Please critique this email!

by 23 replies
28
Morning Warriors,

I am just getting my feet wet in copywriting. If you could give me some pointers to this email I am sending to new subscribers, that would be awesome!

V3.0
I’m almost ashamed to tell you this...

I thought about the toll my weight was taking on my health... and what “not trying anymore” might mean to my son and daughter...

I told my wife I didn't want my kids growing up feeling embarrassed by their father. Or worse... I didn't want them growing up without a father.

Kalen started to cry. She was afraid if she didn't lose weight and start getting fit she wasn't gonna live long enough to see our little Sarah's wedding.

That got to me too. So we both sat there blubbering. That's when I knew I had to do something radical. You ever tried to lose weight? It’s bloody difficult!

But seriously...the thought of not seeing my kids grow up really got to me. I looked in the mirror and saw this fat ass staring back at me.

Remember how fit we were in high school? Jesus - what happened? Life got in the way. That’s what happened. Kids, work, stress, and the corporate bull**** that sells the “flat stomach” scam pills got in the way.

So... I didn't give up. I redoubled my efforts to find a cure for what I was sure would ultimately kill me. I threw away all the fad garbage... the prepackaged foods... the worthless exercise routines... all of the crap from those infomercials.

And through endless trial and error... and consultations with fitness pros who weren't part of the corporate machine... I stumbled onto an ingenious pattern of eating and moving...

A and life adjustment that melts away the pounds! I'm not kidding when I say the fat dripped off so fast I literally had to stop buying any clothes for months... or else we'd have to return the stuff before I'd even get a chance to wear it!

And the best part? My sex life was through the roof! Kalen and I have never been more intimate with each other in our entire 12 years of marriage. I was a happy camper. =)

After years of buying the pills, the corporate lies, the “carboloading” crap... Years of buying the B.S.... I discovered the truth about how your body works... and how— if you push the right button — it wants to burn fat all the time.

The Simple Truth

When you throw away those scam pills... dump the useless exercise machines... drop the dangerous fads... and begin this simple, quick, and safe plan, your body naturally sheds the fat for you...

And replaces that fat with lean... healthy... sexy... muscle.

Just push that hidden button you're losing weight and building sexy fat burning muscle 24/7!

Now stay with me here... I know... it's like nothing you've ever heard before... it's not easy to accept that all these years your dieting has done more harm than good.

Taking people who have thought one way their whole lives... and completely changing that thinking was almost impossible...

But it was worth it. Knowing that I will see my son and daughter grow up made it worth it.

******is more than a weight loss program to me. It reflects the love I have for my wife and children, when I was willing to change my life for theirs.

Jordan... go check out my website right now. You’ll find plenty of information that can start helping you lose weight today.

Thanks and God bless,
Rob
#copywriting #critique #email
  • Hey Prawn,

    I've tested some copywriting conversion and such, I am no pro, but here is my input.

    I would use: Like many suffering to lose weight

    Are you saying that your system allows one to lose weight cheaply and lazily?

    The statement confuses me from a consumer point of view. If my above question is true I would change it to:

    And do you know what? I was absolutely right. I did NOT have to totally change my lifestyle, yet I still dropped my weight!

    The above sounds VERY salesmen-like which you want to avoid. Try to use exclimation marks sparingly and avoid salesmen-like words like fantastic, amazing, great deal, and such. Email marketing should sound like a friend referring another friend. Simply because people are used to getting spam emails for offers. You do not want to switch that light on in their heads.

    I would rewrite the entire above, as:

    "If you haven't picked up your copy of *********, when do you plan to lose that weight? A lean and sculpted body is a life changing experience, and time is always ticking. You have nothing to lose because if you do not like what you see in *********, just send it back within 60 days. No questions asked, and you get everything back, 100% full refund.

    Stop putting it off and visit the below link NOW. Make a change in your life and finally feel better about your body."

    Purchase always is a red flag for me. I always try to use, "reserve your copy", "pick up your copy", "get yours now", and such because the mentality is "purchasing something comes with obligation". People purchase things they usually don't want, like bills, groceries ETC. But if your just going to your fav coffee shop to "pick up" a mug of "your" fav blend of coffee it makes the experience more ownable - gives the offer more personal pull. Words like pick up, get your, and ECT.

    Also the line This is used to create urgency. Their problem is losing weight. The above sentence is like release of tension. "finally feel better about your body". It also calls them to action by telling them to "Stop putting it off and visit the below link NOW." That call to action is so critical.

