Category Archives for "Health Supplement Copywriting"
April 23, 2020
A Simple Trick to Breathe Life into Science-Heavy Health Supplement Copy
If you’ve ever written copy for a health supplement, there is a particular portion of your supplement sales copy that can get a little boring.
I’m referring to the portion that goes into detail about the mechanisms or physiologic processes going on inside the body at a cellular level.
Can’t read it now? Pin it and read it later!
Why Your Readers Hit the Snooze Button
Unless your reader is interested in biology, chances are this is the portion of your copy that will have your readers flip the page (or exit out). This is because this particular portion of any health supplement copy is science heavy.
The language used is often dry and boring, and you run the risk of confusing your prospect.
When your prospect is bored, they’ll take off.
This portion of your health supplement copy is important enough that you can’t just do without it. So what’s the solution? How do you hold the attention of your prospect, making sure they stick around and consume the rest of your sales message?
Interesting Copy in One Easy Step
Here’s a simple strategy sure to “liven up†science heavy sales copy: focus on strong action verbs.
Here’s an example:
Sentence 1: Studies show that this protein makes us age faster
Sentence 2: Studies show that this protein accelerates our age at an alarming rate
See the difference?
A minor tweak in wording makes a big change in impact.
Accelerate is a strong action verb that conjures up vivid imagery. This makes me think about street car racers or that one time I was driving down the highway and had to punch the gas pedal to overtake another driver. It is a very visual word that engages your mind and imagination, and your prospect will start visualizing themselves in different scenarios.
When you couple a visual action verb like accelerate to a process like aging, it drives home how fast and urgent this process or problem may be. It’s a powerful concept guaranteed to bring your sales copy to life, helping it jump off the page.
This one simple trick can liven up the most boring portions of your copy.
Strong Visual Action Verbs to Include in Your Health Supplement Copy
I hope this simple technique helps you reinvent the way you tackle the dry, science-y portions of your copy. But to help you just a little bit more, here are a few more examples of visual action verbs you can use to spruce up your health copy. Use these to get your creative juices flowing!
- Ignite
- Rev up
- Slow to a crawl
- Glide
- Slide/slid
- Slices
- Flow
- Slip
- Floods
- Stokes the flames
- Extinguish
- Coats
- Gobbles
- Short-circuits
- Break free
April 10, 2020
Why My Copy Completely Bombed and 3 Tips to Make Sure Yours Won’t
A lot of copywriters like to do breakdowns of winning sales copy, or promotions they wrote that beat the control. While we can get a lot of valuable information from studying winners, this breakdown you’re about to read showcases an advertorial that I wrote for a health supplement that completely bombed and missed the mark.
Why am I sharing this? It isn’t easy for me (and my ego) to share my failures, but after some time analyzing and processing, I’ve identified where I went wrong. In this article, I’ll be rounding up my mistakes and sharing 3 tips to make sure your copy won’t miss the mark.
Pin it & Read it Later:
Why My Copy Completely Bombed and 3 Tips to Make Sure Yours Won’t
In this breakdown, I’ll be focusing on the headline, subhead, and the lead of this advertorial.
The Set Up
This advertorial is for a brain health supplement so we’re looking at an audience of an older demographic, ages 60 and older. Both men and women are represented here, but this advertorial does skew a little in favor of men.
This supplement is for people who are already experiencing some type of brain issues (primarily with memory), or are worried about experiencing these brain issues due to their advancing age and are looking for a preventative solution.
Disclaimer:
This advertorial did one test run in a newspaper publication and the call to action was to dial a 1–800 number to place an order. This was not an online advertorial so there was no link sending them to a website or online sales page where they can find more information. This means there are pieces of analytical data that are missing from this advertorial (i.e: how many people saw this article, how much time was spent on the page etc…).
Now let’s get right into it!
The Headline
This is a fairly weak and generic headline. The main benefits mentioned in this headline are “Thriving Health†and “Peak Brain Performanceâ€â€¦ what does that mean?
