3 Secrets to Writing ‘Winning’ Copywriting Proposals that Turn $100 Mini Projects into $10,000 Monster Gigs

A strong copywriting proposal can both win and increase the size of a gig

You get an email from a potential client asking for a web page.

You’re smart.

You don’t instantly email back with a price and a delivery date. That would be stupid.

Instead, you do some digging.

You ask:

…what action do you want visitors to take?

…what’s the traffic source?

…what’s your current conversion rate?

…what does your sales funnel look like?

Yadda, yadda.

They email you back – “What’s a sales funnel?”

Your eyes light up.

You have the chance to turn a one off project into a monster gig (and pocket a tidy sum in the process).

But…

First you have to convince them WHY they need a sales funnel and HOW it will generate profits many times over the fee you’re about to charge them (which has a couple more zeros than they’d budgeted for).

You can do it by submitting a copywriting proposal featuring these 3 key elements:

1. Strategy – Business owners aren’t always savvy marketers. They need some hand holding. Rather than talk about word counts, explain how the web page forms part of a larger strategy for taking visitors from curious to convinced and ready to buy.

2. List ALL the deliverables – Sales funnels have a LOT of components. This can include lead magnets, registration pages, webinar scripts, VSL production, ‘sideways sales letter’ email sequences, upsell pages and Facebook ads. There’s also background research, competitor analysis and an audit of their current progress and assets. List every single deliverable in your proposal.

3. Talk about revenue goals, rather than conversions – Clients could care less about CTR, time on site and ‘engagement’. All that matters is revenue. Present an estimate of how your strategy can increase their existing sales and profits using conservative numbers (e.g. 1-2% conversions). Always under promise and over deliver.

Building a proposal around these three elements will positions you as a valued consultant and a profit generator, rather than just a vendor of words.

This naturally entitles you to charge more for your services as you can justify your fee in terms of solid ROI.

The next time someone emails you to write a press release, web page or an email, consider how you can expand it into a bigger gig by setting a more ambitious target for what your client can achieve.

If you do implement these elements in a copywriting proposal, let me know how you get on.

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2 Easy Ways to Make Leads More Profitable (without Spending an Extra Cent on Traffic)

Have your lead costs gone up to $10 yet?

Advertising is getting darned expensive.

If the rumours are true, heavyweights like Clickfunnels and Digital Marketer now spend $10 just on getting a LEAD.

That’s right, a LEAD, not a sale.

With millions of marketers ploughing their ad budget into Facebook and Instagram, click costs are getting out of control. This is why it is your duty to wring every last cent from every lead, if you are to have any hope of making your campaigns profitable.

Thankfully, there are lot of tweaks, hacks and tactics you can apply which most of your competitors are ignoring (or don’t know about).

For starters, here are 2 easy ways of increasing the ROI on every lead that swims its way into your sales funnel:

1. How to convert more opt-ins into subscribers

Most marketers agonize over their landing page copy, the bullets and how they frame the offer.

But they’re ignoring where the biggest uplift in response is to be found. And that’s getting people to confirm their registration.

It sounds so simple, yet most marketers completely ignore what happens after people enter their email address, thinking all the hard work is done.

But the hard truth is this: about 4 people out of 10 people who opt-in NEVER confirm.

That’s right!

About 40% of ad spend is being completely WASTED simply because people never opened the email and clicked the confirmation link.

So what can you do?

A great way of rocketing your confirmations is to record a short VIDEO, instead of relying on the boiler plate email copy.

In the video, thank them for signing up, remind them about the benefits they’ll gain from registering and then tell them exactly what to do to confirm their registration.

Now, I know many people will have stopped reading when I mentioned the V word.

Us copywriters are introverted types.

We’d rather complete our tax return then go on camera.

I get it. So consider recording a simple slideshow using Camtasia and speak over the top. You can even hire someone off Fiverr to record the voice over.

However you do it, recording a short video asking people to click the confirmation link is one of the most powerful ways of driving up the profits of every campaign.

