Apparently I suck at copywriting...can you critique my sales page?

[queenbuzzy]

I've gone through what feels like a bazillion different sales letters, techniques, etc, and I tried to mirror those that claim large conversion, but apparently I'm falling short.

I got my first clickbank sale, (yea!) but after looking at my stats, apparently it was one out of 326 visitors (boo)

I'm offering a generous rate to my affiliates, ($32-ish per sale) which means I'm only making a miniscule fraction of that and I NEED TO CONVERT SALES...asap

Can you help me?

I'm totally over ego/pride/whatever...be as brutal as you need to be, I just want to start making money at this thing already! I'm not a salesperson, I'm an educator, and I just want a site that will convert so that the people doing AM can do what they do best, and I can get back to doing what I do best!

My link is: Learn How to Be a Mystery Shopper

Thank you SO much for any help that you can give!

-Buzzy

[MontelloMarketing]

Forget your copy for the time being. I didn't even read it. You have bigger issues to deal with.

1. Don't sell mystery shopping. Is anyone really going online saying, "Hmmm... I need training to be a mystery shopper!" No... no one is looking for this.

But... everyone's looking for a way to earn extra money in a fun way. Sell THAT instead. So... number 1. Stop selling mystery shopping and sell this "new fun way to earn extra money." Then reveal to them later that it's mystery shopping.

2. Your video is WAAAAAAAAAY too long... WAAAAAAAAAY too early in this letter. You can't pull people out of a letter to watch a long video this early. Get them in first. Suck them in with a great headline package... maybe even tease that later on you're going to show them a video that just may change their lives (or something like that)... start telling the story of needing to make extra bucks... then reveal your program later. Use a short 1 minute (2 tops) video later in the page to cement the deal... to answer questions they may have... to give them a push.

3. The other option for video is to put it at the top of the letter but use it to "bally" an audience. Make a big promise of what they're going to discover in the letter. This video should be short (under 30 seconds) and should be nothing more than a commercial for the page you want them to read.

4. Take this video you have now and throw it up on youtube for lead gen only.

Guaranteed to quadruple your conversions (or your money back).

[Raydal]

The page is too busy, Buzzy. (Now that's poetic.)

I can bet you that if you took your text and got rid of all the
background colors and design you'll see a bump in your
conversion. I'm talking about making the page look just like
this post--black text on white background and get rid of
the other frills.

The letter also lacks flow--what I like to call persuasive
structure. And it does use the 'soft-sell' approach,
whether intentionally or not, so you may want to use
a free report give away that does all the explanations
and write a separate sales letter.

You have great social proof and experience to hang
your pitch on so credibility is not an issue.

-Ray Edwards

[queenbuzzy]

Thank you SO much!

A few questions/follow-ups:

Vin: I thought about doing a shorter video, but I really liked Frank Kern's Total Mass Control site...his video was more than twice the length of mine. Did he get sales because he was, well, him?

Ray: I do much prefer the soft-sell approach. I'm so sick of all the Mystery Shopping sites that are just complete lies fabricated just to get the sale. I do give a free report away on my main site: Mystery Shopping Information for Companies, Businesses and Shoppers, but this site is purely for affiliate sales.

Thank you both for your helpful suggestions! I'm off to do some tweaking!

[MontelloMarketing]

Originally Posted by queenbuzzy

Did he get sales because he was, well, him?

Frank Kern, Rich Scheferen, Mike Filsaime, Jeff Walker... these guys can sell with little more than a video alone. You are not them... I am not them... most of my clients aren't them.

Your audience needs to get taken on a journey and your video (if left at the top) needs to start them on that journey. Instead you're giving them 90% of the journey in the video. Many of those who watch the whole thing will feel they know everything about your page.

You need to make they thirsty to read the page... That video at the top should do that, so keep it short... or move it down and tease it.

Good luck.

[BrianMcLeod]

Can I suggest you take a peek at the way fellow Warrior and money-makin' mama Alice Seba does her thing for design inspiration?

Internet Marketing Sweetie

Clean, very easy to read. No stripes.

; )

Best,

Brian

[jukeboxhero]

1. You don't have any list building mechanism.....Squeeze page, newsletter offer, exit pop....Most people won't buy first visit.

2. In chrome your some of your text is all bold, while other is normal font with no bold at all...I use browsershots.org to check all of my sites in all browsers because there are some huge differences.

3. Your video is good but you look away from the camera and up at several points giving the NON -Verbal impression that your making something up...Not that you are...but it will give you audience that little B.S detector and they won't even know why..

Just a few tips

[Star Riley]

Originally Posted by MontelloMarketing

Forget your copy for the time being. I didn't even read it. You have bigger issues to deal with.

1. Don't sell mystery shopping. Is anyone really going online saying, "Hmmm... I need training to be a mystery shopper!" No... no one is looking for this.

But... everyone's looking for a way to earn extra money in a fun way. Sell THAT instead. So... number 1. Stop selling mystery shopping and sell this "new fun way to earn extra money." Then reveal to them later that it's mystery shopping.

2. Your video is WAAAAAAAAAY too long... WAAAAAAAAAY too early in this letter. You can't pull people out of a letter to watch a long video this early. Get them in first. Suck them in with a great headline package... maybe even tease that later on you're going to show them a video that just may change their lives (or something like that)... start telling the story of needing to make extra bucks... then reveal your program later. Use a short 1 minute (2 tops) video later in the page to cement the deal... to answer questions they may have... to give them a push.

