Is Video beating old fashion copywriting?

I think so, presenting yourself in the video is even better. Builds trust more.

Its just another form of delivery imo
Whether its graphics, audio, video....hell eventually maybe even holographic...or even SMELL-O-VISION!!! (lolz) old-school copywriting techniques are still behind all of it.

Flare is always changing... sales never does.

just my $0.02.
Rick

It's almost like it may seem more professional, more successful offer if their is a video...with the popularity of youtube everyone likes to watch a video...

What I've learnt from some of the biggest guys on clickbank is that the only thing that matters is the actually wordings so the actually copy whether you present it in a text format a video format doesn't really matter.

Although video is currently in some case out perfoming a standard sales letter. The number 1 thing you should focus on is getting good copy created for you and then later once you have tested the long sales letter format you can always change it to a video.

You can even run them both side by side split test them to see what converts better.

Billy

you can have the coolest looking video but if the copy sucks, the video ain't gonna convert.

Doesn't really matter if you ask me.

I'm happy with my conversion rates of plain old copy sales pages.

I can easily test variables on a plain old copy sales page.

It's not like you can change the copy inside videos very easily. Sure you can split test look and feel... Copy around the video... And whatnot. But you can't really modify the pitch to test things easily.

In tests I've done with video, video + copy usually beats just video or just copy.

All of it is effective though.

Well done video pitches ARE "old fashion copywriting".

VL

Whatever format is used, copy is still the oxygen that your marketing needs to survive and thrive.

I often skip video's because they are crap quality... It must be a combination of several advertising means.... And your video must be of top quality... Otherwise it is better not to use video advertising at all

Hi All,

This is what I have recently found when talking with my high end Clickbank clients and concerning new projects and the newest trends with our split testing...

1. Longer videos SOMETIMES convert higher... 7 minutes is the SWEET spot, if you go much over that you better have a GOOD REASON to make a person SIT there watching your pitch. (Figure about 180 words per minute for the audio, so you need about 1200 words for the video script.)

2. The attention span of your visitors is getting even shorter these days --- SO TAKE THAT INTO SERIOUS CONSIDERATION.

A client of mine recently launched a 41 minute video to the tune of $10,000 for the copy and $15,000 for the video and it BOMBED! (I was booked so he had another copywriter and video creation company do his launch -- now he wishes he had waited...)

LESSON HERE IS THIS:

Be sure of your market AND THE TONE OF YOUR VIDEO AND COPY. TEST IT WITH A SHORTER VIDEO -- ie. 5 to 7 minutes WORK ON IT UNTIL IT CONVERTS! Then if you want to put more whiz bang into it and make it longer then.. Go ahead.

But BE A SMART Marketer AND TEST A SHORT VIDEO FIRST to test response.

It is much easier to do simple TWEAKS to a short video script and revise a short video than to cut down a long boring and "dead in the water" video AFTER you spent a WAD to create it.

3. SPLIT TEST. Split test the sales letter alone, video alone and then combined.

4. SPLIT TEST AT LEAST 3 HEADLINES FOR THE VIDEO AND THE SALES LETTER AND TRY TO SPLIT TEST SENSIBLY (SO YOU KNOW IF HEADLINE # 1 IS REALLY BEATING THE OTHER 2.)

5. DON'T JUST READ THE SALES LETTER FOR THE VIDEO SCRIPT... That is SO boring... Take the sales letter and cut it down to THE ESSENTIALS and then use that as the IMPACT GETTING VIDEO SCRIPT.

6. I always test the sales letter first and work on it to boost conversions. Then when it is converting well I create the video script from it.

Make sense doesn't it? It is MUCH easier to split test a sales letter than a video...

7. Normally having a short video with the "EMOTIONAL IMPACT PARTS FROM THE SALES LETTER' works the best with the long form sales letter below.

Reason why is...

YOU WANT TO MATCH THE WAY THE VISITOR WANTS TO RECEIVE THIS INFORMATION... MESS this up and YOU LOSE sales.

People fall into 3 major groups, as far as how they like to receive information: visual, auditory and sensory.

(Now these are approximate figures here so you know...)

Visual people like to see and read the sales letter = APPROX. 70% of men are visual.

Now you can argue that Men love videos more, IT JUST DEPENDS ON IF the video engages them --- THEN, they will sit and watch it.

But men are more impatient and are quicker to click away than women are... So make sure that there is a shooting, murder or stabbing ANY catastrophic world-ending event in there somewhere... (just kidding) -- but the ACTION must keep them glued to the screen or they are gone in a flash!

Auditory people like to hear the message so will generally listen to the video as they read the sales letter. = men are about 20% auditory.

Sensory people -- they like touchy feely stuff -- they are very slow to buy and harder to convince, so they may watch and read both -- so that's the last 10% of men.

Women flip this around so they are:

Visual = 20%
Auditory = 30%
Sensory = 50%.

If you are writing copy and doing videos for Women then the format and the copy should reflect more touchy feely types of emotions...

You really have to pay attention to how the video audio sounds and how the script reader's voice evokes emotional response in the visitor -- that is critical with convincing women to buy. So spend more money to get a top-notch female or male voice, it it will be worth the extra expense!

All this makes sense doesn't it?

Anyway... Know your market.

Take some time to go and check out successful launches and use what you learn to create your own successful launch.

One thing though... PLEASE don't copy another marketer's launch. Do something UNIQUE and BE CREATIVE.

That is what will set your launch and products apart from the rest -- and GET YOU THE BIG BUCKS!

Good luck with your sales.

I'd disagree that making changes to a video is cumbersome, I've got 6 different videos testing in a split test for one site. Each variation took less than 15 minutes to create, the same kind of time you would use for HTML...

...I gotta say the reason why most of you think it is cumbersome would probably because you can't do it "Easily yourself". But if you've got the budget then video out does copy through all my tests time and time again.

The video is the medium.

The message is the copy.

The medium may be hot but if the message (copy) sucks, the purpose of having the video there is all lost.

As far as copywriting is concerned, whatever the medium today or tomorrow, the message (copy) has to adapt to it.

Two completely separate fields. Even for video, you need a good copywriter to figure out the script. So as long as language persists, and products' briefs are required by customers to make decisions, copywriting will survive.

I agree on this point.

It is Back to Basics of Copywriting. A Hot-Selling Video will definitely need a Great Copy Script.

PERIOD.

yes, for me video is much better than old fashion copywriting. however, some of netter with a slow net connection will not like video too much.

I understand the intent of the question even though it
is asked wrong. It's not video vs. copywriting, but sales
letter text vs. video. They are BOTH copywriting, just
presented in different ways.

Here's a great discussion on video sales letters:

How Ryan Deiss Writes, Produces and Publishes Video Salesletters and How You Can Do It Too « My Note Taking Nerd

-Ray Edwards