2. Getting people to complete their checkout

Reading stats on cart abandonment will make even the most hardened e-commerce warrior put down their mouse and weep.

Across industries, the average cart abandonment rate is a migraine inducing 67.4% (source – http://ift.tt/NLx4mU).

In other words…

Even after your lead has read through your onboarding email sequence…

sat through the 90 minute webinar…

read the sales copy and nodded their head sagely before clicking the purchase link…

in 7 out of 10 cases something goes WRONG.

Maybe they get a Whatsapp ping, the doorbell rings, the kids start playing up or they suddenly remember to put the washing on.

The list of possible distractions and reasons why people don’t complete is endless. And they are all out of your control.

They only thing you can control is the checkout page.

So it is your duty to invest as much time, if not more, on creating the smoothest, clearest most checkout sequence possible.

Just a small change – like a graphical progress bar – could lead to getting 1 or 2 more people out of 10 converting. This, again, can trigger a MASSIVE jump in your profits.

Luckily, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Analyze how your competitors or Amazon does it. And see where your checkout process is falling short.

Small hinges swing big doors

These are just two small changes you can make to your funnel that can rocket your conversions and maximise the ROI of your ad spend.

Even better is that when you iron out the chinks in your funnel, you can look forward to predictable, reliable results, consistent reductions in your lead costs and more PROFIT from every visitor to your offer page.

Put simply, you can make MORE money from ZERO extra traffic. So it is your duty to your business’s profitability and future success that tighten and tweak your sales funnel until it is a slick, sales pipeline that

Attribution – This post’s content comes from a training webinar in David Garfunkel’s Fast, Effective Copy (affiliate link) I’ve only mentioned 2 of the 3 ways to claw back profits they covered. So if you want to know what the third one is, you’ll have to sign up for the course. I’ve been working my way through it over the last few months, and I believe that its volume of top tier strategic thinking makes it an investment that pays for itself many times over, whether you’re a newbie copywriter or a grizzled veteran.

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Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘4 Iron Clad Rules’ of Persuasive Copywriting

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy, than an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” – Sir Winston Churchill, 2 November 1949, Grosvenor House, London

Sir Winston Churchill is famed for being the ‘British Bulldog’ whose speeches galvanized a nation against seemingly insurmountable odds.

He was also a writing workhorse. Over his lifetime, he wrote more words than Dickens and Shakespeare combined. His published speeches stretch to eighteen volumes, while his memos and letters run into the millions and fill over 2,500 boxes. He even won a Nobel Prize for his writing, much to the chagrin of his critics.

Although Winston Churchill was a writer of historical non-fiction, he’d no doubt have a few droll words to share on what it takes to be a top copy dog.

Here are four rules I believe he’d have drilled into any copy cub lucky enough to have him as a mentor:

1. Spend two thirds of your time on research and one third on writing

Describing the internet to someone in the 1930s would have sounded like the ravings of a mad fantasist. Yet, as one of the first people to fly a plane, Churchill would have been enthralled.

He had a contemporary equivalent he called his ‘factory’. It consisted of a cavernous library of 60,000 leather bound books and a small army of researchers, secretaries and literary assistants. With a few barked commands, he’d send them scurrying down to search for facts or texts, in the manner of his own rudimentary search engine.

After handing over their findings, Churchill would absorb them into his elephantine brain to be processed and his thoughts verbalized in concise, lucid prose. His dictation sessions could last an entire day and late into to the night, when he’d continue to reflect while sat, naked, in a bath.

My takeaway:

Without enough research, your copy will fall flat. Unless you understand the market inside out and your reader better than they know themselves, your copy is unlikely to create a deep emotional yearning in their gut.

Conversely, when you do enough research the writing part is easy. The challenge is then keeping the word count down rather than knowing what to say.

2. Review your copy three times before you publish

Churchill’s writing process had three stages.

First his typists got his spoken thoughts on paper. Then he’d go through the text with a fountain pen to cross out dull sections, rephrase clumsy syntax and, as a beholder of brevity, replace long words with shorter versions.

