Color-Coded Copywriting That Converts Sales

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Creating copy for your website and marketing materials can feel overwhelming for even the most experience of entrepreneurs. In this episode, Sage Polaris shares how you can use the copywriting strategy she used to get a client over $1.25 million in a single launch.

Sage Polaris has written high converting copy for more than 400+ clients earning them millions of dollars. She helps personal brands and service providers sell more of their service or offer with the words on their website.

Website // Instagram // Facebook // Triple Your Open Rate: The Email Template

The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Badass Business Squad podcast. Today I'm here with Sage Polaris and I am very excited about what we're going to be talking about. I know that before season three launched of the podcast people were asking about copy tips, and so Sage is going to be talking about color coded copywriting that converts sales, which I think is going to be absolutely perfect for everyone listening. So thank you so much Sage, for coming on.

Sage Polaris: Oh, you're so welcome. Anytime I get to geek out about marketing, I'm here!

Katrina Widener: So before we dive into all of the magical goodness, would you mind introducing yourself a little bit and just telling everyone listening about who you are and what you do?

Sage Polaris: Sure thing. So if we haven't met before, I'm Sage Polaris. I've been in business 11 years, going on 11 years. Worked on 475 plus projects for clients. Definitely didn't come out of the business womb with all of that though in the beginning. I was copywriting mostly for private clients and the business has evolved since then. I started the business though because I was working in a super male dominated industry. I was installing art for museums which seems completely unrelated. But for me writing and marketing and all of that is a form of creativity, and installing art was another form of creativity. I actually went to art school.

I came up against a situation where I was walking down a hallway at one of the museums and I was within earshot of one of my bosses, at the time I was freelancing for this museum that shall remain unnamed. And the boss said to another coworker, because I had applied to work there full-time, he said "I would never hire a woman".

Katrina Widener: Ooh.

Sage Polaris: Yeah, that was it for me. It was like, "Okay there's clearly a ceiling here to what I can potentially do in this industry." And that was just one example of many where I felt like this passive aggressive energy around the fact that I was a woman wanting to install art. Its like, "Come the F on!" But you know...

Katrina Widener: Yeah, yep.

Sage Polaris: And it was an exciting world to be in. I'm so grateful for the experience. Mostly I'm grateful that I'm bigger than one man's bias. I realized that I created this business so that I had the potential to help any woman in my life out earn every man in her life. Like that is where I'm at.

Katrina Widener: I love it. That's ah! I love that so much.

Sage Polaris: And it's not about competition, it's about having choices. I live in the US like... choices for women has once again been put up on the chopping block, and so we're creating our own economy and I've been really excited to do that and it's what's kept me going all these years in my business. I have other motivations too, but that's a big, big part of it. And so I'm just so grateful for the potential of helping and supporting other women.

Katrina Widener: Yes! Fun fact everyone listening, I cannot snap my fingers. But if I could... snaps for you! Because I 100% see that. I see so often women getting into the entrepreneurial world because they're looking for a way to make their own path without someone else coming in and determining what their cap is or what their limit is. Or where they can show up and what spaces they can exist in. So I'm very, very appreciative of that.

And for everyone who's listening, Sage has done copywriting that has converted like millions of dollars. So she knows what she's talking about.

Sage Polaris: Thank you, yeah. And actually that client and what we're talking about today, the color coded copy system, that specific system I used for a client who we ended up doing 1.25 million in a single launch. So I'm so grateful to be able to share these types of tools and it's something that like... from listening to this episode, you'll be able to take action. You can apply it to sales pages, sales emails, Facebook ads. Convincing your partner to walk the dog, whatever you got going on.

Katrina Widener: Yes! Okay I'm excited. So let's dive in... my first question is just, what do you mean by color coded copywriting? Like what does that mean?

Sage Polaris: Yeah. So this is a system that I created and there's no one else teaching it because I took something that already existed, which is the DISC personality system. If you've heard of it, great. If not, don't worry. You'll be an expert by the end of this. But people like Eric Thomas teach it, and there's a quiz that you can take and it'll tell you like, "Which color are you most dominant in?" And that affects how you make decisions and it affects your personality.

But what I realized is no one was applying that system to selling and to marketing to people. And once you understood these four different types of people and how they make buying decisions, then you could totally relate to them in a faster way and give them exactly what they need to make that decision to work with you.

Katrina Widener: That makes so much sense. So now I'm going to ask a question that's on everyone's mind, which is, who are those four different types of buyers?

Sage Polaris: Yeah, totally. So I base it on the Simpsons...

Katrina Widener: Okay!

Sage Polaris: Yeah, someone just told me today it's like in its 34th season, which is bananas.

