Copy And

12. How Copy and Design Impact Sales Page Conversions (3 Design Experts Weigh In)

• Sam Burmeister | Conversion Copywriter @ Nomad Copy • Episode 12

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Do pretty sales pages actually convert? In this episode, I’m joined by Emily Reagan, Morgan Specht, and Shannon Pruitt to unpack how copy and design really work together to make your sales page convert.

Each of these designers and strategists has worked on hundreds of websites and sales pages, and they all see the same mistake repeated over and over again: prioritizing aesthetics before clarity. We dig into why “making it prettier” doesn’t fix conversion issues.

Key Points Covered in This Episode

  • Why pretty sales pages don’t automatically lead to higher conversions
  • How clear copy gives design its structure, hierarchy, and flow
  • The role of strategy in aligning copy and design toward a single goal
  • What to prioritize first when planning a website, rebrand, or sales page

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Connect with Shannon Pruitt:
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Connect with Emily Reagan:

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Samantha Burmeister:

Hello friends and welcome back to Copy and the marketing podcast where online service providers like you learn how to write copy that sounds like them, but converts better. My name is Sam Burmeister and I am your guide on this copy adventure. Today we have such a freaking cool episode. I reached out to three people who I know love and trust, who are. Quite good at what they do. They're designers and fractional CMOs in the online space, and I asked them a very specific question. I said, what do you wish that your audience knew about copy before they came to you? So we've got these three separate conversations happening here today. I've compiled them into one episode and I am so, so, so excited to share it with you. If there is one thing that you take from this episode, it is that it is copy and design and always it is copy before design. In fact, I said it, these designers and other marketers are saying it, but listen in and see why they say that. It's copy before design on every project. Okay, first up you're going to hear from Emily Reagan. Emily is the owner of the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School, as well as hire a unicorn.com. What she does is so fascinating. She helps turn VAs into highly paid marketing assistance and pairs them with business owners who need the unique skills that her clients provide. So she has been in the industry in PR for a couple of decades and has been teaching VAs how to become highly paid marketing assistance for the last decade. Let's hear what Emily has to say.

Emily Reagan:

I'm Emily Reagan. I'm a freelance marketer, fractional CMO. I've been doing the marketing work behind the scenes for over 15 years, and some of that work has been. Sales page and landing page design. My clients have supplied the copy and I've gone in and designed the page or made the changes to meet their new branding or whatever that looks like. I've had my hands in lots of projects. I've seen a lot of great copy and I've seen a lot of bad copy. And same with design. And I think I've seen way too many clients that think that a pretty page is going to equal high conversions, but pretty doesn't. Mean, persuasive, right? Design creates flow trust, but without clear messaging, the most beautiful pages just fall flat and also can just look like the next person. I mean, I'm seeing a lot of people copy design too. So design, I like to think of design as the wrapper, but the copy, the message inside is what gets people to buy.

Samantha Burmeister:

I love this analogy that design is the wrapper, but the copy, the messaging inside is what gets people to buy, and I couldn't agree more, but of course that comes from a biased standpoint of me being a copywriter. So next up, let's hear from Morgan. Morgan is the creative director, branding strategist, and founder behind SPECT and Co. And what you need to know about Morgan is that she has. Also over a decade of experience in design as well as a degree in it. So let's hear what her answer to the question was.

Morgan Specht:

I'm Morgan. I'm a brand strategist and designer, and I have been helping service providers show up with more confidence and book more clients through personalized and strategic branding and website design Since 2016, since then, I've worked with over a hundred small business owners to help them grow their businesses through design and strategy that actually moves them towards their goals. So the problem and the thing that I see happen all the time, especially when people are kind of DIYing their design or they're really excited to hire a designer. Is that they don't think about why we're doing any of this. So what is the goal? What are we trying to sell? What's the end game? What action do we want people to move towards?

Samantha Burmeister:

You know, this is obviously brilliant and Morgan and I were having a conversation recently where I said somebody had come to me and reached out and they had just had their website designed. And they were looking to have copy done, and Morgan said, at what point does somebody not look at their entire website, whether this be their strategist, their designer, or the business owner themselves, and say, does anybody know what the heck is going on here? Does anybody understand what it is that I do? And it's a great point. So, of course you're listening to copy and, and it is copy and design and we always wanna go into any project that we're writing for, designing for, or creating, asking the question exactly what Morgan said. What is the goal? Next up we're gonna hear from Shannon Pruitt, another incredible designer that I've worked with many, many times. And Shannon and Morgan have similar backgrounds in that they're both designers, they're both well-trained in this, and they have seen hundreds of websites between them. So let's see what Shannon had to say.

Shannon Pruitt:

I'm Shannon Pruitt and I'm the founder of Sunday Muse Design. And my background is pretty unique. I've got 13 years as a writing teacher over a decade in the wedding industry, and now four years, maybe almost five, helping entrepreneurs build brands and websites that actually convert. And what drives me crazy is that I'll have a client come to me saying something like. My website isn't converting, or I'm not getting the inquiries or the clients or the customers that I want. Can you make it prettier? And I'm like, yeah, but hold up. I just spent five minutes on your homepage and I still don't understand what you actually do. And that friend is not a design problem. That's a messaging problem. I see it constantly. People think that if they just make their website look more on brand or use some trendy animation, suddenly people will start buying. But design cannot save. Confusing or bad copy. If someone lands on your website, your landing page, your homepage, whatever it is, and has to work to figure out what you're offering, they're not gonna stick around long enough to care how it looks.

