The VSL jerk
Published: Wed, 06/16/21
"video sales letters always out convert text sales letters."
Is that right, Spanky-boo?
I think not.
Yes, VSL's might multiply your sales through the roof.
Some do, and some don’t.
But, anyone saying they are "always" better is either lying to you, selling "how to create VSL" products or services, or is simply ignorant.
Example?
All right, how about these mangoes:
Many suns ago I wrote a sales letter for a manual called "Magnetic Sponsoring". When hanging at the "No Excuses Summit" in Vegas a few years ago to speak/train the nubile marketing minds attending about email marketing, I got to talking to the guys who run the business that sold that book. And they told me that sales letter, some 7 years later at the time (they long since discontinued that product line, I am told), was still chugging along, kicking butt, nearly unchanged -- and had racked up a multi-million dollar sale count over the years. Not to mention the tens of millions in sales generated on the back end as a result of the initial front end sales of that manual to the extent my sales copy was responsible for those initial sales.
Naturally, their team was always trying to make it convert better.
And, one of the things they’d done is test a VSL against it.
The result?
My "plain Jane" text sales letter handily beat the VSL.
And that's just one (of many) examples.
So to all the VSL fanboys out there:
Stifle.
There is no one-size-fits-all anything.
More:
This is the beauty of email.
I have found in many cases if you do email the way I command, to a warm list at least... it oftentimes doesn't matter nearly as much what sales letter format you use. In fact, my pal Jim Yaghi has told me repeatedly he used my email methodology to send people to a plain order form and still make lots of sales. And when we partnered in the weight loss niche, we could never get one format to pull better than the other -- presumably because the emails were doing the bulk of the selling to our warm list.
No, I'm not saying forget video or print sales letters.
I'm saying email can do a lot of the heavy lifting.
And, is perfect for people who hate writing long offers.
To learn my email methodology, read the *text* letter here:
https://www.EmailPlayers.com
Ben Settle
P.S. As far as long form sales copy goes…
Tomorrow I am having a sale on my Copy Slacker book. It’s already quite pricey, but I am giving it a long overdue price raise after the sale is over.