He’d then have the whole thing typed out again to be reviewed a third or forth time before he’d deem it worthy to be sent to the printers.

My takeaway:

After completing the ‘ugly’ first draft, we’re blind to our own writing. The only way to be able to spot typos, mixed metaphors and clunky phrases is to go through a ‘gestation’ period.

This is like rebooting your brain from the head space you were in when writing. Wait at least one day. Or go for a walk, watch a movie or clean the bathroom. Do anything to take your mind elsewhere.

Then when you sit down to polish, you can assess your copy with fresh eyes and review it from the reader’s perspective.

3. Write how you talk and put the reader first

In an era when people wrote post it notes like it was a job application, Churchill’s writing stood out for its ‘lucid self expression’ and ‘rich and rollicking readability’.

He wrote with crisp, punchy sentences that took readers racing down the page. His writing style may not have won him admirers in literary circles. But the public loved it. And he got paid handsomely for it too.

My takeaway:

Top copywriter Nick Usborne posts a lot about conversational copywriting (he’s even got a course on it), and for good reason.

Underneath their power suit, even hard nosed business types have a beating heart. And a new generation of marketing managers is ready to embrace the benefits of copy that speaks to their prospects as individuals with challenges to solve, rather than someone you have to impress with superlatives and sales speak.

4. Be trustworthy

Churchill often wrote from the front lines and wasn’t shy about exposing the horrors of war. He’d write about the machine gunned corpses and men without legs crawling to the Nile because they were dying of thirst as well as the bravery of cavalry charges.

This was at a time when politicians were eager for war to be glamorized as noble and heroic. His brutal honesty won him few friends in the military. But readers trusted him to pull back the curtain, as it was said that Churchill ‘cannot really tell lies.’

My takeaway:

In this era of ‘fake news’ and militant cynicism, you have to start every page as though the reader is staring across the table from you with a furrowed brow.

So consider how you can add a trust element to everything you write. Point out your product’s faults (while subtly turning them into an advantage). Explain who your product is NOT for and call out the lies told in your marketplace.

A show of brutal honesty will help position you on the same side as your reader against a common foe, and build trust that you have their interests at heart.

Who inspires you to write better copy?

These were just four rules I noted down while reading about Churchill. I could easily have written down 20 more.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that Churchill’s attitude to writing reinforces that tactics come and go. But the fundamentals of clear, persuasive writing never change. So consider replacing some of the time you spend in Facebook groups and forums with re-reading the classics. You’ll find more gold in Hopkins, Caples and Schwartz than hours spent panning in most threads.

Who inspires you to set higher standards for yourself as a copywriter? I’d love to know.

N.B. This post was inspired by ‘The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History’ by Boris Johnson (yes, that Boris Johnson)

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8 Ways to Spice Up Stories About Your Product

“Grab a cushion and gather round. I have a story to tell.”

Everyone has fond memories of story time as kids. And the love of a good tale, of heroes, villains and victory against the odds, never dies.

For this reason, stories are marketing gold.

They swoop under people’s anti-sales radar to deliver a payload of emotion, aspiration and desire in one concisely worded hamper.

And you don’t need the creativity of Tolstoy or Hemingway to write them.

A story can be as simple as:

• The challenge – what problem did the hero face?
• The struggle – what did they have to overcome on their journey?
• The resolution – what was the solution they found?
• The result – what victory did they achieve?

To spice things up, consider using one of these plot devices:

1.Surprise – Tell a story that challenges your reader’s preconceptions. Tell them something that goes against the status quo. Tip over the sacred cows and reveal why they’ve been misled by the powers that be all along.

2. Create curiosity gaps – This works great for email. Reveal enough information to make the reader realize they are missing a vital piece of knowledge. Then explain how to get it by checking their inbox tomorrow, visiting your website or buying your info product.

3. Create mysteries or puzzles – People love a good mystery. It’s why detective novels are one of the most popular genres and people went nuts over The Da Vinci Code. You can harness the same appeal by slowly solving a mystery over the course of your communications.

