Copy Breakdown: 3 Takeaways from Dr. Marty’s Dog Food VSL

Studying another copywriter’s work is a great way to improve your own copywriting and direct response skills. In this week’s post, I’ll be breaking down the first 3 minutes of Dr. Marty’s dog food VSL.

I happen to stumble upon this VSL on Facebook where it is currently running as an ad. It’s a short 15 minute VSL that is packed with a lot of valuable copywriting and direct response tips. While you can watch the whole VSL here, I’ll be sharing the 3 biggest takeaways from the intro alone.

Before We Go On…

I like to consider Dr. Marty the Dr. Gundry of the pet health and pet food industry. And if you watch this VSL, you’ll easily see why. Within the first few minutes, you can already extract a lot of information and value that you can apply to your own copywriting, marketing, and direct response efforts, like…

Takeaway #1: Opening with a compelling story or factoid

Right off the bat, this VSL opens with a compelling factoid about how dogs are descendants of wolves. While that isn’t necessarily the interesting fact, Dr. Marty goes on to explain that because of this lineage, the only way dogs would have access to grains, vegetables, and fruits are through the inner contents of their prey’s stomach. This interesting factoid will have viewers thinking about what is in their pets’ dog food. Which brings me to the second takeaway…

Takeaway #2: Introduce a cool mechanism behind the problem

If the viewers aren’t already thinking about what the ingredients of their dog’s food contain, Dr. Marty introduces an intriguing mechanism — the 3 dog food health disruptors. This sets the stage for Dr. Marty to introduce the problems with most dog food on the market, including the high-quality, premium grade brands. According to Dr. Marty, most dog food brands out there contain at least 1 of the 3 dog food health disruptors without you even realizing it.

Takeaway #3: Tease your viewer’s fascinations

At this point, any pet owner would be hooked in to the VSL, waiting to hear about the 3 dog food health disruptors, how it affects their dog’s health, and what they can do about it. This is when Dr. Marty and his team decides to tease their viewers’ fascinations by promising to reveal the one meat humans eat that we should never feed our dogs. What’s more, they also promised to reveal one common type of dog food in the United States that is missing a critical vitamin that your dog needs to have a healthy heart. If you’re a dog owner, chances are… you’re hooked!

Incredible Value Within the First 3 Minutes

One thing that Dr. Marty and his team could split test, if they haven’t done so already, is to open the VSL with a heart-wrenching, emotional story, instead of the factoid about wolves and dogs. Because Dr. Marty has experience as a working veterinarian, he could share a patient story of a dog’s tragic health issue that he was able to solve by identifying one of the dog food health disruptors as the cause.

Idea aside, this VSL is incredibly informative and filled with great examples for anyone who wants to write high-converting copy. If you’re a copywriter, add this video to your swipe file immediately! As you can see, the copywriter on Dr. Marty’s team completely understands the principles and fundamentals of long-form sales copy and direct response.

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!

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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

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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:

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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 Performance”… 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 Agers”. 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.”

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:

1. To acknowledge when a mistake is made and identify where we went wrong.
2. To be able to go back, analyze the mistake, and fix it.

Sales Copy Breakdown: Longevity Max Sales Email-Dr. Gundry

Giving Value is Not Enough. You MUST Sell! Here’s why…

Give value…

Deliver value…

How much value do you provide?

Give value first, and the money will follow…

This mantra is seared into our brains, chanted over and over again in our Facebook feeds and email inboxes. It seems as though “giving value”, a somewhat arbitrary concept, is the cornerstone of doing business nowadays, especially online.

And for good reason. With so many unscrupulous individuals, scam artists, and dishonest businesses trolling the web, providing VALUE to your audience before asking for the sale is often a smart business strategy. This approach allows you to build a trusting relationship with your prospect, making for a smoother transition to the sale. Done right, this warms them up and primes them to buy.

But here’s where some entrepreneurs go wrong. They get so caught up in the “value giving phase”, they forget about or neglect the most important part of the process: The SALE!

This leads to a deadly mistake: relying only on the value you provide to sell your product or service.

I hate to break it to you, but when push comes to shove, nobody really cares how much “value” you’re giving them. Sure, they are grateful and appreciative. Many will even tell you so. They will engage with you and be some of your biggest fans. But this alone does NOT guarantee they’ll ever spend a single dollar on your products or services.

Your audience will ONLY buy from you if they believe one of the following to be true:

1. Your product or service will help them obtain something they desperately want.
2.  Your product or service will solve a problem that’s been causing them deep pain or discomfort.

That’s it. It’s that simple. The amount of value you provided, the amount of goodwill you created up to this point means nothing, if you fail to meet one of these two conditions with whatever you’re selling. This is why making an effort to actively SELL your shit is critical to your success.

And honestly, it doesn’t need to be that difficult or complicated. You don’t need to be a master copywriter or marketer to successfully sell your stuff. Start with the simple PAS framework, and you’ll have a solid selling foundation in place every time.

The PAS model is a powerful marketing formula popularized by Dan Kennedy, considered by many to be one of the greatest direct response marketers of our time. If you’re not familiar with the PAS formula, here’s a quick breakdown for you:

P: Identify an intense problem or pain point your prospect is experiencing.

A: Agitate that problem. Twist the knife. Point out in vivid detail how this major problem is wreaking havoc in their lives. (Or how it will blow up if they don’t do something about it)

S: Tell them or show them how you can SOLVE their problem. Offer this solution (your product or service) for sale.

This is a very basic explanation, but the truth is this all you need to get started. If you take the time to flesh out this simple 3 step formula with consistency, you’re almost guaranteed to make some sales. This is assuming of course your offer isn’t complete shit and that you’re targeting the right people with your message.

Just last night, I attended a Facebook live webinar conducted by a pretty well-known influencer in the social media space. The first half of this live session was amazing. He delivered incredible value (yes, I know I said it!), gave simple and actionable tips for getting quick results, and his energy and passion were off the charts. Dude was electric!

It was one of the most interesting and engaging live trainings I’d attended in quite a while. But that quickly changed once he transitioned into his “pitch.” Boom! Instant shift in energy. Maybe it was partly due to nerves, which is totally understandable, especially if this was his first time selling in a live format. Not sure if it was or not. But here’s what struck me as odd:

He seemed to rush through his product pitch. He presented 3 different options at 3 different price points. But he gave very few details about what was included in each option. And guess what? If people are confused or unsure about what exactly you’re offering? They’re not gonna buy.

Not only that, he did not follow the PAS formula I just talked about. Yeah, he kind of identified the problem…but he didn’t agitate it. And he did not clearly and persuasively communicate the specific benefits his customers would receive from his program. He didn’t tell them how his program would solve their most excruciating problem.

When he was making the transition into his pitch, he actually said something to the effect of “If you liked what you learned in this training, I would like to continue working together. I would like this to be the beginning, not the end.”

Again, that’s not an exact quote…I’m paraphrasing. But it’s very close.

Statements like that don’t do anything to help you make the sale. No emotions triggered, no pain points pressed. Now I’lld admit, I have no idea what this guys sales figures were from this live training. But I’m certain based on his change in energy and body language, people just weren’t biting.

I actually felt bad for the guy. While I only know him from his activity on Facebook, he seems very passionate and authentic. And the dude’s constantly dropping mad knawledge bombs everywhere. If he gave his product pitch just a little more TLC…if he followed the simple PAS formula…I’m confident he would have had better results.

I want the same for you.

If you only remember one thing from this post, make sure it’s this:

Value alone is not enough. When the time comes, you must be willing to SELL.

Adam Napolitano