Katrina Widener: Oh my gosh.

Sage Polaris: Yeah and you know, for me that show, honestly it's problematic in its own ways, but that's another conversation for another day. I chose it because it's mainstream and a lot of people know it, and there's four particular characters that you can relate these buying types to.

So the first character we can talk about is Bart. He is the fast decision maker. He's the type who when he lands on your sales page, just give him the buy button. Don't bury it. If you're sending out an email, a lot of people to wait to put the link till the end of the email. But for the Barts of the world, those fast decision makers, you need to give them the option to opt into your thing or to purchase your thing right at the top. Because they are the type who just want to... like in their gut, they already know they want to work with you and they just want to take the action.

The only thing that will help those Barts make a decision even faster is if you put near your buttons, let's say on a sales page, a testimonial. And ideally like someone they know of already, like a household name to them.

Katrina Widener: Mm-hmm.

Sage Polaris: So let's say you wanted to sell to Oprah. Her best friend is Gayle, like if you had a testimonial from Gayle, Oprah would be all in, right? So that's just an example. But yes, the Barts of the world, they're the fast decision makers. Do you feel like you have any of that in you or...?

Katrina Widener: Ooh, no. So it's very funny because as you're talking about this, I'm taking notes. I'm like, "Okay, so the Barts of the world in Human Design language are people with sacred decision making authority."

Sage Polaris: I love it.

Katrina Widener: The people who get a gut yes/no, who can make decisions immediately. I am not that person, but I'm curious to see which one I am.

Sage Polaris: Yeah okay, well this is interesting. I'll go to Lisa next then, because I don't really identify as a Bart most of the time. Depends on the price point. If it's really low, Bart might come out. But other buying decisions that I'm making, I identify as the Lisas, the Greens of the world. They are the slower decision makers. They are the ones who need all the details. So when they go to a sales page, people are like, "Oh, do I really need a long sales page?" Yes. For the Lisas of the world, they will read your entire sales page and then they will email you more questions.

Katrina Widener: Mm-hmm.

Sage Polaris: Because the way they make buying decisions is by asking questions. And it's great because when they send you those questions, you can just copy and paste them and add them to the FAQ for the next Lisa/Green of the World.

Katrina Widener: Yep!

Sage Polaris: So yeah, I identify more as a detail oriented person and that's how I make my decisions as well. So are you feeling more like a Lisa at all or still not yet?

Katrina Widener: I am a little bit more of a Lisa. I have what's called emotional decision making authority, so I have to wait at least 24 hours before I make a decision about something. And most of the time, people with emotional decision making authorities? They feel 80% sure when they're making a decision and just have to like take the leap for that last 20%. And we try to convince ourselves of that 20% by asking questions, getting more information, reading through all the pages, right? It's almost a way of trying to force that last 20%. So I'm sure that if I'm not a Lisa I have been a Lisa in my past.

Sage Polaris: I love it. Yeah, I think I'm noticing a lot of things about our Human Design being similar.

Katrina Widener: Mm-hmm.

Sage Polaris: So emotional though... I'm glad you mentioned that, because there is a deep connection decision maker and that's the Marges of the world, the blues.

Katrina Widener: Mmm.

Sage Polaris: So they are the type who land on your sales page and they want to connect more deeply to your story. They're also very visual, so they like seeing pictures that are like strong branded photos. The thing I love, love, love, love about the Marges, the blues of the world... when they make a decision, they want to bring all their friends with them.

Katrina Widener: Mm-hmm.

Sage Polaris: So for example, I did a live event in Niagara Falls. It's like a hundred person event, and one of the people who was attending, she wrote me and she is like, "I'm bringing two of my friends with me!" And I could tell from the way she wrote me, she sent me like a really deep story about her life. I was like, "Okay, she's a blue." And what's great about them is they'll bring their friends. If you do like a buy one bring a friend offer, they're like "Oh I'm bringing everyone."

Katrina Widener: Yes! I am probably a Marge.

Sage Polaris: Okay. See, I was starting to lean towards that as you were talking about the emotional part. And it's so good! Because they'll basically do the selling for you, like they'll help you exponentially grow your sales if you understand that about them, right? And then make an offer accordingly.

Katrina Widener: Yes.

Sage Polaris: Yeah, so they're really fun. And I guess too, speaking of fun, we have the fun-loving decision maker. That's the fourth and final one. So if you don't really see yourself in these first three... or you feel like you're a mix of some of them? That's very common as well. Like we have all four of these in our personality, it's just which one's more dominant when we make decisions.

