Please Critique My "Warriors For Hire" Ad

Hi Mike. Did I write a bunch of "content" for you like in 2011 maybe?

Welcome to WF.

My first response to your letter is that it's not tailored to the WF audience. Your copy is decent, but doesn't grab the reader as aggressively as your competition here will. Take some time to browse other Warriors for Hire ads and you'll see what I mean. Typical Warrior Special Offers (WSOs) have a lot more visual flair than your strictly-text letter.

I like the headline a lot, though.

Good luck!

All about you.

Meh.

All about you.

You, you, you, you.

We're still on you?!

Finally.

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care"

And I'm going to disagree that your offer's good. Your price might be good. But the offer's not crystal clear.

My $.02:

Looks like you have enough experience there to quote some specific, impressive open rate and response rate stats... That would help. Specificity.

I kinda echo andrew's point about your copy focusing on yourself instead of the prospect, but I see you're a good writer and I bet you can fix that shortcoming easily...

You could also be a little more specific about this point:

"I write emails that build relationships with lists and promote products without being “salesy”, and getting marked as SPAM."

Like -- you and I know what that means (avoid words and other elements that trigger SPAM catchers, tone down the empty hype that defeats credibility, personable tone, etc.), but readers may not know what you mean by "salesy" and the things that get emails marked as spam. If that point is something to lead with, okay, flesh it out a bit. Agitate. Specificity.

In fact, your current draft might come across as "salesy" to some. All the more reason to "show" what you mean by that, flesh it out a bit more...

Besides adding more "meat" like that, you might also come up with a clearer "hook"... Personally, I'd do the testimonials and the seth/dan kennedy reference more prominently. As a new guy, that's a lot to have going for you. There's your hook, IMHO.

All in all, it's a well written pitch IMHO. Just needs more "meat" and more focus (if that makes sense).

Thanks for posting this... Always interesting to see other copywriters' sales pitches... Nice learning experience to see them critiqued here.

Fail. You make all these wild claims... best email-writer ever... and then you bore the crap out of your reader. I don't want to read this shite. I want to see samples of your work. Come out of the gate with a bang. And don't go begging with your "free review emails" - that just paints you as desperate.

"a student of the Warrior Forum’s own Seth Czerepak for over four years" and this is the best you can do?

My advice? Junk this. Post your best email. Preferably a long one. Immediately after post some hard-core stats. And don't even talk money. Go fishing for marlins not sardines.

You want clients that are prepared to run campaigns - not one-off $15 numbers hoping for a miracle.

Know who writes killer emails? eat24. Get on their list. Bacon Sriracha Unicorn Diaries


Here's what they sent me a week ago -

Hi. This is Ron, your pizza delivery guy. EAT24 let me write this week's coupon email because I really need to get something off my chest. So here it is: I am not Uber.

I'm very sorry that your Extra Large Spicy Hawaiian* was late, but random drunk people keep jumping into the backseat of my car and telling me to take them to the club and/or the nearest burrito place. To all those people I just want to say: I'm not Uber. I'm also not Lyft (do you see a pink moustache anywhere?). And no, you can't have any pizza.

Now back to you, my favorite customers. Are you having this problem too? EAT24's got your back. Just print out the handy sign (below) and put it on your dashboard. Boom. Problem solved.

Also... here's a coupon** for this weekend.

You're the honey mustard to my pretzel.

Sincerely,

Ron

*Spicy Hawaiian is the amazing combination of ham, pineapple and double jalapenos. If you don't know, now you know.
**You may think that two bucks off is nothing, but think of all the things you can do with a couple more dollars. You could give a little extra love to your delivery driver (hint, hint). Or you could head on down to the all night arcade and nacho bar to play 2 1/2 rounds of Skeeball. You could turn those $2 into 200 pennies, find a hill, and enjoy 200 rounds of "roll the penny into traffic" (please don't actually do this). Of course you could also put those dollars in a jukebox and play, "***Flawless" on repeat for two hours (please do actually do this). Now please insert 50 cents to continue on to the marvelous fine print (just kidding it's free): This $2 coupon expires on Sunday, September 14th at 11:59PM PDT. You must be an EAT24 member to use code. Finally, the coupon can only be used once on orders of $10 or more when paying with Credit Card, PayPal, or Google Wallet. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some VIPs (Very Important Pastas) to take home.

