The Gary Halbert Letter Book: PLEASE review my sales copy!

[Matt Jutras]

Hey guys,

Just whipped something together to see how well I could do "on the fly". Hopefully it won't cause too much controversy, but it is what it is

Unearthly Wisdom The Gary Halbert Letter Book

Please take time and read my sales page. I'm looking more for a critique of the writing itself and not the layout/design aspect of the page.

That stuff is for designers.

Thanks in advance.

[icering87]

- the prehead...not feeling it the phrase "crawl inside the DNA" is a bit odd to me and the meaning is very subjective. Crawling inside of DNA brings a completely different image to my mind with nothing to do with copywriting.

That's all noticed really...everything else seemed cool to me.

[MonsterZero]

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but creating sales copy for a made-up product that your target audience would KILL to get their hands on might not be the best way to challenge yourself.

At any rate ... you buried the lede.

reveals for the first and only time the REAL formula he used to create a winning sales letter.

That's your headline.

Well, not precisely. But some rewritten version of it. If you're pitching a book that contains a recently discovered "lost" copywriting manual written by Gary Halbert, then that damned well better be up there front and center.

Because that alone would have your audience salivating.

I'll let others weigh in on the rest. I think you would get more out of creating copy for a real product, however. Do you have any friends who are self employed? Try creating a sales letter for one of them. That way, you'll get practice at uncovering benefits, USPs, hooks and the like.

[Matt Jutras]

Thank you all.

I wasn't feeling the DNA bit 100% either. Based on your feedback I did change it up, incorporating the "hook" that MonsterZero pointed out.

Good headlines are usually buried in the body copy somewhere, so great call.

Any other feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Matt Jutras]

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but creating sales copy for a made-up product that your target audience would KILL to get their hands on might not be the best way to challenge yourself

No offense taken.

I agree with you.

I just think of it as a "workout" to dream up a product and to write sales copy for it as a way of practice.

[Daniel Scott]

It's great that you're practising.

One thing you can do is go to CB, find crappy letters, and re-write them. You can then send traffic to them, and just "bypass" the original merchant's page.

That way you're getting cold, hard stats, which is all that really matters in this game... and making money at the same time.

-Dan

[David Raybould]

Hey Matt,

Here goes-

First up, this isn't much of a test of
your writing skill. Copywriters would
climb over each other to get to this,
and I mean that very literally.

If you want to test yourself, go for
something that's a harder sell. When
you're sitting there going over the
product for the fifteenth time trying
to find that one hook on which you
can hang the whole promotion -
that's when the real testing begins.

Secondly, the copy never really
grabbed me. I stopped reading
about half way through.

To be honest, it felt like you'd
written it on the fly. It seems
rushed, which makes it unengaging.

Here's an idea - if you want some
real practice, go and buy a $7
WSO, then write a salesletter for
it.

Post it here, then we'll critique it.

Hope that helps

-David Raybould

[Matt Jutras]

Thank you guys, good info.

I also got several very helpful PMs about it. I got the information I need so I'm pulling the "ad" down.

Much appreciated

[tdj]

It's hard listing the benefits of the product if you really don't know what the product will do for me. To me, the biggest single benefit should be incorporated into the headline. You could use that hook previously mentioned along with a strong benefit. My 2 cents.

Todd

[sanaa-s-1971]

page not found?

[AnneE]

Originally Posted by sanaa-s-1971

page not found?

See above where he said he was pulling the ad. Probably would have been nicer to replace it with a 'thanks for stopping by'