So the fourth and final is Homer. He is a yellow. He's a fun loving decision maker. When he lands on your sales page, he continues reading the copy because there's fun and funny like gifs or music lyrics or puns. Those types of things keep them engaged and make them want to keep reading instead of going away.

They're also slower to make decisions. They're kind of like always late to the party. In buying decisions... in life. Like if you're meeting up with a friend, if I know a yellow is coming I bring my journal cuz I already know. It's their personality. I stop taking it less personal and just realize like that's who they are.

Katrina Widener: Right.

Sage Polaris: So those are the yellows, those are the Homers of the world.

Katrina Widener: Yeah, see and in like Human Design, I can see these being like... there are people who have what's called splenic decision making authority, or someone who has lunar decision making authority. So projectors and reflectors would probably fall into those two areas. Where they do take more time to make the decision or they get like an initial gut reaction, like good vibes essentially, but then maybe don't take action on good vibes immediately.

Sage Polaris: Mm-hmm.

Katrina Widener: Yeah I can totally see how there's some like crossover interaction between all of these things. Which anyone who's listening to the podcast is like, "Okay Katrina, we know how you feel about Human Design!" But you know what? That's why I'm here.

Sage Polaris: It's so helpful for me to hear the crossovers though, because I'm always curious about it. I think the more tools that you have at your disposal to understand these different personality types, whether it's Human Design, or DISC, or I know a lot of people love Enneagram, like whatever it is. I think the more understanding you have around these, the more you can make strategic decisions on how to support someone based on their personality, right? And invite them in in a way that feels good to them. So I love hearing all of it.

Katrina Widener: Yes, yes! And now I can also understand why you're saying that there's the color coded copywriting too, right? Because we have Homer is yellow, Marge is blue, Lisa is Green, et cetera, et cetera. And so when it comes to writing copy for your website or for your marketing or whatever it is, are people trying to identify which one their audience is most aligned with? Are we trying to set up the page so it appeals to everyone? How do you go about actually implementing it while writing copy?

Sage Polaris: Yeah, so in my business with my audience, I want to attract all four colors. So my sales page will appeal to all four colors or my email or whatever I'm writing. There are times where businesses don't want to have all these different types of decision makers. For example, if you are an executive trainer who works with C-suite CEOs and they tend to be like the reds, the Barts of the world, like the faster decision makers who move quickly. And when they're being coached, they don't want to slow down, right? Like they want everybody else going at the same pace as them on the coaching aspect.

So there are times where if you're selling to the Barts, the reds of the world, you want a shorter sales page and most likely an option to either call you directly, just put your phone number on that page or have a book a call button. But they don't really love having to go through a system to hire you. Like they don't want to jump through hoops they just want to get on the phone immediately, to be honest. So understanding and making strategic decisions about who you want your audience... and sometimes excluding people. But for me, I like a well-rounded all four types in my audience. Because I feel like everybody has their strengths, everybody has their weaknesses and they all just create this beautiful community together. So yeah, you definitely gotta make some decisions about who is in your audience.

Katrina Widener: I love it because I feel like you could also utilize it where maybe on a sales page you're appealing to all four, but then you hop on a consult call with someone and you can identify maybe a little bit more of which one they align with and work with them a little bit more differently even verbally.

If you can tell that someone is like a Bart, you can immediately dive into like, "Okay, here's what it is. How do you feel? What do you want to do?" Whereas if someone takes a little bit more time or wants to ask you questions you can say, "What questions do you have for me? Let's hop on a call and work through this together, et cetera, et cetera." So even the way you maybe approach your marketing on a personal level versus appealing to someone across broad strokes, depending on what your business is too, right?

Sage Polaris: Yeah, and just to add to this conversation, since you've kind of got my brain working that direction. Like the yellows, the Homers like to be closed over text and the blues and Marges like to be closed over video. So if you sent them a personalized video, I use a tool called BombBomb, B-O-M-B-B-O-M-B. So understanding that about them as well and how they like to be closed is actually really good. Like the greens, the Lisas of the world... you could most likely answer all their questions over an email, like they don't really love getting on video anyways. They're kind of the people who like to hide a bit more.

So there's a lot of conversation in marketing about closing with a sales call, closing without a sales call. And the answer is always "Yes if... and no but..." it depends on who your audience is.

Katrina Widener: Yes. I love that. I love that! So you noted BombBomb, are there any other tools that you would recommend to that can make things just a little bit more easier for people?

Sage Polaris: Oh my gosh, so many. But I'll give people my favorite tool that I use to write more in less time. I use Google Drive. So if you open a Google Doc inside your drive on your desktop, and you go to tools and you go to voice typing, you can click a microphone and it's a quick and dirty transcription of what you're saying.