Samantha Burmeister:

Okay. These are all excellent points and I couldn't agree more. As Emily said, pretty does not equal persuasive when it comes to creating your website or any of your designed pieces of marketing. Morgan said that these things have to be goal-oriented beyond just how they look. And to reiterate what Shannon just said is that. We need to understand WTFU do when we look at your sales page. My initial question for each of these people was, what do you wish that people knew before they got to you? But the next question is, so then what do we do with that information?

Emily Reagan:

And so my best work comes from when I am designing a round great copy. It helps me with the layout, the flow, the call to action buttons, and that all hinges on messaging hierarchy. Like there's an order to everything and you can't just design a sales page like a mood board. It needs structure, it needs clarity, and most of all, the persuasion. I think everyone right now is struggling with bottom of the funnel conversions, and we can't just do trendy. Pretty things. Design will grab the attention, but the copy is what converts. And especially during this, I don't know, I'm gonna bring up the trust recession, sorry. But people are getting more and more skeptical and drilling down into what does this program or the thing they're selling actually offer? What is the actual benefit? What does the transformation, what is the proof that this will work? What does that look like? And all of that goes way beyond the design. Although I love the design and that's, that's really fun. But yeah, it helps me do my job more effectively with good copy. I just wanna reiterate that design does matter, but in this online business space right now, we're overusing trendy fonts and styles and even color palettes and layouts can really. Make somebody stand out, but they could also lead to decision fatigue and they can make everyone look like exactly the same, especially in sales funnels. So I think being really smart with your copy, keeping it very unique and dialed in to what you're offering is really where I would focus first. I mean, you're, we're seeing people sell from a fricking Google Doc still. I mean, that's an old trick, but it still works because copy comes first.

Shannon Pruitt:

I am. Obsessed with starting with strategy first, because my job isn't to put a bow on existing words. It's to create a visual system, this whole system infrastructure that makes your value impossible to miss. So when your messaging and your copy is sharp and your design supports all of that, people can actually make decisions quickly and quick decisions means more sales. So what I wish people understood is that design and copy, they're not competing for attention here. They are working together to guide someone towards saying yes and great copy. Tells me exactly how to design the page. Strategic design makes sure that great copy actually gets read. They go hand in hand together. A confusing page is just an expensive business card, no matter how good it looks. And we're not here to just win design awards. We're here to help you make money.

Morgan Specht:

Having good copy is gonna drive, the design. I wish that more people understood. That no matter how pretty your sales page is, if you're making words that suck, look nice, the words still suck and they're still not gonna work. And vice versa. If you have a really ugly sales page and your copy's great people are probably not gonna read the words anyway. So the two really do need to work together to accomplish a goal versus people who jump the gun and are really excited to make a gorgeous website or a sales page. And don't focus enough on the messaging and the goals behind the sales page and what words are gonna get people to take action. So for clients, my favorite way to do this is to just encourage them to hire a copywriter first. I am always thrilled when someone asks me, will you work hand in hand with my copywriter to help create my sales page? The answer to that is always a 10 out of 10. Heck yes.

Samantha Burmeister:

So in conclusion, it's copy and it's copy and design, not copy or design. And almost always it is copy before design as these brilliant designers have shared with us. So you're probably wondering then, how do I bring this all together? And the answer is strategy. That there's always going to be an overarching strategy to what you do. When you have a website project, or you're putting together your sales pages, your marketing plan, you wanna know how you're going to end. You start with the end in mind, and all three of these women can help you with that. And myself included, as Morgan said, they're at the end. If somebody says, will you work hand in hand with my copywriter on my behalf? The answer is 10 out of 10. Yes. The people that you hire should be willing to work together on your behalf because we are so invested in your success. We want to follow this project all the way through so that it turns out exactly how you were hoping that it does. So. If you're planning on a rebrand, doing some sales pages, getting a designer's eyes on your stuff, you'll wanna get a copywriter's eyes on your things. First, and you might wanna bring us in at the same time so that we can both have a strategic conversation with you together. If that's the case, where do you find these people? As a reminder, Emily is@emilyreaganpr.com. You can also go to hire a unicorn.com, depending on if you're looking to work with her or with one of her marketing assistants. They're all incredible. You can also find Shannon at. Sunday muse design.com, and she will have a strategic conversation with you to kick off your website or rebrand project. She creates brands and websites that work as hard as you do. You can find Shannon, as I said at Sunday Muse Design. She's also very active on Instagram and threads at Sunday Muse Design as well. Morgan is@spectand.co, and she's on Instagram and threads on spect and.co as well. I'll have links to their websites in the show notes, but of course, if you want a warm introduction, I love putting great people in a room together. It's one of those things that just brings me. So much joy. So if you reach out to me at nomad dot copy on Instagram or at samantha@nomadcopyagency.com, I will be happy to foster that introduction. And of course, we can talk about how we can all work on your behalf to create an incredible brand and incredible website and sales pages that sell. Thank you so much for listening in to this episode of Copy and it has been a joy to bring these people to your ear holes, your earbuds, and if this was valuable to you, please feel free to share it on social media and be sure to tag us. You can tag me at Nomad Copy and. Of course, be sure to like and subscribe. When I see that number tick up, it makes me so stinking happy, and of course leave a review. These reviews help other people find me, and when other people find me, it gives me the motivation to keep going. If we're being real honest, so I will see you next week. This has been copy, and here's to write and copy. That sounds like you, but converts better. Okay.