3. The other option for video is to put it at the top of the letter but use it to "bally" an audience. Make a big promise of what they're going to discover in the letter. This video should be short (under 30 seconds) and should be nothing more than a commercial for the page you want them to read.

4. Take this video you have now and throw it up on youtube for lead gen only.

Guaranteed to quadruple your conversions (or your money back).

Originally Posted by Raydal

The page is too busy, Buzzy. (Now that's poetic.)

I can bet you that if you took your text and got rid of all the
background colors and design you'll see a bump in your
conversion. I'm talking about making the page look just like
this post--black text on white background and get rid of
the other frills.

The letter also lacks flow--what I like to call persuasive
structure. And it does use the 'soft-sell' approach,
whether intentionally or not, so you may want to use
a free report give away that does all the explanations
and write a separate sales letter.

You have great social proof and experience to hang
your pitch on so credibility is not an issue.

-Ray Edwards

Originally Posted by BrianMcLeod

Can I suggest you take a peek at the way fellow Warrior and money-makin' mama Alice Seba does her thing for design inspiration?

Internet Marketing Sweetie

Clean, very easy to read. No stripes.

; )

Best,

Brian

Not sure if I'm qualified to critique compared to the other commentators however as a customer looking at your site i agree with the busy thing and my eyes.

You are beautiful and your voice is pleasant. (Don't tell my wife I said :-)

You should work yourself into the page but In paying attention to you I didn't feel like scrolling after and would have left is I was just a potential customer.

I always thought it funny how some people in video's look at me like I'm in front of them like they are talking to me only. You may have to capture that because you I felt like I was in a group when you spoke at me.

To illustrate the connection issue a few years ago I went to this fancy restaurant with my wife and the waitress paid attention to me with her eyes and effortless made me spend more money than I wanted too however I sure felt good doing it.

If it wasn't for the $100 steak I would eat at that place everyday.

I can almost feel your passion and in this world almost doesn't count. Hope you understand this was from putting myself in the mind frame of some one who stumbled upon your site.

Pretty please don't make me the Simon of this thread :-(

[Realdeals228]

The video is very very long and after you watch it you really don't feel compelled to read the page. The colors are also a bit unnatural and the spacing for some of the text is a bit weird.

[Veredfu]

Hello


I don't know how you promote your page, but if someone is coming because they're interested in mystery shopping, then they probably don't need you to explain what it is, but they just want to know how your product will help them to become one. In any case I think you should promote your "how to..." as "how to make extra money" and not as "how to become mystery shopper"; I don't think there are so many people who will look for mystery shopping or even know what it is, in fact you felt that you had to explain what it is.

The video was too long and I think you should leave only the last part (the part starting with the explanation of what you did with the extra money you made by doing mystery shopping) otherwise your page just repeats what is already said there.

As someone already wrote, the chances that people will buy your product on their first visit are small (not because of you, because of them....) so you should give them a chance to give their contact information so that you can send them more information and persuade them to buy your product.

Some people said here very precise things about how the website should be designed. I cannot be so specific, but I have to say that something about the design disturbed me when I just opened the page. It looked to me a little messy, maybe because sometimes it's bold and sometimes not, without an obvious reason. Of course, if you want to enhance some words in a sentence that's acceptable, but when the whole section is bold and the other is not, it looks as if the non-bold is less important. Also the indent and the numbering inside the numbering look messy. Maybe you should use a, b, c either in the major numbering or the minor one.

You certainly have credibility, but there is no need to mention it twice (both in the video and written on the page, and I think that you repeat it twice even in video.)

I like the mild attitude. I think that too much hype just offends the customer's intelligence, but I think that we're a minority.

Good luck

[TimGross]

(Note: I did NOT watch your video, so this addresses the written sales letter)

You've got some niche-specific issues selling a how-to Mystery Shopper product that a lot of other niches don't have and that's this:

There's the perception by many that it's a scam. Lumped right in with work at home scams, "typists needed" scams, and credit repair claims.

There are other Mystery Shopper products on Clickbank making wild earnings claims. Anyone who has purchased one of them will never purchase yours.

Bottom Line: You're trying to run a responsible ad in a scammy niche. That's hard.

Biggest Problem With Your Sales Letter Right Now: You don't start establishing your credibility until you get to "Bethany's Experience" halfway down the page. That's too late. You need to LEAD with that, because your personal expertise and experience is one of the only things you've got going for the ad right now.

Testimonials: Are those the real photos of the people giving the testimonials? I'd stress that. And I'd BEG them to let you use their last name as well in the testimonial. If not last, get permission to use their first and MIDDLE name.

As far as establishing credibility, you probably need to address the shady mystery shopper products you're up against, I think.

Hope that helps, good luck with it.

[Treborrevo]

I didn't even get to listen to the video -

My eyes saw two things instantly...

"Mystery shopper training"

and...

"Buy Now!"

Gone.

Even a headline like... "Can you really get paid to shop?" Or how I get paid $400 a day to shop, shop shop!"

You get the idea - put a promise in there - not just a method. Get the "Buy Now" out of there. You have built no interest, no value, nothing at this point. That will instantly scare off prospects that may have been interested if your story and the value had been first built.

[rbthanders]

I'd also suggest breaking the copy text into more headings and sub-headings, which reflect the USP, the problems the visitor faces, and how more or less easily and quickly your product addresses the issue.

And probably lose the clipart, as well.