Rip my sales page apart - newbie in need of help!

K. So you're a "Hollywood Producer". Who raised $1.5 Million for 4 feature films. And you're going to tell us how you did it.

HUGE fail here. The god-awful YouTube-hosted video. Shaky hand-held footage of a cell-phone. No sound. Just fingers scrolling through. Excruciatingly BORING. I lasted a whole 2 minutes and couldn't bear to watch any more. So if that's an example of your Hollywood feature filming - you've lost me right there.

The other thing that makes me wonder is - $1.5 million is not a lot of money for even one Hollywood feature. You say it was for four. If it were evenly divided...that equates to $375k a flick - zip in this business.

So already I'm wondering about your credibility as I read on. I come to a screeching halt at "FREE Money". That's not the talk of film financing or movie production. "Financing" or "Funding" would be a much better term. "FREE Money" - that just red flags this pitch as "scam".

The writing is reasonable. Then I come to your first testimonial. Next to a headshot of a miserable-looking dude who looks like he's up on "Just killed his Mother" charges. Apparently he's a "Professional Actor and Producer". K. Maybe he plays serial killers?

Then you have 11 bullets. Too many. Stop at 7. Always an odd number. Never use "And a whole lot more" - especially as a bullet. Way cheesy.

I read on. See more so-so testimonials. Read this awful para justifying the price - Well "no" actually. I spent $47 on getting loaded. "Ate out a couple of times"? For $47? Where? A greasy Joes? McDonalds? Who cares. You're begging for the sale here and it doesn't work. In fact...I'm thinking "Only $47? Must be crap".

So to try and get me to fork over the $47 you go all I.M. scam on me with "But that's not all"...you get these steak knives - 4 "awesome" bonuses. At this stage I couldn't even be bothered reading the Johnson boxes. Maybe once you insert the graphics I might be tempted.

Moving on I'm hit with another dud-looking headshot. This time from a writer. Who pens this drivel - As my fingers go down my throat.

Then we get the "Money back Guarantee" - which again is borrowed from I.M. scams.

At this point I'm done. I think to myself "This is amateur hour...no sale". As I wave goodbye to the final two scary-looking headshots.

Not even your p.s. tempts me -

“Thanks again nazi”

LOL. Not since the innkeeper in occupied France back in good old ’42 appreciated his guests à la “’Allo ‘Allo” has there been such a quip.


Copy nazi has, in his own violent way, said what there is to be said. I wish to share a couple of minor additions…

Theme your testimonial photos. Have them all either of the people in casual situations, in character, or in their offices, but not a mix. If you can’t do this, caption them briefly so that they make sense (“Frank Bettag as a pissed-off father of the bride in ‘Knuckle Draggers’, or “Frank Bettag at his arraignment” or whatever.)


I would rewrite this page like this:

“I was once like you: someone who lives and loves film, has film making skills, but is dead broke and can’t make anything happen no matter how hard you wish.

I tried…(begging family, maxing out credit cards)

Then I tried…(going to film markets and spending money there in the hopes of learning…)

And after that I even tried…(god knows what else)

They all failed. My goal of raising money to make decent films seemed out of reach.


Then, I started to…

(do whatever it is that you did to learn the sources of the dough)

And what a surprise! Everything turned around!

Now I’m a real Hollywood producer with FOUR feature films to my credit:

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR


(Take that, losers!) No foolin’! So tell me: do you want the secrets of how I achieved this level of success? Do you want to BE this successful as a genuine Hollywood producer?

Then come with me and I’ll share these money tree-shaking secrets—and you’ll be surprised at how low the investment to learn these is.

I’m tired of hearing stories about people’s dreams being stepped on…how they struggle but can never seem to win. So I’m sharing these powerful financing secrets of the film world with you for just $47, because I WANT YOU TO SUCCEED WITH YOUR DREAM!

These hardly-known tips and techniques will enable you to:

(bullet list)”

And so on.


Rewrite rather than edit, in this case, and really work on your headline and subheadline. An idea has been floating around lately that it's the second thing people read, not the first...so get their attention with the headline, then tell them why this is important to them in the subheadline.

Shorten the height of the top graphic so it does not take up so much
space - you'll get to show more to the viewer that way ( above fold )

Your red headline could be smaller font ( half size it is now ) and above
the video. of course you'll eventually put up a good video. lol

Not a copy guy but as a general reader of the site - I don't get the video at all. I stopped - fast forwarded to see if it got any better and then gave up.

What's the video there for? Did you link to the wrong video?

@kanjgan

ok - understood...

"Theme your testimonial photos. Have them all either of the people in casual situations, in character, or in their offices, but not a mix. If you can’t do this, caption them briefly so that they make sense (“Frank Bettag as a pissed-off father of the bride in ‘Knuckle Draggers’, or “Frank Bettag at his arraignment” or whatever.)"
Theme the pics or caption, got-it.

Ok, understand the copy remarks as well - how you are language'ing it is similar to, "fell, felt, found" - which makes total sense.

thank you for going the extra mile on your critique and adding additional copy - that doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated.

Love you hear from anyone else on the matter - and if i can help your project in any way, just ask.

Chris

@Refundhost

Ok - not taken on header - thanks for the feedback.

@stevenalowe

What you say about imdb is golden, of course that thought had came to mind, but didn't really know how to go about addressing it - because you are right, people will see ratings. Certainly not trying to hide those - really, the reality is, even with those ratings all those movies did well in royalties - but from the stand-point of the purchaser, just about to put a credit card in, that can be seen as a deterrent.

the 47.00 dollar, in my opinion too is - to cheap, at first my thoughts here were i wanted to blow the product out, to make a list - so i can begin to really teach the higher level stuff, but now you aren't the only one here that has said its almost too low -

of course 97.00 is better, i would rather sell it at that price point. i'll split test that now, for sure.

Thanks for taking the extra time to pull up imdb - and go the extra mile w/ your review, much appreciated.

Okay, here's the deal:

Your selling approach should NOT be in this format.

Your focus here should be about branding.

A sales letter doesn't convey the prestige I believe you should present for people.

A more traditional website with your logo, tagline, homepage (written conversational style) and internal pages is going to provide the foundation your ebook needs to generate more sustainable passive income for years to come.

You need a canvas to continue offering more information is sales letter style blogs.

There are an infinite amount of stories and perspectives you can use to illuminate the value of what you're offering here.

I just think you're fitting the ebook/concept into a box that isn't going to produce anywhere near the kind of conversions you want.

Your target market is far to cynical to fall for this approach.

My take.

Mark

Thanks again guys - this has been great, keep them coming!