I think my sales letter is great. You?

Gerard,

Good job. Refreshing to see something that's well-written for a change.

I would replace the headline with your first bullet point. Or at least a version of it. You have Kill the cheesy "NEW" for starters. Try this -


Even that can be improved but you get the idea. Then follow with some "deck" copy - that qualifies the head.

Some other stuff needs to be rearranged as well.

Oh yeah - a killer "p.s" wouldn't go astray either.

You are cool Copy Nazi. Thanks for your comments. Helpful.

When I saw the title of your post and that The Copy Nazi had responded, I feared you were in for one hell of a verbal smackdown.

But your letter is...quite good.

It looks like you could be a darn good copywriter, if you wanted to be. Ever thought about it?

I think your headline is wordy and lacks emotional power.

Seems like you tried to add a bunch of adjectives instead of trying to add substance. First know what you want to say, then say it.

Adding on more words doesn't make someone a better copywriter. Good writing comes from clarity, first know what you want to say, then say it with force and clarity.

It appears to be well-organized. I just have one question. Is this supposed to be a sales letter or a manual? However, it appears for the most part to explain what you want to explain.

I completely agree with Maximus, the headline has about 4 too many adjectives than necessary, it makes it tough to read. I think it was John Carlton who said that writers who don't know what they're trying to say use adjectives as a replacement.

When I read headlines with too many adjectives, it's like saying "the greatest, best, most awesome, incredible, super-duper, amazing product ever!

In other words, each extra adjective reduces trust, believability, etc

When I'm stuck coming up with headlines, I take a look at other top-notch headlines as inspiration.

I once used "Do You Make These Mistakes in English" on a bodybuilding
site as "Do You Make These Mistakes When Trying to Build Muscle" and it pulled very well.

you can almost never go wrong with Rosetta Stones "The Fastest and Easiest Way to ________ Guaranteed"

visit some of agora's financial letters for inspiration... they're you'll find the world's highest paid writers and their headlines.

but yes, headline way too heavy on adjectives, just try and be clear and specific as to what your huge, big promise and benefit is, and write that.

I've moved the headline discussion to a new post:

Can't post a link, but it's titled "Rate my headlines"

partial link URL:

warriorforum.com/copywriting-forum/622678-rate-my-headlines-best-if-any.html#post6474857


Gerard

hey gerardlr,

I love the fact that you're spending so much time on the headline... because honestly,
it's the one thing in your copy that makes the most difference. I've changed a headline on my site once that literally quadrupled my conversion rate.

So you're VERY smart for hammering this home.... and for listening to us try to help. It shows me you're motivated and more importantly, you want to get it right.

The main difference between the headline on my copy site your headline is mostly that mine is verbs, yours is adjectives. so I'm trying to describe end result benefits using action verbs...whereas you're using mostly adjectives to still describe that ONE newsletter.

All those words you list, they are all still talking about that one financial newsletter. But with mine, I'm not putting adjectives in there, I'm putting in verbs and end result benefits.

Believe me, adjectives are fine... but just don't go overboard. They're just so overworked and so "yesterday"

Now, I am a fan of putting multiple verbs in a headline... I think Carlton said he likes to use 3 verbs in his headline... in other words... "Here's the Fastest and Easiest Way to Attract More Clients, Increase Your Profits, and Improve your Cash Flow"

so how there are 3 actions there and NOT 3 adjectives. makes a huge difference.

when you give a prospect 3 benefits they can do, that's powerful. but if your letter has 3 adjectives all describing the same newsletter, it just appears amateurish.

whatever you do, gerardlr, don't confuse MORE with being better. you're always better using fewer, more specific and very clear words instead of a long headline.

i know you want to include all your feature/benefits... and you want to showcase everything your product does... but it can go overboard very quick.

you only need to hook them into the copy, you're not selling the entire thing with the headline alone.

so make your headline just short, sweet, but overwhelmingly powerful with a huge benefit and promise, maybe a specific timeframe, and an emotional benefit as well.

again, if you look at agora financial letters, you'll never, ever see headlines that use more than one or two adjectives.

like everything else in life, sometimes LESS is more, and that's so true when it comes to trying to communicate a message to someone.

hope his helps, but most of all, great job, gerardlr, focusing on headlines... if you keep doing that, you'll succeed a lot faster than most.

first, i'm no writer... but... i looked it over and glanced at it... it was SO cluttered with crap, i couldn't even read it.

to me, it was confusing and difficult to read.

but hey, if you guys say the copy is good...

gerardlr,

testing is the ONLY idea ;-)

I'm gonna give away a little trade secret of mine.

If I'm torn between 2 or more headlines... and i want
to speed up my testing process because my letter hasn't gone live yet,
what i'll do is try to fit my headline ideas into google ads...and I'll see which
ad gets the highest click through rate.

i learned this from reading tim ferris The 4 hour workweek where he used it to
find the title to his book.

well, i read that one day and thought... well heck, why can't i use that to see which
headlines would resonate with my audience.

it's tough, but you can usually separate and fit enough of your headline into an adwords
ad... and just test a few and see which gets the highest clickthrough rate.

that might be a good headline to go with... the one with the highest clickthrough rate.

A really good attempt as compared to many I've
seen lol

Firstly I can't judge whether the copy will succeed
unless you place it under testing conditions and
report a split-test, but what I can first say here is
that the whole copy doesn't seem to "string"
together.

You need to set a theme. A big theme which "sews"
all of these fragments together.

Secondly, your piece is a little disorientating
because the rhythm is weird and "sliced off". I kind
of think that the whole copy is composed of a few
articles instead of one seamless copy that surges
the reader forward with as few speed bumps as
possible.