4. Make it trustworthy – In this era of fake news, distrust of the MSM and marketers respected as highly as car salesmen, we start at -10 on the trustometer when someone reads our sales message. So consider how you can build trust through the language you use. Instead of ‘smash and grab’ tactics of exaggeration and unsupported claims, pepper your story with concrete figures, referenced stats and quotes to cement your story in reality.

5. Create a springboard – People love a good yarn about someone who struggled to overcome a problem before succeeding and moving onto bigger, brighter things. People can relate to ‘springboard stories’ much better than a fawning testimonial or back slapping self praise in a corporate brochure.

6. Replace stats with meaningful examples – Rather than tell people how much sugar they eat per week in processed food, fill a bag with the stuff and describe its size and the thud it makes when dropped on a table.

7. Tap into their identities – People respond better to stories in which they see themselves. An advertising company needed to convince people in Texas to stop throwing their litter from the car window. So they fed on people’s affection for their state’s identity by telling stories involving local sporting heroes with the slogan ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’. Littering plummeted as a result.

8. Inspire them to conquer a challenge – JFK’s pledge to land a man on the moon inspired a nation to embark on a decade of work and unforgettable success. Consider setting your reader a goal and a vision for the future, which they can only achieve with product.

The next time you’re tasked with writing a press release, email sequence or case study, consider turning it into a story. In a world awash with mediocre ‘BUY ME’ marketing, stories can hook people in at deeper level and more inclined to make the relationship monetary.

P.S. This post was inspired by ‘Made to Stick’ by Chip and Dan Heath

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Would You Love to Earn $1,500 for a SINGLE Email? Find out how in the 80/20 Email Copy Course

Ryan Deiss calls his the ‘Invisible Selling Machine’. Andre Chaperone has his ‘Soap Opera Sequence’, while Jeff Walker named his the ‘Sideways Sales Letter’.

What am I talking about?

Email marketing of course.

Forget social media. Email continues to be the sales channel with the highest ROI. And for us copywriters the upfront cost to launch a campaign is ZERO, allowing us to pocket more of the juicy profits.

All you need to do is create a lead magnet, write an autoresponder sequence, run some ads et Voila! Muchos gold coins in the money vault.

If only life were that simple…

For your email campaign to succeed you need to know:

• How to write subject lines that get above 20% open rate (and that’s being generous compared to what many marketers get).
• How to structure emails so people LOVE reading them and inspire them to take action (hint: you need to offer more than reveal 7 ways to do X).
• How to link the emails together so people read the ENTIRE sequence, and not just dip in and out.

And (most importantly of all)…

How do you SELL stuff without feeling guilty about it..

Without shredding your list…

And without getting flagged for spam and your Mailchimp account shut down faster than lightning strikes the tree?

Well, you could work out how to solve all these money blocking challenges for yourself.

You could commit your own time and money to testing 100s (if not 1,000s) of subject lines, writing and rewriting emails to get the tiniest lift in CTR and going bald wondering why no one is buying.

But these are challenges that stop 99% of copywriters and marketers from making the big bucks. Otherwise we’d all be millionaires, right?

OR…

You could gain the subject lines, email templates, sequences and methodology from someone is already earn a six figure salary from email.

Ian Stanley is one of those overnight internet millionaire success stories you admire and envy at the same time.

He went from teaching tennis lessons and earning $10 per email to $1,500 PLUS a potential $5,000 bonus.

Ian typically charges $15,000 for a sequence plus up to $60k in bonuses.

And with his email copywriting chops. in just three years Ian has sold nearly $50,000,000 online and has built multiple companies (one is on track to do six figures per month).

You need never chase clients again

Would you love to be able to stop chasing clients for work?

To stop getting paid per project (or even worse, per hour)?

And be able to earn PASSIVE income, which builds with each autoresponder?

In that case, gaining Ian’s skills could be truly life changing for you.

Now, Ian is very generous with his time. He frequently gives webinars and appears on Podcasts to throw some golden nuggets of knowledge for us to scramble to grab and invest into our own businesses.

But can you imagine what one to one coaching with Ian would cost?

