How One Simple Statement can Transform Sales Copy from Good to Great

The other day, I watched a video sales letter that took me by surprise. Within the first 30 seconds, one brief statement caught my immediate attention and hooked me in right away. This one sentence is a prime example of the difference between average, or good copy, and great copy.

Let Me Explain…

To preface this, the video sales letter by Dr. Gundry addresses the issues of toxic plant protein. The copy begins in a pretty standard format, until Dr. Gundry says: “plants don’t like us”.

To the average person who isn’t well-versed or experienced in copywriting, this sentence is easy to overlook. For copywriters, we recognize this as a great and highly effective piece of A-level copy.

What’s the Big Deal?

This seemingly simple sentence is a powerful contrarian statement that interrupts the pattern and adds strong emotional impact for the consumers. The copywriter sets the stage for the unique mechanism of the problem (toxic plant protein).

Most of us consider plants to be one of the healthiest things that we could possibly consume and put in our bodies. When the average consumer hears “plants don’t like us,” it is reason to pause and ask follow up questions like “why” or “what do you mean?”

Not Your Average Copy

What makes this statement so remarkable is that the average copywriter would not think to communicate this idea in such a way.

Most copywriters go into description mode. Instead, they’ll say something along the lines of “when you eat plants, they don’t react well inside our bodies. There is actually this protein that penetrates the walls of our intestines and can cause a lot of harm…”

They’ll throw facts, details, and descriptions to explain how toxic plant protein can harm us. In fact, this isn’t bad copy at all. They are explaining in a clear way the negative side effects of eating plants.

However, it doesn’t carry the same emotional punch as saying something as simple as “plants don’t like us.”

“Plants Don’t Like Us”

The statement “plants don’t like us” humanizes an inanimate object and brings it to life. It goes a step further by producing a strong emotional reaction. It’s almost equivalent to someone saying, “Bob doesn’t like you.”

Why doesn’t Bob like me? Did I do something wrong?

Wait…what? Why don’t plants like us? I thought they’re supposed to be healthy for us!

See how such a simple statement grabs attention and forces an immediate inner monologue?

Pack an Emotional Punch

This simple sentence is the difference between good sales copy and great sales copy. In so few words, the copywriter was able to hook the consumer in, trigger an emotional response, and convey the idea that consuming plants may not always be the best for us. This is a great example of a hard-hitting contrarian statement.

Keep it Simple and Effective

Some of the most effective sales copy keeps it simple while packing an emotional punch. For more tips on how you can amplify the emotional impact of your sales copy, check out these 4 simple tricks.

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A Powerful Strategy to Maximize Sales and Revenue for Health Supplement Companies

If you own a health supplement company, pay close attention! As a copywriter, I’ve worked with numerous 7 and 8 figure companies in the health supplement industry, helping them write long-form sales copy that converts ice cold prospects into customers.

Over years of experience, I’ve learned one powerful strategy that helps maximize sales and revenue through health supplement companies’ advertising efforts, especially in long-form sales copy.

Let’s Address the Problem First

A problem I see far too often in supplement ads is that people are glossing over the problem that their prospects are currently experiencing. They rush over the problem their prospects want to solve so they can get to the solution and rush into their product pitch.

This is an instant turn off. Especially to cold audiences.

While providing a solution to your prospect’s problems is necessary, rushing into your product pitch is an issue because you’re not focusing on building a relationship with the reader.

The Better Approach

The better and more effective approach is to establish your authority, credibility, expertise, and trust is by focusing on the problem your prospects desperately want to solve. The best way to do this is by attaching a unique mechanism to it. Ideally, this should be something your prospects have never seen or heard about elsewhere.

Implementing this Strategy

Say you have a brain health supplement, you might say something like this:

“Every single brain cell has critical omega-3 fatty acid in the cell wall. This keeps our cell walls strong and flexible so that they can protect our cells and keep them safe. But over time, we tend to lose some of these fats. If we don’t replenish them, our brain cells start to shrivel. They become weak and this leads to damage that causes the decline of brain health as we age.”

This gives your prospects an “a-ha” moment. Your prospects reading this think “that’s why I’ve been having memory trouble!”

It’s not that they’re getting older and can’t do anything about their declining brain health, it’s that they’re deficient in omega-3 fatty acids.

