How To Write Salescopy For Video Salesletters In 11 Easy Steps

October 12, 2011 0 Comments

Video salesletters are everywhere. The reason is pretty simple…they are highly effective and they work! We use them in lots of our niche sites and they work wonderfully. We’ve done alot of testing with them in regards to a bunch of things:

Video by itself or with other copy?

If with copy, how much copy and what kind?

Do we delay the BUY button or show it right away?

What kind of video? The kind with just sentences in which the narrator just reads along, or the kind with lots of graphics and stuff?

Video length?

These are just some of the things you can test. However, if you have never used a video salesletter yet, don’t worry about this stuff yet. First thing is just get one up and see how it does as compared to your long form salesletter. A long form salesletter is your usual type of salesletter with all text that is very long with price at the bottom.

If you test out a video salesletter and it outperforms your long form salesletter, you can start tweaking and testing more with the stuff I mentioned above. If you are having doubts about trying them out, you shouldn’t. It really takes no time at all to whip out a decent video salespage.

If you have salescopy already, just follow these steps I have outlined below. Once you have the copy, just make the video. If you need help, just optin to this mailing list here where we give a few video tutorials on how to not only create the salescopy, but also how to make the video as well. Some of the stuff in this post in repeated in the first video, but I got into alot more detail on the video series and I provide a bunch of live examples of stuff we’ve done. Plus like I said you learn how to actually make the video as well.

With all that said, let me break down for you the 11 steps we go through when creating the copy for the video. If you hate writing copy or never have before, you’ll be glad to know that in alot of ways writing copy for a video is much easier than for a long form salespage. Just break it down into these steps:

Step 1: The Introduction

This introduction needs to grab the attention of the view right away. It has to say BOOM WATCH ME AND DON’T GO AWAY. You need to engage them immediately to prevent them from closing out the page or clicking the BACK button. You want to make sure you are going engaged enough to want to watch the whole video.

If your traffic is at least semi-targeted and your intro is even slightly compelling, you shouldn’t have any problems with this. But this part is important! A huge majority of people lose their viewers within the first 10 seconds.

It should demonstrate why they are there, and what they are going to get by watching the video. And it needs to be different from anything else they might have watched before on the subject. Get creative here!

Step 2: State The Problem

Next up is the problem, and here you want to show the problem that the visitor is facing, as that is why they are there in the first place. This one is generally pretty easy. What problem is your product solving? Remind them they have this problem, and that is why they are there watching the video in the first place.

Step 3: Scarcity/Urgency For The Video

In this step, you want your viewer to feel like they must watch the video right now and and today, instead of coming back later to watch the video. Lots of marketers do this by saying that the video won’t be up for long so they should watch it while it’s still available. Of course, whenever I’ve seen this done the video remains up. So how you communicate some sense of urgency is up to you.

Step 4: State The Problem Again/Push Some “Hot-Buttons”

Discuss the problem some more and push their hot buttons. You want to really get into the problem they are facing, and get into the dirt of it. Let’s face it – if someone really does have a problem, and they are looking for your product to provide for them the solution – sometimes it takes brutal honestly to get someone to take some action.

And if your product really will help them, and you believe in your product and it’s ability to do so, then this needs to be done. It’s called marketing! You need to get to the point in this section of your content. Really hit those emotional buttons that you know the prospect thinks about.

Step 5: Introduce The Solution And Discuss Benefits

After hitting those hot buttons, it’s time to discuss the solution, which is your product. It’s a good idea to show a picture or e-cover of the product here. Get one made for 5 bucks over at fiverr if you want. Give them the benefits of the product, and how it will change their situation and solve their problem. Really get those benefits out there.

Step 6: Talk About Features

After you throw out the benefits you can start talking about the product features, and again reinforce those benefits. Talk about how these features will lead to certain benefits for them that will improve their situation. Here is the difference between benefits and features…let’s say your product is a fitness program for men:

Feature: 10 little-known exercises for your chest

Benefit: Builds your chest and chest muscles

And another:

Feature: 10 different easy-to-cook meals for breakfast

Benefit: Lose fat from your belly

Step 7: Testimonials And Social Proof

Next you want to get into testimonials and proof that your product will solve their problem. Here you can show before and after pics, emails from people who have benefited from using your product, etc. You really want to hit a home run with your proof that your product will solve their problem, don’t be shy with it.

For more info on social proof check out this article. The author gives a nice definition and good information.

Step 8: State The Guarantee

Now it’s time for you to get into your guarantee. The guarantee serves to help relieve any doubt the visitor has about buying. It gives them some reassurance that if they buy the product and don’t like it, they can get their money back. It’s something that most people selling online do.

People are in general very skeptical when it comes to buying stuff online, so we want to eliminate the risk, and answer the question every potential buyer asks themselves, which is “What IF it doesn’t work?”

If you have a very good reputation and have alot of social proof, you might be able to get away with not giving a guarantee. I know some marketers who are 100% upfront about what their product is and tells the audience EXACTLY what it does. Their philosophy is if they visitor knows exactly what they are buying, they don’t need a guarantee. Or if you are selling a service, it can be difficult to give a guarantee.

The choice of course is yours, unless you are bound to a guarantee if you sell your product on Clickbank for example. They require you to give a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Step 9: Give Bonus/Increase Value Of Offer

Your bonuses should be as valuable as possible and relate to your product. Better yet, make your bonuses valuable enough to be it’s own product. Remember, if you are in the “IM niche” you may think that bonuses are overdone, but the fact is that people love bonuses. I get emailed all the time from people talking about bonuses we offer, or from people who cannot access the bonuses. They work. Try different ones, see what kind of response you get. Experiment and test with them as necessary.

And remember…don’t just add any bonuses to increase the offer. Make sure they are directly related to your product.

Step 10: Scarcity/Urgency

Next you should get into the scarcity of the product, if any. For example if you are going to sell only 500 units, make that clear. If you are selling a coaching program and can only handle 50 clients, make that perfectly clear. If you don’t have any limits on the product, put a time limit on the current offer with a price increase when it expires. This does a great job to create urgency.

Step 11: Present The Call To Action (And Make Those Monies!)

Finally, it’s time for the call to action. This is where most often times if you are delaying showing your buy button, you will present the buy button next to or in most cases right below the video.

And that’s it!

I mentioned some questions at the beginning of this post, questions that we are still always answering. I just wanted to mention them again briefly, and give you our “answer” as to what is working well now. It’s always changing, and it really depends on the niche/offer/100 other factors, but this is what we are doing now:

Video by itself or with other copy?

We are putting additional copy with the video in most cases. Not a huge, long salesletter by any means. Most of it is benefits and testimonials.

If with copy, how much copy and what kind?

Like I said, most of the additional copy is some benefits and a few testimonials. Maybe an FAQ section. Maybe the bonuses and guarantee mentioned as well.

Do we delay the BUY button or show it right away?

We do both really. This one is tough, and really depends on the product and niche.

What kind of video? The kind with just sentences in which the narrator just reads along, or the kind with lots of graphics and stuff?

Again, we do both. But more of our videos are JUST sentences with the narrator reading along.

Video length?

Most of our videos are about 15-20 minutes in length.

So, there you go. Easy right? Just take it a step at a time. And as I mentioned in the beginning of the post, to get more detailed information on this as well as steps on actually making the video as well, just optin here and we’ll send you the videos.

Question? Comments? Throw ‘em down!

Do you use video salesletter yet? What’s keeping you from using them? Let me know!