Critique My Copy and Get My Program Free

First off, I won't tell you to change "excuse proof fitness" just yet, because there are other elements that matter here. If you had a 5 minute expose on an overweight celebrity losing 100 lbs with an "excuse killer" (Whatever that is) but none the less, your "Mechanism" and it went viral, well.. you might sell some. But if you named it "fitin30" like others were saying, your conversions might be higher and you NEED to think like this. Make sure everything is super 10-10-10 SICK!

be ready for WAR!!!

But check this out..

The ad agency #1 on CB guy and my favorite Nazi in this thread should not be ignored. Even if you are giving this out for free, why not have a high opt in rate. Why not touch on the things that people are specifically looking for? You can be 100% ethical and "keep it real" but dont be afraid to confront whoever is reading this with the truth that they will probably die of a heart attack at 60 years old when they could have lived to 100. That's 40 years! Why would you give up 40 years of your life, eating good, and enjoying your exercise routine?

Perhaps tell the story of two people.. Sam and Bob. Bob takes your thing, Sam doesn't.

Sam has a stroke and his brain explodes a little. He lives the next 20 years in a wheelchair.

Bob has three hot girlfriends and can bench press 200 lbs 10 times in a row.

But here's the thing..

I read the first couple paragraphs, then started to skim through the rest of it, because this line was a FAIL for me:

"because I see so many people struggling to be healthy and fit"

1. That is a very vague statement
2. People kinda know how to get healthy and fit
3. People can get that info for free. (If they are that retarded to begin with)

The whole concept is luke warm, without real excitement.

There is a real lack of a specific problem, fear, statistic, goals, and INTRO!!!

I was kinda interested to see your call to action so I jumped to the bottom. I had asked myself, "I wonder if this dude used a traditional call to action"..

No call to action! You don't want to sell, so if you don't change it, affiliates are out.

I hope you are doing it for philanthropy purposes. (I know Im an idiot but you get my point I hope)

I mean, this really is a piece that you are going to promote on your own right? I hope you are not going to pester established fitness vendors and CB'ers with a launch date if you don't follow the competitive format.

I personally HATE getting JV invites from people who re-invent the wheel, think they know how to write copy and then leave the market after it flops.

But anyway, back to my impression of it..

I knew right away that the copy in that first paragraph was kinda weak.

Even if that first paragraph was just an article on Goarticles I estimate a very weak follow through and low click through rate. Why do that to yourself?

It's up to you whether or not how you want to conduct your business but Im telling you right now, unless you put 5-6 hardcore super produced visuals, before & after pics, an amazingly visually stunning intro before your "Hello Im Derek" intro, your affiliates will be very mad at you.

If you give it out for free and spend a ton of money on SEO or something, there will be alot of wasted traffic.

But heck, keep the lame name, do the crazy intro, over compensate for the fact the copy doesnt touch on things you are afraid of confronting the consumer with, and you'll be better off than if you have just a white background and black letters "Hi, Im Derek" in helvetica.

Compensate for your luke warm stuff. Have some insane billing structure, cool gimmicks on the page, something that your competition doesnt have.

If you want to sell, you have to sell, it IS about giving value first, you are right about that. But you also have to interest people! LOL

If you want to give something out for free, you will have to pay for it yourself which is expensive, but you should still make sure you hook them in man.. remember the statistics. 90% of people will probably leave after the first 3 seconds with any page. Keep those 10% there and sell them or get them to opt in. They won't even opt in with it the way it is. Take that first paragraph and turn their world upside down in those first three sentences.

P.S: Why don't you violently bash your competition in the "This isn't a magic pill" part?

Not necessarily Ray. I disagree with your above sentiments. Thought he explained his position very well. Perfectly clearly in fact.

What I believe Derek is saying is that it's more important for him to offer something which starts off a long term relationship based on trust and mutual respect, not simply making sales just for the sake of it.

This trust relationship will be worth a lot more to Derek in the long term over just making sales willy nilly. It's not what he's about. It's nothing to do with an idealistic point of view. In fact, I think it's a very realistic point of view / position.

Please feel welcome to correct me if I'm off base Derek.


Mark Andrews

You're totally right. That's why I wanted to make it a point to mention balance. It's about sales, but not sales at all costs. I want to not just reach people, but reach the right type of people for what I have to offer.

I'm willing to forgo maximum amounts of sales for reaching people turned off by some of the fadish and "gimicky" fitness products out there, but that still needs to be balanced with a certain amount of mass appeal.

As a musician, I go back to the example of making a pop album vs. hard rock album that is popular. A hard rock album will rarely reach the mainstreem audience, so if sales was what it was all about then all musicians should only strive to write cookie-cutter pop music, but hard rock has it's own niche and target audience that wouldn't care for pop music.