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I'm a bit sensitive. But open to critique. Feedback on my site copy?

by ramona_livegood
10 replies
Hi everyone!

I recently created a video course online. I designed the graphics, created the videos etc,

Wanted to know what you guys think about the copy.

Begin Learning Drupal - Basic and Advanced Drupal Video Series

Its a great product, but want to make sure my message comes out and communicates exactly that.

My biggest concern is may be I wrote too many paragraphs, too much copy, but I could be wrong.

Any thoughts?

I'm open to ideas.
#bit #copy #critique #feedback #open #sensitive #site
  • Profile picture of the author jtunkelo
    Well, not to worry, if anything you wrote too little.

    Also, the first impression is you don't really want people to read it to begin with, just to click on through to the product description.

    The layout is too wide and together with the gray text and the centering it's making the reader force their concentration to get through it. They won't.

    Start with a headline that communicates the main benefit, the overt benefit. Then write a few bullets communicating some compelling, practical benefits to the user.

    Then write a story about how using your product has helped someone, helped you... anything to convey in an indirect manner how the prospect should expect their experience to be like. Add some testimonials and other forms of proof.

    In short: refresh your grasp of the fundamentals and go back to the basics.
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    • Profile picture of the author virginiad
      Hi, Ramona

      First, a warning. They can be ruthless here, but that is what helps the most. If they are trying to spare your feelings, they cannot say what needs to be said.

      First, I would eliminate the first page, which forces people to click to get to your sales page. Every time you do that, you lose some of your visitors, and it is unnecessary.

      In your letter, all you do is describe the product.

      1. You should start with a heading that grabs your prospect and compels him to read the rest of the letter.

      2. Who are you? You will sell more if you introduce yourself to your prospect. In order for people to buy they must know, like and trust you.

      3. What experience do you have that makes you an expert, that makes you someone to whom I should listen.

      4. You have to develop some type of rapport with your prospects. Maybe a story about how you were trying to set up a website and just could not do what you wanted, until you learned about Drupal.

      5. Instead of listing each module separately and describing it, you might just want to say "16 modules (or however many there are) that will show you:" or "x hours of video that will show you:" and have the content listed in the form of bullets. The bullets should emphasize the benefits of the product...what will they get out of it.

      6. At some point you might want to compare Drupal with Wordpress to let people know how much better Drupal is.

      Hope this helps

      Virginia
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      Virginia Drew


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      • Profile picture of the author ARSuarez
        Hi Ramona,

        Virginia is spot-on.

        The critiques on here can be brutal. It's not meant to be malicious, but sometimes... it's really the only way to make you learn. Just emphasize that all critiques keep the constructive in constructive criticism.

        Jtunkelo also made a good point: go back to the basics, become familiar with how to structure and write a sales letter. Judging by your copy, I can almost feel you were wandering and unsure of the direction to take.

        So, go to the sticky thread at the top of the copywriting forum.

        Go here: Frequently Asked Questions | The Total Package

        Scroll down to the list of 17 books. Get those.

        Go to www.hardtofindads.com and read Gary Halbert's ads, Brian Keith Voiles, Drew Kaplan, John Carlton... Then, go to Clickbank.com and find some of the highest performing letters.

        You've probably heard this before. And many (myself included) have harped on this before. But if you absolutely feel you must (or can only afford to have yourself) write the copy, you need to do these things.

        Otherwise, you'll be posting 100 ads on here for critique. And unfortunately, nobody will have the time to give you the hands-on attention you need.

        You can also find a mentor - I've heard great things about Paul Hancox and Vin Montello as mentor to young cubs.

        Regards,

        Angel
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    • Profile picture of the author lennoxtran
      Originally Posted by jtunkelo View Post


      The layout is too wide and together with the gray text and the centering it's making the reader force their concentration to get through it. They won't.
      I agree on the wide layout. i had a sales page with wide layout once...i actually didn't like it when it's that wide. makes me not want to read it.

      same thing for emails. i like to keep it narrow and easy for readers.

      aligning it left instead of center would be nice too.

      lennox
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  • Profile picture of the author padre
    As Virginia stated, that first page is a deal killer. If you wanted to go to Las Vegas and they made you spend time in the outskirts before you were allowed to get to your destination it would be frustrating and irritating. Not the best start for a sales letter.
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    • Profile picture of the author Collette
      The question that immediately sprung to my mind was, "Why? Why do I need this?"

      Because you start by addressing people who want to build their own websites to save money.

      But check out what happens here:

      "Maybe you don't have $50000, or $5000 or $500 or whatever to get your website designer to build out a website for you. The good news is that you don't need to anymore!

      There is a simple, free but POWERFUL system that enables you to do that. That is the content management system called Wordpress.

      It is a web content management system. This means that once you install it ,... all you need is an internet connection and a browser to update your website!"

      Everything you say in your copy about Drupal, can be said about Wordpress. However, unless you want to customize or hack the WP theme, many of the FREE themes are usable right out of the box. You don''t have to know a darn thing about web design, HTML, CSS, or anything design-related. And you don't have to spend a dime to learn to use WP.

      So, you'll need to be talking to people who ALREADY know they want to learn Drupal. And they already believe it's worth their time and money to do so.
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      • Profile picture of the author virginiad
        Originally Posted by Collette View Post

        So, you'll need to be talking to people who ALREADY know they want to learn Drupal. And they already believe it's worth their time and money to do so.
        I don't know much about Drupal, but I know that there are some features that it has that are much more powerful than WP.