A Simple Solution to Maximize Sales and Revenue

Revealing a unique mechanism in regards to your prospects’ problems will warm your coldest readers up in no time. If you need more help adding credibility and attaching a unique mechanism to your sales copy, check out my article on how you can add instant credibility to your health supplement copy.

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4 Simple Tips to Amplify Emotional Impact in Any Story

Every copywriter knows the power of great storytelling. Using stories in your sales copy is a smart way to drive engagement and conversions. But it isn’t enough to just have a great story, you need to know how to effectively use it to amplify emotional impact. Here are 4 tips that will help you make the most out of a great story for better conversions in your sales copy.

4 Simple Tips to Amplify Emotional Impact in Any Story

Knowing how to use a great story in your sales copy is an invaluable tool. Stories connect and engage with readers, making it an important way to drive conversions directly from your sales copy. However, a great story is worthless if you don’t know how to use its potential. To be able to do so, you need to recognize that…

You’re Not Writing a Novel

When using a story in your sales copy, you should not be focusing too much on setting the scene or describing the setting in great detail. In novels, writers tend to go on and on with descriptors, but you shouldn’t do the same in your sales copy. Small doses add a little more vividness to your copy, but don’t get carried away. The focus should always be on people and actions. Most emotions come into play with the main character and what his actions are. Focus on people and the events that take place in the story, not so much on the surroundings.

Tell Your Reader How Your Main Character Felt (Tip 2)

It’s one thing to tell a story about your main character and the events they went through. The more powerful technique lies in telling the reader how they felt. This adds another emotional layer to your story and sales copy. Walk your readers through your main character’s emotions and show them how their emotions evolved throughout the process. Describe what their [your main character’s] thoughts were when they were feeling down, and what they are when they’re flying high.

Your Story Doesn’t Have to Start at the Beginning (Tip 3)

Believe it or not, not all stories have to start at the very beginning. A more powerful technique that will amplify emotional impact is to start at a point of high action. You could start at the climax of the story that’ll hit people with an emotional punch right from the beginning. This technique will hook your reader in right away, and keep them engaged. Your readers will want to stick around longer to see how your main character made it to that point.

Don’t Tell the Entire Story All at Once (Tip 4)

Telling a story through copy is one of my favorite parts of being a copywriter. When I get to telling that emotional story, it’s easy to get stuck in storytelling mode and not want to get out of it. Instead, you should break the story up into pieces spread throughout your sales copy. This is a great way to keep people around and keep them consuming your sales message.

Keeping Your Readers Emotionally Engaged

If you get your hands on a good story, use it carefully and it’ll work to your advantage. Connecting with your readers emotionally will ultimately help to drive and close more sales. However, you must handle it with utmost care or a good story could ruin your copy. Using these 4 tips, you’ll be able to keep your readers engaged and emotionally invested throughout your advertisement.

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How to Add Instant Credibility to Your Health Supplement Copy

There is one thing every health supplement or info product needs to close more sales, and that is credibility. If you’re new in the market, you may not have much in the way of testimonials and reviews. Additionally, if you don’t have a doctor or medical guru as the face of your company, you may feel stuck. If you need a little help with positioning your product, here is a simple but powerful tip that will instantly boost your product’s credibility.

Establishing Credibility from the Get-Go

Establishing your product’s credibility and building trust early on is very important. One simple way to do that is by finding a connection to a Nobel prize winner in medicine, or to an Ivy League university, like Harvard. This connection can be research that has been conducted, or to a doctor.

Making those connections to your product will provide very strong proof elements.

If possible, making a connection to a Nobel prize recipient will be the strongest form of credibility. This is because the award is only presented once a year and to (normally) one person at a time.

Making the Connection in Your Copy

To do this, first look for a connection between an ingredient in your health supplement to research done by either a Nobel prize winner or research conducted at an Ivy League institute.

But if you can’t find a direct connection, don’t give up!

Applying this Strategy

I ran into this problem while writing sales copy for a new health supplement. Although I wasn’t able to find a direct link between credible research and an ingredient found in the supplement, I was able to make a connection between a Nobel prize recipient and the mechanism behind the problem this supplement solves.

No Direct Connection? No Problem!

The connection doesn’t need to be direct in order to establish credibility. In my case, the scientist who discovered the mechanism behind the problem worked at a lab ran by another scientist who won a Nobel prize.

It’s completely unrelated but because the scientist who discovered the mechanism was working on the team in the lab of that former Nobel prize winner, that connection gives the supplement an instant credibility boost.