"People don't want a drill they want the hole it makes!"

I know the above has been used a lot but it does and always will hold true.

Think about that and alter your copy to supply "the hole"

Good luck.
Russ

Well, you asked for a critique, so here it is – no holding back.

In your letter, you make claims about being a top email response writer, yet I found myself bored throughout the entire thing.

With your rates, you should be getting me pumped up about how your services are going to help me as a business owner, not wondering when the post is going to be over.

You also talked predominantly about yourself – readers don't want to hear about that.

Sell your skills, not yourself.

Why can't you turn this line into something like: "Are you hungry to build personal relationships with your list..." instead of starting with "I write"?

Every bullet point in that group starts with "I," "I've," "I'm"...and the copy is weak, on top of that.

For the rate you're charging, you need to be showing the reader why you're worth that price and why your emails are going to be the best thing that's ever hit their list. You failed in this area.

Do all of your potential clients know who Matt Furey is? Do they care? No. Think before making a reference that part of your audience may not understand – everyone should be on the same page.

Again, you haven't shown us why you're worth $32 an article. You keep telling, but not showing. The copy desperately needs some spicing up.


Wait a second, haven't you been telling us this whole time that you're a "top email writer"? But now it's just an escape from article writing for you?

This makes it seem like you're a total noob on email writing and just breaking into the industry. This line needs to go if you want to be taken seriously.

This line might as well say "I'm terribly inexperienced and have no idea what I'm doing."

Being young and single is not a selling point – there are plenty of top copywriters who have families and are able to dedicate their efforts, full time. And saying you don't know what to expect tells people you're not confident.

Be confident and SHOW your reader how you're going to fill a NEED they have.

If I were you, I'd gut this entire letter and start over – no more talking about you. People will be interested once you show them how you can fill their needs, rather than writing them a resume.

I apologize if this seems overly critical; I am only trying to help you succeed in your business by pointing out some key mistakes you made.

Once you fix those, I'm confident that you can rework this into something that will pique your readers' interest.

Hi Mike!

Congratulations for the little success you have at least shown.

There is more to be done --- but improvement usually comes slowly.

Frankly speaking, your ad has created little impression.

Let us look at a few elements responsible for this scenario.

The Headline

The role of a headline in a sales letter is to grab prospects' attention within just a few seconds. If it is interesting enough it ushers them into the lead of your letter.

It's role is so crucial that it takes most of the time copywriters allocate to sales letter writing --- some copywriters compose about 25 headlines before they settle on the strongest of them.

The headline cuts the biggest chunk in reading frequency --- in other words it's the most often read part of a sales letter.

Now Mike, is your headline attention-grabbing?

The answer is' NO.

Why?

There is NO BENEFIT for your prospect.

If you had worked out features of your service, you could have come up with several benefits translated from them. You could then have picked the strongest of them to use in your headline.

Possibly, you could have found an emotion to finely blend it with.

Remember, your prospects want a solution to their various pain-points or problems. Give it to them in your headline -- and it's no other than your MAIN BENEFIT.

Is it low sales, slow business growth etc. Give them a benefit --- a solution.

So much about the headline. Let us draw our attention to ---

Personal comments

"I'm new to Warriorforum ----'

Are you introducing yourself in your sales copy?

This is neither the place nor time to do so. The type of introduction should be one about how you are going to solve their problems. Show them how your newly acquired skill could help them --- not just being new to Warriorforum --- it doesn't solve any of their problems.

'I'm young and unmarried.'

Are you looking for a wife here? Do you mean married copywriters don't write good copy? This is ambiguous?

'I love money and want more of it.'

Are you aware that --- 'people want to buy but don't want to be sold?'

They are not happy with people who want to take away their hard-earned money.
When you sell, tactfully and persuasively guide them to make their own buying decision.

Let us make a transition to your ---

Testimonials

It's needless to use testimonials from your article writing service --- they are irrelevant here. This is copywriting. It's different from article writing.

Let's talk about your ---

Sales proposition

You sell when you know you have convinced your prospect to buy. Usually this comes way down your bullet list of benefits.

There is more.

Show value of what you are selling. Show that your service can bring in more money for them.

Finally, I have graded your sales copy using my 5 -tier system. It hasn't made it on all of them.

Mike, this, I believe is enough food for thought.