes, here’s how to get it.” Never use flowery language here — the simpler, the better.
Click to save this framework and reuse it whenever you need to.
✋ Limitations
Real talk: SPINES, much like PASTOR, PAS(S), or any other copywriting framework, isn’t a magic trick for sales pages.
It can’t do two very important things:
- Sell a bad product (at least not more than once).
- Tell you which pains and symptoms to talk about.
This formula (again, like any other one) assumes that you already have a good, in-demand product (check yours here) and that you know (really know!) what pains your potential buyers are struggling with.
The last point is the most important — if you know their pains and struggles, you will be able to build something that’s in demand.
Otherwise, no matter which formula you use, you’ll just write beautifully structured guesswork.
If demand intelligence sounds too complex, I’ve got you covered. This is exactly why I built The Profitable Content Engine. This is the masterclass that teaches you how to:
- Uncover real pains with light-weight customer research that doesn’t hijack your week. (Email replies, short chats, comment mining, review scrapes, internal support notes—used properly, not creepily.)
- Cluster those pains into themes that map to offers and content pillars.
- Translate pains into assets: sales pages, emails, posts, and objection-handling FAQs that read like you’ve been living in your buyer’s head (because, ethically, you have the receipts).
- Ship faster with a working workflow and templates that remove the blank-page tax.
The Profitable Content Engine also gives you access to Convertly Lab, my custom GPT that uncovers the hidden pains and translates them into copy angles that convert.
I launched it back in June 2025 and people are STILL using the custom GPT and DM-ing me to tell me about how much it helps. Just look at the number of conversations it has already handled and the rating!
Want the full package? Get instant access!
Try the Profitable Content Engine + the SPINES framework together. You’ll finally have the clarity and structure to sell without second-guessing every word.
🔦 Community Spotlight
My friend and peer Lee Densmer spent her summer writing a book about the fixes for the top 40 B2B content marketing problems she’s seen over her career and across dozens of customers.
I got a sneak peek a couple of months ago when Lee asked me to peer review her book.
This was my review: “Content, Simplified is THE handbook for B2B marketers. It’s rare for books to offer solid, sensible advice without getting lost in theoretical nuances and Lee does just that. The 3×5 framework alone will save your sanity and prevent you from churning out 47 blogs no one reads. Grab the book, take notes, implement, then thank Lee for the ROI you’ll see.”
Want to see why I wrote such a great review? Order your copy here!