These are very vague terms. “Thriving Health†could be mean so many different things, and so can “Peak Brain Performance†(does this mean I’m going to be more intelligent? Be in a better mood? Etc…) The headline should be more benefit specific, focusing on memory specific brain issues, even the fear of losing independence.
Which brings me to the first tip…
Copywriting Tip #1: Make your headlines more benefit specific
How can we achieve that in this particular case?
This headline could be better if it focused on brain issues such as fading memory, since this is a concern for this demographic. Another angle that could come into play is one of dependence. Losing independence is a fear for this particular audience as they wouldn’t want to rely on their children or spouse (or worse — be put in a nursing home).
The Subhead
The subhead, in my opinion, is pretty strong. It has a good amount of intrigue and curiosity with the 5 tribes of “Super Agersâ€. The latter half of the subhead (laughing, dancing etc…) is also very visual which is a great engagement device.
I don’t think the subhead hurt the performance of this advertorial, however, if there is one thing I would change about it, it would be experimenting with different visuals and activities.
Like I mentioned, both men and women are included in this demographic but the advertorial does skew in favor of men. Activities like dancing and drinking martinis may not appeal to a lot of men who are in this audience.
Copywriting Tip #2: Include visuals and activities that appeal to your demographic
In this particular advertorial, including activities that are more relevant to the audience (activities that may be more appealing to men who are 60+) could make a positive difference.
The Lead
Now the biggest mistake in this advertorial wasn’t in the headline or the subhead, but in the lead. Specifically, when I transitioned from the story of the 5 tribes of Super Agers into introducing the product.
I spent some time building the 5 tribes of Super Agers to make it seem like there’s going to be a big reveal, a huge shared secret behind why these 5 isolated tribes of Super Agers are able to live longer and healthier lives.
But when it came to the big reveal… it just came down to having remarkable brain health. That’s it.
Well, no shit.
It’s kind of common sense that if you’re going to live to 90 years old and beyond, if you’re going to be dancing, drinking martinis, cooking, etc… you’re going to need to have good brain health. That’s not a shocking secret that no one has seen or heard of before.
If you were reading this advertorial, you’d probably be annoyed that the big reveal was something you (and the general public) had always known all along.
How do we fix this?
Copywriting Tip #3: Make your big reveal worth your reader’s time
What would have made a much stronger connection was if the shared common trait of those 5 tribes of Super Agers, consumed higher than normal levels of one of the key ingredients found in my client’s brain formula.
This will give a direct connection to lead into intense studies that show that these 5 super agers were consuming way more tyrosine (that key ingredient) than the rest of the world’s population, and they attributed this to their remarkable memory and brain health.
This will make a stronger case for my client’s brain formula, as it just so happens that this new product has super therapeutic doses of tyrosine to rejuvenate brain health.
It makes it worth your reader’s time when the big secret and shared common trait of these 5 tribes of Super Agers was the main ingredient of the supplement.
Bonus Tip: Get REALLY specific
Even though I love the super agers story and it is very relevant to this audience, it is not really specific to brain issues and overall brain health. There could be a good amount of the audience who think “I don’t care about dancing. I just don’t want to forget who I am and lose my memory.â€
We could use the Super Agers story, but be more specific and boil it down to the simple, innate desires and fears of the audience. Instead of relating it to activities, there could be more focus on brain health, memory, and cognitive performance.
The Conclusion
If you’re in the health or supplement market, don’t be afraid to ask your copywriter about some of their duds. Failure is a part of learning and growing as a copywriter. Let’s face it — the best copywriters in the world produce copy from time to time that completely misses the mark. A great copywriter will acknowledge these mistakes and grow from them. The key here is:
- To acknowledge when a mistake is made and identify where we went wrong.
- To be able to go back, analyze the mistake, and fix it.
November 30, 2019
Sales Copy Breakdown: Longevity Max Sales Email-Dr. Gundry
November 9, 2019
1 Simple Technique for Breathing Life into the Most Boring Part of Your Health or Supplement Sales Copy.
To make sure you get notified every time I produce a new piece of content, head over to https://writinginfire.com and sign up to my email list. You’ll also receive a free copy of my PILL framework for writing supplement sales copy that turns ice cold prospects into customers.