    Funny story, I worked in a call center for about a month and the guy who made the most sales was basically telling the customer, "I'm going to wait on the phone, and you are going to get your credit card and give me the information NOW". And what did the customer do? They got their credit card and gave it to him - most of the time, but enough times to make him the top in sales.

    So do not be afraid to simply demand your customer to take action.

    This statement is an odd one that I think will destroy your conversion for this email. Reason why is because this email's purpose is to sell the product, thats it. I understand that you are offering some free material to build credibility; however, there is a certain point where you want to build cred and when you want to sell. Basically from a customer point of view you are telling them you are going to send them something for free, which I suspect will take attention away from the offer in this email. I suggest to stick with just the offer in this email. THEN afterwards you can send free reports which you will have the affiliate link at the bottom of that free article. Just don't have it in this "offer email", because again, the customer will think to wait for this free tip, before committing for the PAID tips.

    Anyways, thats is my input. Again, I've tested some copywriting and taken some courses on the subject. I'm not pro yet but that is what I've learned thus far. Good luck.

    Kris
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    • [1] reply
  • Banned
    I was bored from the off but when I got to "Amazing" I tuned completely out. I can't begin to tell you how poor this email is. Starting with the completely cheesy "You're probably ready to dive right in so let's get started". And I don't know what "Right, who are you?" is all about. And frankly I don't care. It's not "Like many of you". This is an email. A one on one message. So if anything if should be "Like you, maybe".

    What you're up against is all the emails we get every day - a lot of them junk. I don't know about you but I receive about 100. So if you don't get to the point and make a big attractive offer in the first couple of lines, you're history.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • Kris - that was an excellent breakdown of my email. I love your pointers about the urgency I need to create for customers and how I need to relate to my subscribers. "Email marketing should sound like a friend referring another friend" is something that I believe will prove to be invaluable for this campaign.

      Thank you for spending the time on that email. It really helps me out!

      RickDuris - You're right, I probably would not be compelled to purchase it. Ahh well, back to drawing board, eh?

      Metronicity - Good suggestions - I'll be using them for the new version.
      • [1] reply
    • I agree. There is no flow to it. You are not grabbing the prospect by his fat gut and sticking his face in the biggest benefit (from the beginning). Then keep them going and going until the call to action. Way too long an email. Most emails I actually read (not from friends/family) are maybe 3 paragraphs (short ones at that) and lead me to a video or something free that I cant do without.
  • Version 2!

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    My Story

    I thought about the toll my weight was taking on my health... and what “not trying anymore” might mean to my son and daughter...

    I told my wife I didn't want my kids growing up feeling embarrassed by their father. Or worse... I didn't want them growing up without a father.

    She began to cry. It turns out she was also afraid of never living long enough to see her little girl's wedding. I know these thoughts are kinda hokey to some... but if you're a parent, you know what we feel.

    So... I didn't give up. I redoubled my efforts to find a cure for what I was sure would ultimately kill me. I threw away all the fad garbage... the prepackaged foods... the worthless exercise routines...

    And through endless trial and error... and consultations with fitness pros who weren't part of the corporate machine... I stumbled onto a never-before-revealed pattern of eating and moving...

    A simple and quick life adjustment that melts fat like butter on a skillet! I'm not kidding when I say the fat dripped off so fast I literally had to stop buying clothes for months... or else we'd have to return the stuff before I'd even get a chance to wear it!

    Discovering how to turn your body into a 3 day fat burning machine was the miracle we were praying for... After years of buying the pills, the potions the gadgets... Years of buying the B.S.... I discovered the truth about how your body works... and how— if you push the right button — it wants to burn fat all the time.

    The Simple Truth

    When you drop the bull... drop the gizmos... drop the dangerous fads... and begin this simple quick and safe plan, your body naturally sheds the fat for you...

    And replaces that fat with lean... healthy... sexy... muscle.

    Just push that hidden button and holy cow... You're losing weight and building sexy fat burning muscle 24/7!

    Now stay with me here... I know... it's like nothing you've ever heard before... it's not easy to accept that all these years your dieting has done more harm than good.

    Taking people who have thought one way their whole lives... and completely changing that thinking was almost impossible...

    But it was worth it. Knowing that I will see my son and daughter grow up made it worth it.

    ****** is more than a weight loss program to me. It reflects the love I have for my wife and children, when I was willing to change my life for theirs.

    Jordan, if you truly care for yourself and your family, you will grab your credit card, go to my website, and pick up your copy of ****** now.

    Thanks and God bless,
    Robert

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Damn! I think it is a major improvement over the last email! Kris, those suggestions were extremely helpful! Some questions -

    -How's the intro?

    -Is the call to action appropriate?

