Please critique my VERY FIRST video salesletter

by nickr8
8 replies
I've been copying sales letters by hand (as Gary Halbert recommends) to learn a little bit of copywriting.

Here is my very first VSL: http://copybuddy.com/ (it's more of a test than actually a sales letter for a product that I own)

I would really appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on it. The sales letter is 10 minutes long and I understand if you don't have time to watch it all. But feedback on the first minute would be great too.

Background information: I saw a product called CopyHour (check it out at CopyHour.com -- CopyHour.com) the VSL is basically for a clone of that product (autoresponder series of classic sales letters for you to copy out by hand). I "borrowed" some of their landing page copy for the VSL...

For those of you that that stick around all the way until minute 8:36, there's a surprise waiting for you
#critique #salesletter #video
  • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
    I got to the point where you tell prospects you'll send them copy to write out by hand.

    I was intrigued up until that point. And your "gym buddy" analogy didn't stick with me... or overcome my objections.

    I didn't watch beyond that point.

    I thought you built it up pretty well. Definitely testable. I just don't personally like the "write by hand" technique. I've done it plenty of times to reach that conclusion.

    I'm more of a talk it out... then clean it up kinda guy.

    I thought you did a good job of promising something big in the beginning. But it lost steam for me. Was that even the offer?

    Maybe with the right traffic, it'll be gold. Test.

    Mark
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    • Profile picture of the author nickr8
      Thanks for the feedback, Mark.

      Originally Posted by Mark Pescetti View Post

      I was intrigued up until that point. And your "gym buddy" analogy didn't stick with me... or overcome my objections.
      Maybe I just like that analogy because I'm a gym rat
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  • Profile picture of the author Entrecon
    So, I am paying $27 to have you e-mail me a sales letter or ad every day for a month?

    I ignore half my e-mail now, not sure how that forces me to actually do it. To use your gym analogy, how many people get a gym membership and then stop going after a couple of times?

    The problem is I don't understand, based on your sales letter, what value you are actually bringing to the table. You never tell me what your background or experience is. Granted, you have collected the sales letters, but other than that you haven't convinced me that your time is actually worth the $100 you say it is. You have to convince that you actually add value to the equation. Otherwise, I am going to go Google the guys you just mentioned, find their sales letters, and copy them by hand myself.

    I also don't care about your $30 cost for an autoresponder and other costs. Welcome to doing business. In terms of the sales letters value, I would do a better job at quantifying the value. Say that each is worth, a certain dollar amount and then multiply that out. So, each sales letter is worth, conservatively, $5000 and you are getting 30 of them making the value $150,000!
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    • Profile picture of the author nickr8
      Originally Posted by Entrecon View Post

      So, I am paying $27 to have you e-mail me a sales letter or ad every day for a month?

      I ignore half my e-mail now, not sure how that forces me to actually do it. To use your gym analogy, how many people get a gym membership and then stop going after a couple of times?

      The problem is I don't understand, based on your sales letter, what value you are actually bringing to the table. You never tell me what your background or experience is. Granted, you have collected the sales letters, but other than that you haven't convinced me that your time is actually worth the $100 you say it is. You have to convince that you actually add value to the equation. Otherwise, I am going to go Google the guys you just mentioned, find their sales letters, and copy them by hand myself.

      I also don't care about your $30 cost for an autoresponder and other costs. Welcome to doing business. In terms of the sales letters value, I would do a better job at quantifying the value. Say that each is worth, a certain dollar amount and then multiply that out. So, each sales letter is worth, conservatively, $5000 and you are getting 30 of them making the value $150,000!
      Yeah, you got it. You would basically pay for getting emails of classic sales letters.

      Yes, I guess sending emails doesn't really force people to do the exercises. But I think it would encourage people, especially if they're paying for it. In the end, you can't force anyone to do anything... they have to do it themselves.

      The value that I'm providing would be the sending of the emails.

      I like your idea of quantifying the value of each sales letter and then adding it up. Makes a lot of sense.
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  • Profile picture of the author The Copy Nazi
    Banned
    Originally Posted by nickr8 View Post

    I "borrowed" some of their landing page copy for the VSL...
    You mean you not only stole the concept but you stole whole sections of their copy. Not cool.

    The video? A drone-fest. For starters you are no voiceover guy. Your pace is too slow and too flat. That kills the pitch right there. You can get excellent V/O guys and gals from Fiverr. It will cost you around $100 for 10 minutes.

    You start by announcing it's a "Free 10-minute video". So tell me - when was the last time you paid to watch a video? Exactly. And "10-minutes" is rather long. You'd be better off describing it as "short" - which it isn't...but hey.