Get Creative!

If you can’t find a direct connection between research and your product, find it with the mechanism behind the problem or the mechanism of the solution.

Expand your field and get creative. Do a little digging and allow yourself to go down a few Google rabbit holes.

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How to Effectively Communicate Benefits in Your Health Supplement Copy (While Staying FTC Compliant)

Your health supplement copy should always appeal to the desires of your ideal customers. One of the most effective ways you can do this is by highlighting the benefits of your health supplement. However, this is easier said than done.

Whenever you start to break down the benefits of a supplement, you need to keep one very important thing in mind: FTC regulations.

The benefits section of your health supplement copy has to be compliant with the current FTC regulations. In fact, you need to be extremely careful because they’re really starting to crack down hard on supplement advertisers.

*Disclaimer: I am NOT an attorney and this does NOT constitute legal advice. These recommendations are simply from my perspective as a health supplement copywriter.

Here’s an Example

Let’s say you have a turmeric product that is known to help alleviate joint pain. Saying in your advertisement that your product “relieves and eliminates joint pain” is a big no-go.

That statement is technically not FTC compliant, and here’s why: you’re implying a treatment claim.

If you imply that your product is going to take someone from a state of injury or illness, back to a state of health, you are breaking FTC regulations and rules.

How to Rephrase so You’re Staying FTC Compliant

Sticking with the turmeric product example, you can effectively communicate your supplement’s benefits while staying FTC complaint by saying something like, “this is proven to help keep your joints loose and comfortable, so you can continue moving with ease and doing the things you enjoy every day.”

Why This Works

There are a couple of things to note about this rephrased statement:

1. There’s no terminology of ailments like joint pain. It steers clear of mentioning arthritis, or terminology that represents a disease state or medical condition
2. Using words like “keep” and “maintain” implies that you’re staying in a state of ideal health, instead of implying that you’re taking someone from a state of illness or injury, to a state of health.

Keep These Points in Mind

Writing about the benefits of a supplement in your copy can be tricky, especially when you’re trying to keep your advertisement FTC compliant. If you’re ever stuck, just remember the two simple tips I broke down above. It’s a quick and easy way to make sure your copy is both compliant and effective! Looking for more tips on how you can write engaging supplement copy? You can check out these posts about how you can breathe life into science-heavy supplement copy, or how to use numbers in your health supplement copy to engage with your audience.

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Should You Address the Pandemic in Your Marketing? (and How to Do it the Right Way)

It’s a question on every business owner’s minds… to address the pandemic in your marketing and advertising or not to address the pandemic at all?

To be fair, these are unprecedented times and business owners have had to pivot. But is using the pandemic in your messaging a good thing or a bad thing? Will it hurt or help your business?

The Short Answer

If you’re addressing the pandemic in your marketing and advertising, you’re a smart business owner. Consider yourself a savvy marketer because you absolutely should be addressing what is going on around the world right now in your messaging.

Here’s the Catch

While addressing the pandemic if your marketing displays your awareness to the situation, there is a right and wrong way to approach the topic.

The Wrong Way:

This is not the time to be taking advantage of someone’s fear to make a sale. If you’re using over-the-top scare tactics, this will ultimately make you seem sleazy and slimy. So if your messaging is somewhere along the lines of “this virus is going to kill us all unless…”, you should probably stop it. This is an unethical approach.

The Right Way:

Addressing the pandemic in your messaging in the right way boils down to your intentions. If you know that you have a quality product or service that can genuinely help people (like a supplement or info product), your customers are going to need you more than ever. If your supplement can help someone’s health by boosting their immunity, or just generally boosting your customer’s well-being in any way, they’ll need you.

You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) make any claims that your supplement/service can cure or treat this virus. If your supplement will help your customer’s overall well-being, it could possibly better equip them to deal with the virus should it affect them.

It is your responsibility to do everything within your power to get your product in the hands of as many people if you care about serving and helping your customers.

Let’s Face it…

It is absolutely ok to be talking about the pandemic in your marketing, and you should be! Why? Because it’s top-of-mind… in fact, that’s a gross understatement.

By addressing it, you’re entering the conversation that is already going on in both your customer’s and your prospect’s mind.