So that can speed up, especially if you're a verbal processor, this will speed up your writing process and you'll be able to speak your words and it'll just transcribe everything you're saying right into a Google Doc. I use it on the go too, I have it on mobile. So if you go to mobile and you add the drive on your phone and you open a new doc and you hit your microphone, it'll also transcribe what you're saying. I found that that really speeds up things in terms of writing. So I love sharing that tool.

Katrina Widener: That's an amazing tip. In the current mastermind that I do, we've been working a lot on copywriting and I'm a former writer and editor. I was a journalist and marketing specialist before I started my job now as like a business coach. I'm always like, "Use voice to text. Use voice to text!" If you are not as comfortable writing, if it feels more foreign to you, I guarantee you know how to speak about it. Or at least like how to roughly describe what you do to someone, and then you can take that and pull out pieces and finesse it and massage it, et cetera, et cetera. And Yes, yes. I'm like 100% yes. Use voice to text!

Sage Polaris: It's so good, yeah! And another tool that I use in Google Drive is the template gallery. So you have to pay for it now, it used to be free and I think it's called Google Workspace now. It used to be called Google Suite. I'm like... I feel like I'm giving away my internet age here. But with Google Workspace, most people go to create a new blank document and right below creating a new blank document is a choice to write from a template. I don't know, probably hundreds of templates saved for intake form process for my private clients, for writing a new sales page, for writing lead magnets, whatever it is. I use that template gallery like no other. Because once you set that up, you don't have to clean out a doc every time and make sure you have a blank version of it somewhere. It's like the best tool ever.

Katrina Widener: That's amazing, I love that. These are, when we're talking about like switching from viewing yourself as a service provider to just viewing yourself as like a business owner, these are the things that really make it feel like that, right? Having templates, having tricks, having ways and systems so that the backend feels more organized. So that's... that's absolutely incredibly helpful.

So the last question that I wanted to ask you is, I know you had mentioned like if you have a button and then a testimonial afterward, like that really works well with the Bart types. If you're able to have visual, beautiful branding photos, that's maybe going to connect more with Marge. Are there any other specifics when it comes to like wire framing or laying out your sales page or the copy that you're working on that you're like, "This is like the number one tip that I make sure that everyone remembers."

Sage Polaris: Yes. When you have your sales page we talked about the button being at the top, and I just want to reiterate too, like in your sales email for example and on your sales page, actually this applies to both... you want to have links all throughout. Probably more than you think you need. For example with a email, most people read their email on mobile. It depends on your audience, but a lot of them do. And so we tend to bury the link at the bottom of the email after we've like proposed what it is. And I'm like, "No. Put a link at the top, put a link in the middle, put a link in the bottom." Because what you're doing you're making it so they don't have to scroll to take the action.

Like they don't have to go back to the top and find that link or go back to the bottom. And I think people are a little bit worried. They're like, "Buy my stuff!" And then hide under the desk. That's that version of that to me.

Katrina Widener: Mm-hmm.

Sage Polaris: Where you put the link at the very bottom, you're hiding under the desk. Stop doing that. Put links all throughout, like make things user friendly. Make it easier for people to make decisions all throughout, because they're different buyer types and the green is not going to want to take the action until they get to the bottom. Versus the red who wants to take the action right away and so on.

Katrina Widener: Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much for sharing all this. Also, I love that you mentioned sales emails because I want to like throw in a little like... just a bonus for everyone. Sage does have a freebie about the email template and writing out an email. So I just want to like remind everyone that that is available as a download. We'll have it in the show notes. It's all about tripling your open rate, which I think everybody wants to do that. So I guess the only thing left is just Sage, where can everyone find you if they want to connect more after the call?

Sage Polaris: Okay so honestly if anybody wants to stay in touch, the best way to do it is to get on my email list and download the template that Katrina mentioned. Because if you go to https://sagepolaris.com/katrinarocks... always love mentioning that.

Katrina Widener: Yes!

Sage Polaris: Whether you have an email list for a really long time and you need to scrub it, it'll help you get rid of any subscribers that are on there that are not actually engaging with your content. So it's really good for that. Or if you have an email list that you started and you've ghosted them, it happens to the best of us. It's a way to reengage with them and start making offers again to your community. So I just tell everyone, start there because I love that tool so much. And then you'll be on my list and we can stay in touch and I definitely talk back and forth with people on my email list all the time and it's just a really special relationship and a family. I like to think of them as a family.

Katrina Widener: Well, thank you so much. This has been amazing and I really appreciate you coming on and sharing with everyone.

Sage Polaris: Oh my absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.