Considering how long it takes most of us to write a sales email, $1,500 is a realistic number. And then you’d need at least 20 hours for his mindset to seep into your brain.

Thankfully, there’s no need to pay $30,000 or even $1,500 to gain Ian’s email marketing mastery.

Because there is a way to gain his subject lines, sequences and strategy to bank a salary many of us can only imagine earning in our lifetimes.

Because Ian has created an email copywriting course in which he shared the methods he perfected writing to lists of over one million subscribers.

It’s called 80/20 Email Copy.

It gets this name because after completing the course you should be able to craft money making emails in as little as 20 minutes (and generating 80% of your income, I guess).

These are emails that use his structures and sequences to convert like crazy, and put more silver in your piggy bank with every email you send.

How does it work?

Over four weeks Ian will send you a daily email. This email will share a proven sequence or structure he has used to generate pots of cash. Not only that, you also get an example of a high converting email to copy by hand.

Trust me, if you are not already copying out winning emails and sales letters by hand than you need to start IMMEDIATELY (check out Copyhour for a sales handwriting course)!

It is the BEST way of developing your copywriting brain from DOING instead of just reading a book and forgetting everything a few weeks later.

By the end of the course you will have a complete set of 20 emails you can use to make money even if you don’t have a list, because Ian explains how to build one for free.

How much does it cost?

Now this might shock some people, but the course costs $197 (there is also elite level coaching upgrade for 3 x $197 for aspiring ballers).

If you’re new to copywriting this number may have made you fall off your chair. It’s a lot more than you’d pay for a book from Amazon. But when you reach a certain level then this is par for the course to gain the knowledge of some of the top dogs in our industry.

And when you think about it, $197 is a mere drop in the ocean compared to what your earnings could be with Ian’s methodology locked into your brain.

After completing the course you can immediately start charging a minimum of $100 per email. You can make your money back in the first two. You can then continue to bump up your rates as you out convert the amateurs and clients start clamouring for your services.

But soon you may be charging so much you will be unaffordable for most clients anyway. By that stage you could be too busy building six figure businesses from the proven, powerful methodology of 80/20 Email Copy.

You have 48 hours to register

Just one last thing – Ian is shutting his course to new members in 48 hours.

So you have until the end of Sunday to decide whether to give yourself the fast track to email marketing mastery or to keep struggling to find subject lines that get your emails opened and sequences that get stuff SOLD.

So do yourself a favor. Don’t look back on this moment with regret. Be someone who takes action and understands the importance of investing in your skills to advance your career and income:

>>>Find out more about Ian Stanley’s 80/20 Email Copy Course

Earning disclaimer – Let it never be said that I underestimate the intellect of a Crucible reader. You kept reading and saw through my devious plan.

As you suspected, I’ll earn commission if you sign-up for Ian’s 80/20 Email Copy course. I’m not just writing this as a favour to Ian.

But what I am doing is presenting you with a course that trains you to craft autoresponder sequences that generate passive income every time you hit sent. You can then fire all your clients, sling your laptop in a backpack and go live next to a beach somewhere to hammer out a few emails between snorkeling trips. You’re welcome.

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The Simple Way to Write Copy

Leave the clever wordplay to the impoverished novelists. We’re in the business of selling.novelists. We’re in the business of selling.

People often ask me what it takes to become a copywriter.

What I tell them is this…

to be a great (or just good) copywriter you don’t need to be able to write like Hemingway.

But you DO need to be understood.

Your writing needs to be easy to read.

And it’s the strength of your arguments, rather than strength of your words, that wins the sale.

Leave the clever wordplay to the impoverished novelists. We’re in the business of selling.

So how can you make writing copy simple?

Take this page as an example.

I’m using short sentences. Simple words.

Without chunky paragraphs to wade through, your eyes glide down the page.

This style of writing would make your English teacher go nuts.

But your reader’s brain loves it.

Because it doesn’t have to jump through hoops to understand it.

This article teaches you another lesson about simple writing.

What is it?

Simple.