        If you talk about this in your copy, you may be able to get the more sophisticated WP users to buy your videos in order to learn about Drupal. I know that it is not quite as easy to use as WP.

        I guess the takeaway here is that you must clearly define your prospect. Who is he/she, how much computer experience do they have? Be as specific as you can. Are they using WP now? If so, what is it about Drupal that would make them interested in possibly switching?

        You don't really have to convince them to switch, but you have to get their curiosity up enough that they will buy your videos to see what they are missing out on.

        What do they have to know (about you and your product) in order to buy your videos?

        That is your starting point. Then, you have to talk to that person in your letter.

        Also, you might consider some type of upsell where you are available to answer questions or offer a teleseminar or webinar where they can get help. All this assumes that you are fairly expert at Drupal

        Hope this helps

        Virginia
        Signature

        Virginia Drew


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        • Profile picture of the author Collette
          See Oxblood's post?

          There's your outline for your sales copy.

          He just saved you an enormous amount of time, frustration, and backbreaking labor.

          P.S.: I can add that, when I started developing my own niche sites, I looked at Drupal, too. My experience was, and is, much the same as Oxbloom's.

          I wound up with WP, because it seemed the most accessible. Since then, I've learned a bit of CSS, etc. But that was an incremental thing: as I needed to know it, I learned it. I never set out to learn CSS. I found I needed to be able to do some basic HTML and CSS adjustments to get what I wanted.

          However, it would take a lot to convince me that Drupal is so superior (for my limited needs) that it would be worth my while to engage that learning curve again.
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          • Profile picture of the author sethczerepak
            My advice is to download my free copywriting course and recreate the page according to what's in there...I have a student started out that way and he's already getting 1 and 2% conversions. That's the first option I suggest...or...

            The second, is that you save yourself the time and energy you would spending writing, posting and reading suggestions and hire a copywriter who can guarantee you conversions, one with a track record. Once you add up the hours spent and the lost conversions, you'll likely find that you're saving money in hiring a pro.

            Also, that way you can focus on running your business instead of poring over sales copy and re-inventing the wheel...there are people out there who have mastered copywriting already, so why go to all the trouble and spend your time?
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  • Profile picture of the author Oxbloom
    You know, it's not all that long ago that I was your target audience.

    I was a relative newbie to online life. I'd had some success building an audience with a free blogger blog, and realized that I could actually turn that to profit with a little more control over things.

    I moved on to a self-hosted wordpress blog. It was far better, but I found myself wishing I had the flexibility to do some other things that it wasn't immediately clear if I could do in WP.

    So I started researching Joomla and Drupal. I looked up reviews for "how to" books on Amazon, picked the best looking one, and ordered.

    I got the book, thumbed through it a few times, and know what I did?

    Nothing.

    It looked WAY too complex and confusing for me to bother sinking the time into.

    I didn't TOTALLY abandon the idea that I might one day learn Joomla, or Drupal, or whatever other content management solution might come along in the meantime.

    But I was going to be damned if I'd jump back in to teach-myself mode. Just didn't seem doable to me.

    What I'm looking for, and what I *must* see before I EVER investigate another tutorial on these products, is this:

    - Assurance that I'm going to succeed with this tutorial, even if I'm so technically illiterate I can barely log into my email.

    - Assurance that the training is going to leave no stone unturned in getting me from point A to point B. Phrases like "step by step" or "complete blueprint" might be indicated here.

    - Assurance that it is going to address *specifically* the things/reasons I am looking into Drupal/Joomla to begin with. (For me, at the time, this was "build your own membership sites without buying some expensive third-party plugin." But I can think of a number of reasons people might be interested in this over a WP type solution.)

    - Assurance that I'm going to be able to use this training to build, once and for all, THOROUGHLY PROFESSIONAL looking and behaving websites without outsourcing some part of the process to graphics people, or programmers, or whoever. Basically, I want to know that not only does this address the specific things I'm after, but that it's a full-on start-to-finish solution for those things.

    - Some assurance that you *get* exactly who I am, where I am on my journey to understanding website creation, and what tools and training I'm going to need to get to the next step.

    And I need to at least START seeing all of that addressed the *MOMENT* I click on to your page...or I'm clicking away, and pronto.

    On your website, I don't see my fears being addressed, and my desires being catered to.

    I see:

    - "Begin learning...", which says to me, I'm going to invest in this, and then need to invest in more training. Ugh.

    - "The fastest way from nothing to website...", which is catchy, but I know is a lie. I can have a blogger blog up in 30 seconds, for example. I can have a self hosted wordpress site up with literally nothing more than the press of one button. The problem is that these don't do a ton of things I want them to do. I'm ready for a *more sophisticated* and *more flexible* solution that's ALSO easy.

    And I see pseudo-bullet points about...

    - "High resolution videos"

    and

    - "Powerful website features"

    ...that ultimately tell me absolutely nothing about what kind of content I'm going to be getting, what I'm going to learn, and what it's going to do for me.



    In short: I want a headline that calls out directly TO ME, and copy/bullet points that tell me exactly what your product is going to do FOR ME. Get those elements in there, and you've got a good start.

    Till then, you've got a lot of folks clicking away. Just like me.
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