Acknowledge and Support

Acknowledging the pandemic and everything that is happening in the world is the right thing to do. You should also acknowledge the fears and uncertainties that many are facing in such unprecedented times. Let your customers know that it’s ok to be worried since none of us know exactly what is going to happen. But let them know that we’re all in this together and that we’ll all get through this together.

Let them know that you (and your business) are here to help support and serve your customer in any way that you can.

If you approach the situation from an angle of genuine concern and care while still acknowledging the current state of the world, you’re going to align your messaging with your values.

Remember to put your customer’s care first! That way, you can acknowledge the pandemic, and increase your sales and revenue without having to do so in a sleazy way that preys off of people’s fears.

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How to Use Numbers in Your Health Supplement Copy to Engage With Your Audience

Let’s talk numbers.

Every health supplement copy needs them, a lot of them. Numbers show up in health supplement copy for a variety of great reasons, from clinical study results, statistics, to facts and figures that support the argument your copy is making.

The Thing About Numbers…

Numbers tend to overwhelm, confuse, and bore people. When your prospect feels any of those emotions, they’re more than likely to bail.

But these numbers are crucial for any health supplement copy. They demonstrate how effective your product is and can be. The problem with adding them to your copy is that you run the risk of boring your reader. And when your reader is bored, they’ll likely exit out of your page, which means you just lost a sale.

An Easy Solution

A simple way to liven up these numbers is by using an analogy or real-life comparison that the average person can identify with.

For example:

I wrote a promotion for where I mentioned how a certain nutrient deficiency contributes up to 96,000 deaths per year. We all know that 96,000 is a lot people. It’s a big number that is hard for us to imagine and grasp.

I immediately followed that statistic up with this: “96,000 — that’s equivalent to filling up Madison Square Garden nearly 5 times.”

That instantly reframes this intangible number in a much more powerful and engaging way.

The reader is now going to think back to the last time they were in a sports arena or stadium. They’re going to picture themselves sitting in their seat, looking around the entire arena, seeing every seat filled with a person. They’re going to start imagining multiples of that entire stadium filled with people being gone.

If You Need More Help Breathing Life Into Your Health Supplement Copy

I wrote another article that discusses how a simple trick can help breathe new life into science-heavy health supplement copy.

If you need a little more help writing Red Hot Health and Supplement sales copy, feel free to download the PILL FRAMEWORK by heading to www.writinginfire.com

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5 Ways to Use Urgency to Close the Sale

Last week, we looked at a sales email I received from the Healthy Back Institute. While the article focused on why the “Bait and Switch” technique is a no-go in a sales email, I want to talk about something that they did really well and could do even better, and that is getting creative with a story and ramping up the urgency to close the sale.

Recap

If you didn’t read last week’s article, I received a sales email from the Healthy Back Institute about their Infrared Heating Pad. They attributed chronic back pain to the lack of oxygen and stagnant blood circulation and included an MRI image of what the before and after results were after using their product.

It was convincing.

They added an angle to their sales email about how the heating pad works so well, customers would write in about how their friends would steal it and not give it back.

The story may or may not be made up, but it’s a creative way to position and segue into the urgency of purchasing the product.

The Close

While the Healthy Back Institute did provide a sense of urgency in their sales email, they were not specific about it.

Here are 5 ways it could be better:

1) Time Sensitive Phrases

Giving specific time frames will really ramp up the feeling of urgency and drive readers to purchase the product you’re selling.

Examples include:

“Discount expires in X days/hours”

“X more hours to save big”

“Act fast and receive X% off. Limited time only”

“Free shipping if order is placed within the next X hours”

2) Ramp up the Sense of Scarcity

An emphasis on scarcity gives you readers a sense of missing out, or even better, FOMO (fear of missing out).

Using phrases like:

“Only # left in stock”

“# units available worldwide”

“While supplies last”

will help you strengthen the close.

3) Include a specific deadline

Similar to time sensitive phrases, including a specific deadline will encourage your prospects to place their orders as soon as possible because time is running out.

Some specific deadline phrases to include in your email:

“Sale ends Saturday, 10 PM (PST)”

“Now until May 30th”

4) Help to solve a problem

If there’s a holiday coming up, this is tool to utilize at the end of your sales email.

Try these phrases out:

“Order in the next X days to receive before Christmas Eve”

“Last minute shopping for mom? Order today and we’ll deliver it right on Mother’s Day”

5) Leverage your hot products

Do you have products that sell out quickly? Use this to your advantage!