For example, when you use bullets, you suddenly
cut them off and proceed on with the text. What
some copywriters do, like John Carlton, is do what
I call a "seamless bullet"...

1. The first bullet may be explosive, blind but
obviously must carry the biggest impact, because
that's what you want the scanners to see
immediately...

2. And then you nail them with a successive
"punch" (and fling them over your shoulder in a
continuous motion)...

3. But the most important thing that you should
really do...

Is Do the Seamless Bullet!

The seamless bullet goes something like this, but
of course, if you look back at Carlton's pieces, he
does illustrate several ways you can do it.

Plus - besides the bulleting, the subheads seem to
be like a "fence" instead of an "eyeball-grabber"
for the scanners.

Well, thirdly, it kind of ties in with the main theme.
I would go for an "emotion" headline instead of a
straight benefit, unless you're definitely sure that
it's going to grab them in the nuts (or eyeballs)!

Track records? Proof elements? (other than social
proof)

Well, it depends on your customer really. We might
all be wrong.

Winston Tian

It's not advanced really...Let's see if I can explain
this less confusingly.

Your subheads:
-- missing the boat
-- story of transformation (case)
-- why a good newsletter matters
-- 3 newsletter mistakes
-- 9 newsletter benefits
-- stimulating benefit
-- reveal solution

Instead of one full sales letter that is going by one
central theme, you're making the whole sales copy
seem like multiple themes, and that every subhead
is one title of a different article.

Your whole copy should really be one theme, and
your subheads are like "amplifiers" to give the
Readers a breather, and to yank the Scanners in.

Doing this gives you several benefits, like...

-- You're able to create a gradual build up, from
qualification to empathy...And then start
pre-selling and preparing your prospect for a
solution through agitation...

-- You can then start piling up value by stacking
benefits... (and this is where desire explodes,
following the AIDA principle)

-- And finally, when you end with a strong "close",
it ties back to the central theme...

And shazam!... Your reader has gone through
a filter qualifying him, consoling him, agitating him,
stimulating his desire and finally making him take a
leap of faith...

All from one "big" theme.

Winston Tian

You got enough info on headlines but the following bullets I personally think is where you crash...

Get the top 2 or 3 bullets that you know your prospects find the most valuable and tie them together to make a much clearer and specific deck copy.



David

That's a seriously well-written letter. In the pre-body subhead, it would be good if you could rewrite the bullet points and ditch using the word "newsletter" so often.

It's rather good.

Are you using the system from "The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach" by Clayton Makepeace?

To me, everything from the top of the page to the "from the desk of...":

1. reads bad.

2. smells like you typical marketing BS. I know im not your target audience but that whole section screams "look at how fancy my sales talk is". You don't need all that pushy crap, it turns people away.

I think you could take all that out. Then rewrite a simple attention grabbing headline that leads into your first paragraph. Your sales letter reads like an information letter so make it appear that way. Other than that I think your sales letter is pretty good. Didn't read all of it, but you do a good job with the sub headers.

Hi:
I have a few thoughts that I would like to share with you.

1. Have you done an in depth persona on your target customer

2. Have you done an in depth analysis of your product (your service is a product)
if not be sure to do these and take lots of notes. It will help with your copy.

What is the problem that your audience is experiencing?

Where is the emotion does this problem evoke? Have you conveyed it in your copy? I notice that you mention "nervous and edgy". What is the main emotion that your audience is feeling? Is it frustration?

Your headline should speak to your audience about the problem, the emotion, and the solution.

Now take the identified emotion and choose bullets that tie in to that emotion. Bullets should detail the features of your product. How do those features relieve the uncomfortable emotions or the problem that your audience is experiencing? (what is the benefit?). Here is an excerpt from my book Crank Out Copy That Sells:

"To begin to craft your bullets write down all of the features of your product. The features of a product are the physical characteristics or what it is. To begin you want to take the list of features and rank them in order from the most important, to the least important. This might be tough to do, but it will help to remember your target audience and make your best guess as to which features are most important to them. Now take each feature and describe what it does for the reader. This is the benefit. Benefit statements should have two prongs. First you want the benefit and then you want to enhance that benefit by reminding your prospect about the pain that their problem causes. The formula
looks something like this:

Benefits (Emotions) + Features (Logical Justification) = Sales

When writing bullets you must keep the problem in mind. The benefits must make a promise to the reader by solving the problem, and the features justify the purchase. You want to begin with the most important benefit of your product and then address the other benefits in order of importance." (that is why it is so important to do an analysis (on paper) of your own product).

Brevity + Promise

"you should try to keep your benefit statement brief. Bullets are supposed to condense the information for the reader and long bullets defeat that. Seven words is a good number. This forces you to be direct and punchy and your benefits have more impact."

This will tie your sales letter together. Ideally, your headline combined with your bullet points flow together in a logical sequence that when read by themselves gives your reader the complete message that you wish to convey.


Take out the bullets under the headline. You want you hook to come right after the headline. This is the opening paragraph and should instantly grab the reader and make them want to read more. An interesting and compelling fact makes a great opener as does using fear by implying that the reader is making some type of mistake.

Remove this from the callout portion of your headline:
"in no extra time, with no cold calls, with no advertising, with no ‘networking" this needs to either be deleted entirely or crafted into the bullets as a benefit.

Finally, your call to action at the end needs to be more compelling and stronger. Why should they act now? If you only have 100 spots available, put it in your call to action. Tell them " Act Now! Only 100 spots available" What is your strongest pulling card? The potential price increase or the scarcity? Put your most important in the call to to action.

These are just a few things that I saw during a quick skim on your letter. You have some great ideas and content. Just polish it and refine it some more. Hope this gets you going again.