Sales Letter Question: Video, Text, or Video AND Text?

What market is this in?

It makes a difference...

Hi John! Thank you for following up with me. The target market is people who are in the considering or in the middle of a divorce.

What I have seen work well - but I don't know your market to be sure - is to have both.

BUT...

You have the VSL only on page. If somebody goes to exit the page they get a message to stay on the page and then they see the text only promo.

Hope that makes sense.

Maybe somebody who knows your market better will reply.

The "technically correct" answer would be to make all three versions and split test.

Many Clickbank product sellers have been moving towards videos over text-only sales pages, because videos apparently convert better according to their tests.

Should you use video or text? As you probably already know, some people prefer reading the presentation, while others would rather watch it. I personally enjoy the written format. However, I realize that sales could be lost for not including a video. So, what do we do?

Agora publishing addresses that question by presenting the viewer with a video that has an optional "view transcript" button imbedded into the video! Smart marketing!

Now, both the purveyor of the written word, AND the video enthusiast can be marketed to simultaneously. Agora has stated that this dual format has indeed increased the conversions.

John,
Thank you for sharing that! So basically, I would have a redirect window popup, and if they selected Stay on This Page, it would redirect them to a text-only version of the same thing?
If I take that approach, do you think it would be wise to include BOTH the video and the text, or just the text?
Do you think that’s vastly superior over showing the video, and then showing the text right beneath it automatically? Do you think that hiding the text initially really make a difference?

Curtis,
I sure wish I could do a split test. I would really like to do that in the future when resources are more abundant. Thank you for sharing what you’ve seen with Clickbank!

Outfoxed,
Thank you! That’s actually almost exactly what I’m doing. However, my text shows, by default, right beneath the video. No clicking necessary.
Do you think I’d be better off to hide the text, and require the user to click to see the text?
Do you think that hiding the text initially really make a difference?

I really appreciate each of your inputs. Thank you very much. There’s so much to learn when trying to figure out why people actually make the decision to click that buy button!

Well look, you can do the vsl and then include a downloadable transcript which the reader can skim through if he doesn't actually want to watch the video. (His internet maybe slow, he might not like video trainings, etc.).

And my suggestion for the buy button would be, to display it after the video presentation.

Now, i suggest that because of a old rule I learnt which says never be predictable.

You should never be predictable in your marketing.

Normally what happens is, people don't watch the video completely. They just click the "buy" button and first check the price. Then they decide whether to watch the video or not.

This might effect your conversions. Hence, I believe it's better to display the "buy" button after the presentation. Many top marketers also suggest the same.
Ex- Vick Strizheus.

Anyhow, another piece.

Just test stuff!!!.

Figure out yourself which works and which doesn't.

And then large scale it.

Ab

Awesome! Thanks Brian and Ab! I really appreciate the input!

So the consensus is that video is definitely better than text, and it's also better than video and text shown side-by-side.
I should show my video by itself, but have easy, yet separate, access to text for the customer who wants to read.

Re: Text delivery
Everyone seems to have different recommendations as to how to deliver the text, so I'm assuming that how the text is delivered isn't as important as making sure the text requires an additional step (e.g. a link to the text on a different page, a transcript download, a collapsible section on the page, etc.). Is that about right?

Regarding transcripts: is a basic text transcript superior than a full-blown sales page for this purpose? I currently have a full-blown sales page, which doesn't follow the video verbatim, but which looks a little flashier. Does a plain text-only transcript have advantages over something like that?

Re: Delayed buy button
It sounds like a delayed buy button is the way to go. Do you think there's a maximum period of time to wait before having the buy button appear? My VSLs are about 17-18 minutes long, and I start talking about the product as a solution to the customer's problem around 11 minutes. Would that be about the right time to bring in the sales button? Too early? Too late?

Brian,
Thank you for mentioning removing the controls. I had previously chosen not to do that because "people hate that," but I'm going to go ahead and do it. Thank you.

Ab,
That makes sense about people checking the price, and basically sizing up the value of the product before they really know what it is. That's a really good point. Thank you!