    -Was the story believable?

    Surfs up!
    • [1] reply
    • Was going good until we got to here. I almost laughed out loud, it was like I was listening to a real guy ( I really got into the script you had before the above quoted paragraph, I thought it was good stuff) but then the "real guy" took off his mask and started doing the hokey-pokey saying "super fantastic amazing deal!". A real friend would not "metaphorize" their fat loss as "melts fat like butter on a skillet". Think about if you were talking this script to a friend. Once you said the above quoted paragraph, your buddy would give you a weird look. :p Then when you continue the metaphor "the fat dripped so fast, I stopped buying clothes for months". This is getting too "cute" now. Your getting too much into your above metaphor. Which is not usually how a person would speak.

      "or else we'd have to return the stuff before I'd even get a chance to wear it!"

      And now we have a run on with an odd metaphor. So I would defiantly revise it as such:

      I couldn't believe how fast I was shedding the pounds. It was ridiculous. I remember a funny story where my wife and I went shopping for some new jeans that would fit my thinning waistline. We found a nice pair, bought them. But then after just a couple days even those jeans started falling loose because I was shedding those pounds too quickly! My wife just rolled her eyes and said, "I'm not coming with you this time, go and get those jeans yourself!".

      The first part, is too much. 3 Day fat burning machine miracle. Fat burning machine, again, not something you would say in a conversation. And miracle we were praying for is a very bold statement for just one little email. If you were writing a long salescopy where you spent the first 5 paragraphs or more just focusing on pathos then yes you can use those powerful words - it would fit better then. But this is just one email, using words like praying for a miracle seem too much. I would take the approach of:

      The stress of being overweight was finally lifted from my shoulders. I had spent so much time and hard earned dollars buying the wrong stuff. I wasted my time and money buying useless pills, supplements, and crappy workout machines. I could have been spending that time and money on my family! I am so grateful that I had discovered the truth on how my body actually worked. It was like I just pushed the right button, and blam! My body wanted to burn fat, all the time.

      As for the rest, just pay attention to using cheesy, and out dated words and phrases such as, drop the bull, gizmos, holy cow.

      Now for your call to action there is one major problem. If this is your product, that you created, then you can say go to my website. But if you are an affiliate, then you want to approach it by saying something along the lines of. "The time and money that I saved by following this system paid for the price of the investment I made buying the system". The mistake you made was that you spent all the time in this email giving your version of their problem, showing them your solution, then telling them, "Hey! Go to my website and buy my product!" It makes all of the above that you wrote become impersonal. You just put up a stop sign saying "This is my product, and I just wrote all of the above so that you would buy it".

      I know I said to really follow through with that call to action. However this emails purpose is to create a LEAD and your websites purpose is to finalize the sale. This email is also pre-selling that lead, so that when they get to your website they are so hyped to buy they click your pay button.

      Do not try to finalize the sale in the email. Just provide the link saying to head over to the main site to get the full details. Something along those lines. Remember you do not want to break your persona in this email. Like if you were talking to your buddy or some person on the street. You wouldn't spend 10 minutes telling them about your journey with fat loss then end the conversation by saying "Hey get your credit card and I'll charge you now and you can get my solution!" But you would say, "Hey, you should totally just go for it and check out ********* right now! I already tried it out, so I'm sure it will work for you too."

      But if this if your product that you made yourself, then you should be selling the salescopy outlining your expertise. In which case your first section is good, minus the changes I outlined. Then you want to sell your expertise in "The Simple Truth" section, giving some hard facts of your findings while testing whatever solutions and whatever. At that point you can say to head over to my website for full details.

      But at no point are you saying get your credit card out and buy now. Because good emails are to create a lead and create hype. The link they go to from that email will pretty much finalize the sale and thus bluntly tell them to get the credit card out and buy now.

      So again, emails are to help you create hype and excitement (and I do not mean using exclamation marks, I mean writing some emotional and relative information) they are the gateway to the sale. Your site or the site of the product owner is there to sell the product and finalize the sale.

      Call to Action on an email is like "Head over to the main site to get full details", and call to action for the main website is "get the card out and buy now" along those lines.

      I agree though, you made some good progress Prawn, I really think the intro was much better, minus the latter paragraphs. The call to action needs some work, but for the most part the story was sort of believable. Try to curb the rest of your sales copy "The Simple Truth" part, according to the above that I've mentioned and I believe you will have a starter copy to test with.

      Remember, it is all about testing. Send traffic to the starter copy, change some things and monitor conversion.

      Good luck!