Phrases like:

“Don’t miss out again! Order now!”

“Back in stock! Order now before it sells out again!”

“They’re back! Get them while supplies last”

will be sure to grab your prospects attention and to place their orders immediately.

A little specificity goes a long way

A little specificity in your sales email will help you create a sense of urgency and necessity. These are just 5 ways in which you can create urgency around your product to strengthen your close.

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Why You Should Avoid the “Bait and Switch” Technique in Your Sales Email

Open rates are an important metric for every sales email you send, but they shouldn’t be the main focus. The main goal of a sales email is to sell a product, program, or whatever it is the email is promoting. This is a common mistake that I see a lot of major brands and businesses make. The “Bait and Switch” technique may increase your open rates, but it might actually hurt your sales. Let me demonstrate with an example.

Wait, Who’s This From?

I received a sales email from the Healthy Back Institute — a hugely successful company in the pain relief market. They have a whole suite of products from supplements, information products, to physical products that target people who suffer from different types of chronic pain.

Immediately, I noticed something was off. The “From” name portion of the email didn’t identify the sender… Instead, it said “Photo of Adam”, followed by a subject line that read “Your MRI Results”.

Pretty alarming, right? Naturally, I clicked it.

Not REALLY My MRI Results…

Of course I knew it wasn’t my MRI results, but I needed to see what the body of the email was all about.

The sales email itself was well-written. The purpose of the email was to sell an infrared heating pad for your back. This is backed up a case they presented of how stagnant blood flow could be the cause of your back pain.

And to drive the point further, they included a before and after MRI scan of how using an infrared heating pad could improve your chronic pain.

A strong angle (stagnant blood flow causing chronic pain), coupled with strong imagery (MRI scans with before and after using an infrared heating pad examples), became a great segue into the product they want to sell.

However…

While the body of the email was strong, I couldn’t get over the “Bait and Switch” or click-bait nature of the email.

When writing a sales email, it’s important to understand your demographics.

I’d imagine that the demographics of Healthy Back Institute tend to be on the older side. Some of their customers and prospects may suffer from multiple health issues and may actually be waiting for MRI results.

Although the initial panic and anxiety caused by the “From” name and subject line lasts a couple of seconds, the reader is going to feel a little annoyed that these “results” is really just a means to get you to buy. It’s a sales email in disguise.

Here’s What to do Instead

The “From” name portion should either be from the company itself, or the company’s founder. An honest, straightforward approach where the subscriber knows who the email is from keeps the communication clear.

As for the subject line, instead of saying “your MRI results”, which could be severely misleading, say “Do your MRI results look like this?”

A slight tweak can make a huge difference.

It still has an element of curiosity, but it isn’t bait and switch. You won’t be fooling anyone into opening that email.

In the End

The body of this specific email is so strong that it doesn’t really need to use this technique. The “bait and switch” technique comes off as dishonest, and that’s the last thing you want to have your audience think when you’re trying to sell to them.

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How to Activate the “Buying” Chemical in Your Customer’s Brain

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some switch in your prospect’s brain that would make them more inclined to buy your product?

Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple. But lucky for you and me, there’s a certain chemical responsible for all our buying and purchasing decisions.

The “Buying” Chemical

Meet Dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays several important roles in the brain and body. For copywriters, marketers, and entrepreneurs, this is the “buying” chemical that is in charge of your customer’s purchasing habits.

We all know dopamine as the feel-good chemical. This good feeling, in turn, motivates people to repeat whatever behavior that causes it.

With that being said, it’s no wonder that if we can trigger this chemical in our customer’s brain, we’ll see better conversions in our sales copy.

Trigger this “Buying” Chemical Throughout Your Copy

If you’re writing a long-form sales letter, you want to give your reader repeated hits of dopamine. While there are many ways in which you can achieve this, my favorite and go-to method is to educate and share something NEW.

Our brain releases dopamine whenever we discover something we’ve never encountered before. In your sales copy, this can be in the form of a…

• unique mechanism
• new perspective
• new benefit your prospect will receive
• new concept
• new story or piece of news

In Conclusion

If your sales copy is educating, providing value, and entertaining with some type of new piece of information or content, it will trigger the “buying” chemical in your reader’s brain.

Pro-tip, do this throughout your sales message to get your prospect in that feel-good mindset. This will help prime them to get excited to hit “purchase” by the time they get to your offer.

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