Your “Subheads” Summarize Your Message

Seriously.

Even brains battling brain fog and a sugar deficiency at 4pm on a Friday can understand what this page is about from the subheads.

And this is important.

Because most people won’t read a page before they skim read it first.

People are busy.

You’ve got app pings, Facebook chats and YouTube to compete with.

All of them screaming for attention.

So if someone is going to read your page they have to know it’s worth their time.

Skimming the sub heads can reveal this to them.

There’s a third lesson I wanted to teach you in this article.

Your Copy Must Focus on the Reader

I haven’t tried to sell you anything.

Because I know you’re reading this because you hope to gain some useful information.

Not to be upsold to.

From this post, I hope that you’re learning that writing copy doesn’t need to be complicated.

It can be simple.

And if you’re still reading, I hope that proves my point.

It enables me to demonstrate a fourth lesson.

The more time you keep a reader engaged with your writing the more time you have to earn their trust.

A great way of earning trust is what Eugene Schwartz called ‘Gradualization’.

It works like this…

If you make simple statements the reader agrees with early on then when you make bigger claims your reader is more likely to accept them as fact.

This is just one way of influencing the reader.

Another way of convincing a reader is what Schwartz called ‘Mechanization’

This is a logical explanation of why something works.

Because results is what ultimately matters

My hope is that after reading this article…

The result will be that you find writing copy easier.

Because writing copy doesn’t need to be complicated.

You don’t need to be a creative genius.

You just need to understand your reader’s problem.

What solutions they’ve tried in the past.

What their objections are to trying something new.

Why your product is better.

And how you can prove it.

Then offer it to them.

That’s it.

Writing copy is not rocket science

When you strip away the ‘power words’, ‘open loops’ and other copywriting tricks, it comes down to one thing…

presenting a solution to your customer’s problem.

When you do that it doesn’t feel like you’re tricking someone into buying something.

You’re helping them.

So there you go.

Writing copy is simple when you follow these principles.

Think how you can write something that’s easy to read, focuses on helping the reader solve a problem and builds trust.

Selling your product is then the easy part.

Hemingway once said, “Writing’s easy. Just open a vein and bleed all over the page.”

Maybe in the literary world. But it doesn’t have to be that soul draining to write convincing, high converting copy

P.S. People often read the P.S. straight after the headline. So use yours to summarize your offer or what they will gain from reading the page.

Disclaimer – This post is a total rip off of a Frank Kern post. Here’s the original:
http://ift.tt/2jEKUSh

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Why VSLs are the Fastest Way to Build a Six Figure Business (SEO agencies hate me for sharing this advice)

People will eagerly watch videos on topics they’re passionate about

If you’re happy spending thousands on SEO, social media marketing or ‘branding’ each month with very little to show for it, read no further.

Because I’m about to reveal how six figure businesses can be built in weeks (or even days) without spending a cent on any of these methods.

What I’m referring to is the ‘video sales letter’. Or VSL for short.

A sales vehicle that’s ugly, basic and has a bad rep for hype. But can be a conversions monster in the right hands.

“Why would anyone watch this?”

Whenever I show a VSL to someone for the first time they’re incredulous as to why anybody would happily watch a 40 minute ‘slideshow’, let alone buy anything at the end.

My response is that people will happily watch a documentary on TV if it’s on a topic that matters deeply to them.

Imagine you’re targeting the obesity market – your viewer is 30 kg overweight, their cholesterol is out of control, they suffer from stomach pains and fear the Sword of Damocles (in the form of a massive and fatal heart attack) is dangling above their head.

Don’t you think they’d eagerly devour a VSL that reveals the simple lifestyle changes that can help them shed the kilos without starving themselves, to reverse their heart disease and to be around long enough to see their grandkids grow up?

Sure they would.

Here are four reasons why VSLs are so powerful at selling:

1. VSLs Out Convert Long Form Sales Pages

A VSL is, in essence, a long form sales letter pasted over multiple slides. This makes it more appealing to people happier watching YouTube videos than reading 20 pages of 14pt Times New Roman.

