Morality & Copywriting in the 'Make Money Online' Niche
The make money online industry has a pretty turgid reputation, and rightfully so.
This makes writing copy for making money online very tricky for someone with an honest moral compass.
I when I say honest, that doesn't include writing copy in a 'certain way' which is 'technically true' but actually gives a false impression.
My question to you, is it possible to write a good converting sales letter while telling the reader that they will realistically need about $1,000 in seed money to make it work, will have to work long hours, make mistakes, lose money to begin with, etc? - That's the reality of getting a successful online business going.
The thing is, if I were to make a parallel claim from say, the cooking niche which might have a subheader like:
"At last! Announcing the brand new Chinese recipe book with all the hard work done for you, all you need to do now is enjoy your friends' compliments!"
(OK, not great, but this is just for demo purposes)
Now, you might be forgiven for the fact that the recipe book won't truly do all the hard work (you have to actually cook the damn meals), and your friends might not actually think the food was that fantastic depending on how well you did. But in the cooking niche this won't be seen as a horribly sinister and misleading headline, but just a bit of shined up sales copy with a bit of creative license.
Now, let's take the same subhead structure and do it for the 'making money online' niche:
"At last! Announcing the brand new Facebook income formula with all the hard work done for you, all you need to do now is rake in the cash!"
Now, both headlines are making the same fundamental claims, both are "technically true", but with making money, the latter headline seems seedy (which it is) and unrealistic (which they both are).
My problems are:
1) My conscience
2) Readers with half a brain will think you're a liar, and it's hard to argue with them on that. Those that don't have half a brain (of which there are many buyers out there) are still being duped, and I'd still struggle to sleep at night.
So, back to my difficulty, how can you write a realistic (but still well converting) sales letter that it is very honest and open about the reality of making a successful online business? I've been seeing an increasing occurrence in the industry of the attempt to gain the reader's trust by dropping the line:
"This isn't some 'get rich quick' scheme, but..."
...and then the usual mis-representative spiel continues. I want more than a token BS line in my sales letter, while still exciting people into buying.
Maybe it's just the fact that all sales letters in this niche are of this nature so I'm thinking only those work and maybe honest sales letters just don't work, but also frankly everything that I've learned about writing copy leans towards those types of letters being the only types that would work. Eg: Make it sound easy because people want things done for them, paint a picture of the end benefits, make those benefits emotionally charged, etc.
My question to you all is:
Are there very good sales letters in this niche that are TRULY honest about what it takes to create a successful business, that still sell well?
If there aren't any, how would you approach this task? I appreciate morality is in the eye of the beholder, but I think you all know what I really mean when I'm saying "truly honest", so am looking towards that end.
Thanks.
This makes writing copy for making money online very tricky for someone with an honest moral compass.
I when I say honest, that doesn't include writing copy in a 'certain way' which is 'technically true' but actually gives a false impression.
My question to you, is it possible to write a good converting sales letter while telling the reader that they will realistically need about $1,000 in seed money to make it work, will have to work long hours, make mistakes, lose money to begin with, etc? - That's the reality of getting a successful online business going.
The thing is, if I were to make a parallel claim from say, the cooking niche which might have a subheader like:
"At last! Announcing the brand new Chinese recipe book with all the hard work done for you, all you need to do now is enjoy your friends' compliments!"
(OK, not great, but this is just for demo purposes)
Now, you might be forgiven for the fact that the recipe book won't truly do all the hard work (you have to actually cook the damn meals), and your friends might not actually think the food was that fantastic depending on how well you did. But in the cooking niche this won't be seen as a horribly sinister and misleading headline, but just a bit of shined up sales copy with a bit of creative license.
Now, let's take the same subhead structure and do it for the 'making money online' niche:
"At last! Announcing the brand new Facebook income formula with all the hard work done for you, all you need to do now is rake in the cash!"
Now, both headlines are making the same fundamental claims, both are "technically true", but with making money, the latter headline seems seedy (which it is) and unrealistic (which they both are).
My problems are:
1) My conscience
2) Readers with half a brain will think you're a liar, and it's hard to argue with them on that. Those that don't have half a brain (of which there are many buyers out there) are still being duped, and I'd still struggle to sleep at night.
So, back to my difficulty, how can you write a realistic (but still well converting) sales letter that it is very honest and open about the reality of making a successful online business? I've been seeing an increasing occurrence in the industry of the attempt to gain the reader's trust by dropping the line:
"This isn't some 'get rich quick' scheme, but..."
...and then the usual mis-representative spiel continues. I want more than a token BS line in my sales letter, while still exciting people into buying.
Maybe it's just the fact that all sales letters in this niche are of this nature so I'm thinking only those work and maybe honest sales letters just don't work, but also frankly everything that I've learned about writing copy leans towards those types of letters being the only types that would work. Eg: Make it sound easy because people want things done for them, paint a picture of the end benefits, make those benefits emotionally charged, etc.
My question to you all is:
Are there very good sales letters in this niche that are TRULY honest about what it takes to create a successful business, that still sell well?
If there aren't any, how would you approach this task? I appreciate morality is in the eye of the beholder, but I think you all know what I really mean when I'm saying "truly honest", so am looking towards that end.
Thanks.
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