    Never say "Well"...that's amateur-hour.

    You use "kickass" - which is the name of Carlton's course...and as soon as I hear that I think of him. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing in this context.

    "Secret"... double yawn. And then what? the "secret" turns out to be hand-writing and swiping others copy? I don't know because I didn't get past that.

    But dude - you don't "lift" other writers copy. That's called plagiarism. You can swipe and re-deploy. But that's still being lazy.

    But the main thing is....you sure there's a market for this? I see it more as opt-in bait to build a list.
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    • Profile picture of the author nickr8
      Thanks for the feedback, Copy Nazi.
      Originally Posted by The Copy Nazi View Post

      You mean you not only stole the concept but you stole whole sections of their copy. Not cool.
      To clarify: I would never use this exact script if I was actually selling the product. I mainly did this project to get some experience actually making a VSL... like a practice assignment. If I decide to actually make it, I will definitely change the script to something original.


      Originally Posted by The Copy Nazi View Post

      The video? A drone-fest. For starters you are no voiceover guy. Your pace is too slow and too flat. That kills the pitch right there. You can get excellent V/O guys and gals from Fiverr. It will cost you around $100 for 10 minutes.
      I realize that I don't exactly have a radio voice, but I'm working on it

      Originally Posted by The Copy Nazi View Post

      But the main thing is....you sure there's a market for this? I see it more as opt-in bait to build a list.
      No, I'm not sure if there is a market for it. I think most people would just google and get the sales letters themselves... that's why I'm not really planning on creating the "product"
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      • Profile picture of the author The Copy Nazi
        Banned
        Originally Posted by nickr8 View Post

        Thanks for the feedback, Copy Nazi.
        You took it on the chin. Bravo. Have another go.

        BTW "Red" ^ is right. People will forgive shitty visuals but they won't forgive shitty audio.

        Here's a few tips for you. When you're recording... don't think of it as talking to a zillion listeners. Think of it as talking one on one with your best friend. And if you smile during the read... or start the read after you've been laughing or feeling good about something - it comes across nice and warm.

        When you come to your "hook" ... whisper it. Like this - "The big dog copywriters don't tell you this... but they have a secret. Want to know what it is? [whisper] They write in their underpants."

        That whisper is kinda like a pattern interrupt - it cuts right through and grabs ears.
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    I couldn't listen to it. You need to forget about copywriting for a few days and learn something about sound engineering. Your voice is *not* bad. It is the way you're recording and mastering your audio.

    I've been doing sound engineering for 14 years and can tell you for a fact these things matter:

    1) The audio is high-passed. There seems to be no frequencies coming in between 40-200hz. I've read a lot of research on this and my college thesis was on "The Mediated Influences Of Sound On Emotion".

    Those lower frequencies are the warmest and most organic sounds in the whole spectrum. High passed audio is known to trigger anxiety, irritability, decreased memory, loss of focus and concentration.

    So my first recommendation is to ditch your mic, and buy a studio quality condenser mic.

    2) Another serious problem. The audio sounds terribly compressed which is leading to a well known "essing effect". And since your audio is high passed, the effect is being exaggerated since the frequencies aren't balanced.

    In a professional studio, an engineer will employ a "d'esser" box. Or a virtual d'essing plugin like "waves d'esser" from waves diamond bundle package.

    Otherwise everytime someone hears an "s" sound, it goes right into the hair cells of your cochlea (inside the ear) which leads to sensorineural hearing loss.

    I'm not saying people are going to go deaf by listening to your video. What I'm saying is humans have a built in aversion to those types of sounds. Which increases the likelihood that they will leave your page. I have very sensitive ears and I could personally feel my ears tingling from it. And it was so irritating to listen to I could not get past the first 30 seconds.

    3) This is something I can't say 100% for sure unless I analyze the audio. But it sounds like there is some serious distortion & clipping going on. This could be a direct result of the mic being used, or the program you're using & your settings, or someone may have processed the sounds post recording. I don't know. But there is definitely an overdrive effect that needs to be fixed.

    A lot of copywriters don't really pay attention to sound quality. But I had to run studies on this stuff in college and got to see with my own eyes, in a controlled setting, how dramatically these things influence our emotions and ultimately our decisions.

    You'd be amazed how a properly mastered audio track can skyrocket your conversions.

    So like I said, I would get a HQ mic (like $100-$200) and read up on audio mastering. Or just get the mic, rerecord it, and send the file to me directly. I will master it properly for free, then you can split test both versions and see with your own eyes how it improves conversions.

    Even if you had the best script in the world, the perfect niche, the perfect pitch, your conversions will still be shit just because of poor audio quality.



    -RS
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