Just like a sales letter, VSLs use all manner of copywriting techniques, sales psychology and even NLP to keep people watching and to present your offer in a persuasive way. This helps them to typically convert better than long-form sales letters, particularly for cold traffic from advertising.

2. VSLs Have Built 6 Figure Businesses

The key to growing a business fast is SCALE.

When you have a high converting offer all you need to do is open up the money hose and spray it with traffic.

When you’ve got a persuasive VSL as the gateway to your sales funnel, you can grow to six figures or more like greased lightning, compared to months of toiling away in the smoke and mirrors wonderland of SEO or posting Tweets that get drowned in the stream seconds later.

You can even get free traffic by starting an affiliate program and reaching out to people in your niche with large email lists or followings. It’s the definitive win win.

3. VSLs Allow YOU to Control the Sales Process

On a written sales page people can scroll around, skim read, check the price and pick which bits to read in whatever order they choose. Seeing this in action (and realizing that people don’t studiously read every word in order) is enough to make grown copywriters cry.

However, with a VSL it’s YOU that controls the conversation in their heads.

With no option to fast forward, viewers have to engage with your pitch in the sequence you choose.

That’s the magic of the VSL.

YOU control the sales process. Not them.

You can address their pain, build trust, present your solution, explain its benefits, provide proof and justify the price in one logical flow that takes them from curious to convinced and ready to buy.

4. EVERY Business Can Benefit from a VSL

You may think that VSLs only work for supplements, weight loss products, eBooks and B2C markets.

But sales psychology is the same whatever market you’re in – yes, that includes hard nosed corporate B2B types.

For B2B markers, VSLs can be presented as webinars – arguably the most powerful way of selling high ticket items to switched on prospects.

VSLs also give you the best chance of converting a lead much faster than a 10 part email sequence, series of sales calls or a round of golf with your account manager.

Million Dollar VSLs in Action

Here are five examples of simple slideshows that have generated millions in sales:

The American Parasite – VSL for a probiotic supplement

The Biggest Sign of Aging – VSL for anti-aging cream

End of America – VSL for a financial newsletter

Big Diabetes Lie – VSL for a diabetes course

7 Second Trick Eliminates Brain Fog – VSL for a nootropics supplement

Get a Proposal for Your VSL

I’ve written and helped produce 60 minute long VSLs in many different markets. This includes heart disease, insomnia, nootropics, weight loss, anti-aging skin cream and even golf training aids.

In fact, my VSL for the PowerChute swing trainer is set to be a million dollar seller while a VSL I wrote for the Lean Body Workout system had a “stellar” 7% conversion rate (I still can’t quite believe it myself).

I’d LOVE to provide the same results for you.

Even if you’re just curious, get in touch and I’ll be happy to put together a free proposal on how I’d promote your product with a VSL and the backend funnel we could build that would increase the lifetime value of every customer.

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Don’t Read this If You Are Happy Getting Mediocre Results from Email

Email marketing is the most profitable channel.

See how I said that unequivocally.

The reason is because study after study proves that it’s true:

When it comes to purchases made as a result of receiving a marketing message, email has the highest conversion rate (66%), when compared to social, direct mail and more. – DMA

Social media is great for building an audience and rapport with your customer base.

But ultimately (if you’re smart) you use social media to feed your email sales funnel, and not the other way around.

Having said that, with inboxes overflowing with promotions and newsletters begging for attention.

So getting your emails opened and responded to can be tough.

This is why it’s essential to write emails people find useful and enjoy reading.

How can this be done?

Here are five proven email types you can try:

1 You’re doing this wrong – Challenge the status quo. Point out why what they’re doing isn’t going to solve their problem, but that you have a system that will.

2. Will this work for you? – Tell them a story about how someone just like them faced a similar challenge. How they tried all the options but nothing worked. But then they solved it by using this amazing new product

3. Hero Vs the System – Everything is a conspiracy if you look hard enough. Feed on their preexisting suspicions  by telling them how the government/food companies/big pharma are trying to trick them and why there is a natural alternative they need to know about.