Once again, thank you, everyone, for your input. I really appreciate you all sharing your wisdom and experience with me.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Awesome! Thanks Ab! I really appreciate the advice! It looks like I have the basic concept of the product established by 13:02, so I'll pop the buy button then.

And thank you for the recommendation on testing. You're completely right, I know. Unfortunately, I'm having to launch on a super-tight shoestring budget, so I'm trying to make sure to minimize my mistakes to maximize the probability of initial success. It's not that I'm unwilling to simply engage in trial and error. It's simply a resources problem at this specific point in time, as I would think proper A-B testing would require several thousand dollars. For that reason, I'd like to have my program validate, and then reinvest revenues in testing later.

I truly appreciate your assistance, as well as everyone else's, in that effort. Thank you very much!

Brilliant Ab! Thank you! I'll do that today. That makes sense. After all, why reinvent the wheel when someone else has already figured it out?

Thank you!

Until you have enough traffic, it's pretty irrelevant. Some others posters touched upon it; testing. Figure out what's the simplest version of your page that you can get up + send traffic to ... after that work on different parts/splits and make it more complex - only AFTER you have your base rate for conversion %.

A lot of WF'ers worry about conversion rates too early in the process - before they actually have a consistent targeted traffic source AND working funnel set up.

Koncorps,

Thank you! I do think I've probably put too little into the issue of a sales funnel. I've primarily been hoping to generate some initial sales through ads and affiliates to validate the product (which I'd then like to reinvest in marketing), and then move forward from there with more developed, long-term strategies. If I understand correctly though, you would recommend starting very simple, and then building the funnel after I'm getting some traffic. Is that right?

I'd love to have amazing conversion rates out of the box, but my main concern is that I'll make a simple or stupid mistake and I won't have any conversions, thus failing to validate. I'm not sure if that's a rational concern or not. So I'm really okay with having sub-optimal conversion rates, as long as I give my product a fair shot at validating. Does that make sense?

Thank you again for sharing your expertise! I really appreciate you all helping me to grow!

Tom, go with text, first. Why?

1. You'll be able to test/perfect your copy quickly and inexpensively.

2. Your message will be mobile-friendly. Which is the vast majority of today's (cheap) traffic.

3. Conversions of text-only pages have been making a strong comeback over the last nine months.

4. Your message will work regardless of the traffic channel or device.

Sure, video can crush it. But odds are as someone inexperienced, you'll spend a ton of time and money course correcting your video into a winning offer.

Good luck!

- Rick Duris

Rick,
Thank you! Those are all really, really good points! And because I’m bootstrapping, playing around and testing with video could run down my finite resources really quickly.
I have a video made already. What would you think of having both a video and text on the same page? Do you think that would be an improvement over text only, or do you think that the video could actually detract from the text itself?

Sean,
Thank you for sharing that! The test is a good idea, and I could probably run that without spending a lot of extra money. I could also watch bounce rates and time on page to see whether people are even seeing the button. I have been very concerned that people might leave before the button appears, or that I might basically talk myself out of a sale by delaying the customer’s opportunity to buy.

Everyone,
Thank you for sharing all perspectives on this. I really appreciate having thoughts from both sides of the fence on these issues. It seems like the real trick is going to be to make some initial sales, and then reinvest the money in proper testing to see what works best with my specific site. I was kind of afraid that would be the case, but it really makes perfect sense. Hopefully, I’ll be able to land a few sales, and then I can test and tweak from there!
Once again, thank you to everyone for sharing so much information with me. It’s tough to know what to do when starting something new, and I’m really grateful to have everyone here to share experiences and thoughts with me. Thank you!

Rick,

You made a great point, and you made it very, very well. Thank you very much for sharing that with me! I think you're probably right, and I'm probably obsessing a bit much over things too early. These should probably be issues that I deal with later in an effort to perfect my sales, once I have a baseline to deal with.

The Copy Nazi,

Thank you! How much traffic would you think I’d need to generate to run a proper test? I think generating the clicks is where my costs will really add up.