      Kris
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  • It does sound VERY salesman like. Like those old 60's tv commercials. (your practically waiting for a jingle ). My suggestion is to make it sound like you understand and care more , like a real conversation in a "modern" sense.

    Figure out exactly who you may want to target as a potential customer. Then "make up " a conversation again like how you were doing it and make it more towards your customer "language/idioms". Also remember the 5 w's +h (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How). Then I think you got a seller buddy. Good trying!!
  • Banned
    Version 2 is a totally different beast. Much, much better. Now you're getting it. But substitute "My Story" for something way more interesting. Nobody cares about your story. Unless you hook them. Like "I'm almost ashamed to tell you this" or "Hi...I'm Robert and I'm a Fat *******" or "Who's the Idiot That Said Fat People Are Always Jolly?"

    Now you just need to make it more intimate. Imagine you're sending this email to your best friend. If it were me, I'd be saying stuff like "Mate...I know you're gonna think this a load of bull...but this stuff really works. Know what got me motivated? Jenny started to cry. She was afraid if she didn't lose weight and start getting fit she wasn't gonna live long enough to see our little Melody's wedding. That got to me too. So we both sat there blubbing. That's when I knew I had to do something radical. You ever tried to lose weight? It's bloody hard isn't it? Worst part is cutting back on the beers. LOL. But seriously mate...the thought of not seeing my kids grow up really got to me. I looked in the mirror and saw this lardass staring back at me. Remember how fit we were in college? Jesus - what happened? Life got in the way. I'd give anything to be surfing that point-break round the corner from Makaha again. Talking of which - whatever happened to that crazy guy who used to chug Scotch before paddling out? The switchfoot dude. " blah blah blah
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    • Agreed.

      A story needs the following:

      * A setting (a time and a place).
      * A beginning, middle and end. You can leave off the end if you want to create a cliffhanger/open loop.

      Also, an email should not read like a mini sales letter. Stay away from any sales letter elements when writing an email.

      Good luck with your campaign.
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    • Ah, love your stuff Metronicity. Your style is original and works. Glad to see your input here

      Be good for all of you to listen when this man speaks
  • It's a lot better because you've ripped it from a #1 CB best-seller.

    Almost verbatim, in fact.

    Heck, you kept the NAME of the guy and his wife the same!

    Frankly... your level of laziness is flat-out disgusting... and you're giving marketers everywhere a bad name.

    -Dan

    P.S. For those of you curious... here's the page our friend ripped from:

    The Real Reason You're Fat...

    Written by a far superior (and far more ethical) copywriter.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    • Haha, yeah I forgot about that ad, I stumbled upon it a couple years back.

      Alright, Prawn you really have some work to do. I don't know what you were trying to accomplish here but you are NOT helping your copying writing skills by copying another's work.

      You are here to learn how to be better. Not show off your copy and paste skills!

      Honestly man, why are you here? Your wasting your time just piecing together a sales copy from other peoples copy because you are learning nothing!

      If you remember anything that I've said in the past posts remember this.

      Success in anything in business is about learning and developing your ability to perform.

      This is not a business for quick profits, scamming, and lying to make it rich. You will not get anywhere.

      And really Prawn, if you choose that route, you will be crushed by the rest of the IM's out there that are doing it the right way.

      Your shooting yourself in the foot. And that is a very stupid thing to do is it not?

      Kris,

      BTW - Thanks Dan for the heads up. It was very disappointing, but it is always better to be informed.
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  • Dude, you didn't just use the story and the names.

    You ripped the copy off word-for-word.

    Even if I didn't know who wrote the original ad... I recognize the style a mile away.

    A better approach would be:

    "Hi, I'm promoting xyz offer, Mr. ABC let me use his story/names/copy (if he indeed DID let you "copy" [get it?] the text verbatim).

    However I want to put it into an email... what do you guys think of this? It's basically what's on the page but I changed it a tad to make it work in email context.

    And of course... we then would have told you why it's probably not the best idea from a targeting perspective.

    Copy-wise... the guy who wrote that ad is a freakin' genius... and conversions were pretty insane.

    So you can't go wrong.

    But legally speaking if you're pretending to be Rob and saying you and your wife lost weight (without it actually being TRUE) you're landing yourself in legal hot water.

    Rob did. You can't say YOU did, even if you pretend to be Rob.

    However, you can say "Rob did this...".

    That's putting aside any ethical dilemmas... but legally speaking you're (to my understanding) on very dangerous ground here.

    -Dan

    P.S. PLUS, your ad lacks congruency because anyone can tell a mile away that you're mixing American and Aussie... in addition to the fact that the 'tone" jumps around like a mechanical bull on maximum.
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