4. Newsjacking – Piggybacking on the latest hot topic is always a powerful way of getting your emails opened. The trick is then reframing that hot topic in a way that relates to your product and so it gives them an added reason to buy.

5. FAQ – If people still have objections, kick them aside with an FAQ email. You can tackle all their objections in one email or multiple emails, approaching each objection like a barrier to be knocked aside so they have a clear path to buying.

Make them WANT to read your emails

The key to success in email marketing is creating a positive association in your subscriber’s mind with your name. Then when your email appears in their inbox they’ll be eager to hear what you have to share. When you can do that, subject lines don’t even matter.

If you’re struggling to get results from email, try plugging a few of these five email types into your sales pipeline. Then watch a drip turn into a flood of clicks and conversions from the channel with the highest ROI.

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Final Week to Register for Copyhour in 2016

What’s the best way to get good, nay, an expert at writing copy?

Copy that harnesses time proven persuasive techniques, emotional storytelling and buying triggers that send conversions to the moon?

You could read all the classics by Hopkins, Bly, Ogilvy, Kennedy and, of course, Schwartz (if you’re lucky to get a copy) – over and over again.

That should be done as standard.

But to get to the upper levels where you can start sharing your sky high conversions in forums, charging royalties and have Agora contact you about your copywriting skills, you MUST practice, practice, practice.

But where do you start?

How do you know what are the best direct response ads to copy? In what order? And how do you make sense of the underlying psychology that makes them so powerful?

In what order to study them?

And how do you make sense of the underlying psychology that makes them so powerful?

The answer is simple.

It is to join Copyhour.

Copyhour is an email driven course where you are sent an example of a highly successful sales letter, ad or other type of direct response copy to, well, copy.

Not only that, but Copyhour’s mastermind, Derek Johanson, explains what is the strategy behind it, the psychology that makes people buy from reading it and where it fits in a sales funnel.

The Fastest Way to Advance to Heavyweight

Trust me, copying out winning ads is the BEST way of advancing your direct response skills fast (and watching your rates as a result).

I studied Copyhour myself for over a year and the knowledge I gained was instrumental in my progress towards writing for media buying agencies in the US, where every click and sale is measured with military precision.

If you want to battle in these trenches you won’t last long without some hardnosed copy skills wired into your brain.

And this is exactly what Copyhour can do for you.

But if you want to take advantage you’ll need to move fast – the doors close this week for the last time in 2016.

You’ll then have to wait until Derek reopens them again, which could not be for another six months, which is another six months until you can climb up the skills ladder towards heavyweight status.

But why climb when you can leap?

>>>Join Copyhour before the doors close in 2016

Disclaimer – Copyhour links are affiliate links. But trust me, this course is legit and is the best way to advance from writing articles, brochures and websites to writing hard-hitting direct response copy – and getting paid accordingly.

 

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HIPS – A Simple Storytelling Formula

You hear all the time that the best way to sell is with stories.

They’re instantly engaging and people think they’re being entertained, rather than sold to, and their cloak of cynicism is temporarily lowered.

But how do you write them?

That’s the tricky part.

A good place to look for inspiration is forums and product reviews.

And a good way to tell them is to use the HIPS storytelling formula:

Hook

The angle, shocking fact or event that sets the stage for what your story is about.

Example – How you’ve always loved hearing people play the drums as a child.

Interest

The reason why this story is going to be interesting to be your reader, such as the pain point it addresses.

Example – Learning a new skill, like playing the drums, can be difficult and frustrating.

Parable

A simple story that reflects how your product solves the customer’s problem.

Example – How you learned to play the drums and how much satisfaction you get from it.

Slide

This is the close when you explain why the story matters.

Example – Learning to play the drums is like any skill. The best way to learn is practice and to have a good teacher, which is why you should buy my course.

By following the HIPS formula, you can easily create stories around your product that will be fun and engaging while selling your product at a deeper level – an emotional one.

Try using HIPS in your next emails, advertorials or sales letters and let me know how you get on.

 

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