750 Days of Free Updates
Today’s tweak to your sales letter:
Do you have any overused words like “unlimited” … “lifetime” … or “fast” in your sales copy? Those don’t get attention because everyone uses words like that.
- If something is unlimited, tell visitors instead they can get “50, 100, even 10,000” of something.
- If something gets unlimited updates, make it 365 days or 1000 days or 10 years of updates.
- If something is fast, tell people your technique works within 5 minutes or 20 minutes, whatever applies.
- If something is easy, share the success rate (percentage), a testimonial, or a case study…
I guess it comes down to the show-not-tell approach!
As Jason Fladlien would say, if you’re telling a story about how mean and tough a guy is… don’t TELL people about how he’s mean and tough.
SHOW them how he weighed 280 pounds, wore a big leather jacket, had a huge beard, and you could hear his Harley Davidson motorcycle coming a mile away… he screeched to a halt in front of your house leaving a thick rubber skid mark… and even today, 7 years later, you can step outside and see the rubber mark still in the street… cracked over the years but still there.
In my last few sales letters, at the very end, I’ve been saying one or both of these things:
- You can check out my product and get a refund at any time within the first 30 days. If you’re still undecided, try it out for an ADDITIONAL 30 days before deciding if you want to keep it or return and get your money back. (This language is a lot more specific than the usual “60 day refund” explanation.)
- You get 750 days worth of updates. I used to tell people they get lifetime updates, but everyone says that, so I tried saying 365 days of updates… but that seemed too ordinary, so I made it 750 days of updates.
“Lifetime” is too ambiguous. Is it your lifetime, my lifetime, the lifetime of the product? (Is it Lifetime: Television For Women… with weekly made-for-TV movies starring Meredith Baxter?)
Does the “lifetime” only count for versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, etc… and when I switch the book over to version 2.0, that counts as a different lifetime? (I’m having Scott Bakula Quantum Leap time travel flashbacks here… “oh boy.”)
You have to be different. Using your own numbers makes you unique. In your headlines, bullet points, offer, guarantee, even your update policy. Remember the movie “There’s Something About Mary?” Harlan Williams says there is a how-to video called 7 Minute Abs … so his big idea is to create a how-to video called 6 Minute Abs. “If you aren’t satisfied with the first six minutes, we’ll throw in an additional minute for free!”
When I told my subscribers that moving my upsell to AFTER the original sale boosted conversions from 2.6% to 5.5% it had a lot more impact than just saying, “It improved conversion rates.”
As I close this up, the ultimate irony of today’s story is that I didn’t split test the “lifetime” versus “750 day” update offer. There just isn’t enough time in the day to split test every little thing.
I’m a sloppy copywriter. My Fast Food Copywriting method says write it quickly and sloppily… get it out there… then go back later and fix it up. A really quick and easy patch-job is to remove ambiguity and add imagery… add numbers!
What’s your best technique to add specificity to your sales letters? Comment below to tell me!
Filed in: Copywriting
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Let’s see, a 280 pound fright monster riding a Harley….. that immediately brings to mind the part of Randal “Tex” Cobb in “Raising Arizona”. Nice visual!
I have a private advisory service with a small clientele, and yes I’ve noticed a definite response to specificity in my yearly letters. It seems to bring out a need for interaction. Instead of a prospect just signing up and receiving service, the specific numbers often leads to questions and a subsequent dialogue that strengthens our bond beyond the normal client-provider relationship.
LOL My grade 4 teacher always told me “nice” was not a word – or at least one that should never be used.
She said it didn’t mean anything… “oh, that’s nice” – what does that mean anyways? It’s too ambiguous.
So she was always on about using more specific, descriptive and meaningful words. I guess all those years ago she started planting the first seeds of copy writing in me.
Funny the things you actually remember from school eh?
Cheers
Great tweak Robert, many thanks. Btw, it’s not a Harley … I’ll be cruising on 772 pounds of my big bad black 1552cc, V-twin, Vulcan Nomad! Cheers, Don
Hmm, great insight.
I just started offering free updates for life on video tutorial products, but your method seems much better.
Guess I’ll have to try something like free updates for 3,000,000 seconds… or the equivalent time in days. 🙂
Actually 10 years seems like a lot longer time than the amorphous “lifetime”
Good stuff Robert!
Reminds me of when I was back in the 3rd grade and my favorite teacher always said “You can never have enough adjectives in your sentences.”
So instead of saying:
The man ask me for directions to South st.
I could say it better this way:
The thin, white hair, soft spoken old man ask me for directions to South st.
Paint a picture for your readers and visitors. Make them not only want to read the offer, but be able to picture the success or benefits it brings them in their head.
-Kenny
Nothing beats being specific about your offer.
How’s this for a guarantee:
“You get 63 days to try this out and I don’t start counting til next Friday!”
Hmmm…think I’ll give that one a whirl.
Great ideas – thanks!
That’s a great point Robert. I am finding that specificity doesn’t only apply to numbers, but what you are offering as well. Instead of saying “My product/service will help you succeed”, something like “My offer will show you how to get more traffic and incease your sales” will get a much greater response. Thanks for a great post and have a great day! Time to go tweak some letters!
Johnnynfl
Exactly. I have a bad habit of saying “that’s nice” to my girlfriend, and it gets her mad. Most people use it in a dismissive way… I was trying to literally say something was nice. But if it’s an overused phrase it’s going to get lumped into that category, just like overused words like “lifetime” make people skip over them.
The whole point of copywriting is to say as much stuff in as few words as possible… so if someone isn’t going to read it… it’s fluff!
It’s like when you go to a restaurant or you’re buying something at a store, the clerk always asks, “How are you?” They aren’t actually asking how you are, they’re just trained to say that or they’re being polite.
For the past several months, any time someone has said to me, “How are you?” I’ve replied with something outrageous, like “sparkly” or “super duper fantastic” … or given them a numeric value, like “7.4 out of 10.” About half the time the person laughs… just because it’s such an unexpected response.
Specificity is exactly 93.4% vital to any sales copy. (The other 6.6% should be to instill curiosity.)
Demetri Martin shared an example of a successful business in his act on “Important Things” the other night. The them was “timing,” and he showed a drawing of two businesses side-by-side. One was an out-of-business “One Hour Photo” store, demonstrated by having wooden planks (no pun intended) nailed across its windows, and the other was a thriving store called “59-Minute Photo.”
I just thought I’d share that because it was an important thing.
Thanks, Robert! Great stuff as usual!
Mitch
Good post, Robert. And it’s got me commenting with my top copywriting secret…
For me, it’s the word “that”. (I realized this from someone else, so I am not the “discoverer”).
That(!) word messes-up your sentences.. eliminate it and nine times out of ten, your copy will flow so much better. Yes, you will have to reword whole sentences, but they will be so much better for it.
All the best,
Kevin
PS. Robert… I’ve spent today making a WordPress plugin by chopping-about your great models in WP Crusher http://a.gd/plankydoesitagain
My version of your article poster is just what I need for my membership site. So thanks a lot!
Robert,
There’s another aspect to the specificity that I’ve heard Dan Kennedy speak of.
Being specific with bonuses gives it more value. Unlimited can’t be calculated.
If I’m a car dealer and my ad says “Free tires for life”, I can’t put a value on that.
But if my ad says, “A free set of tires for the next ten years”… bam, simple math allows me to put a dollar value on that offer. I reduce my exposure, quantify it, and get the boost that comes with offering a huge dollar value bonus.
Then you play with the price of the tires so the final dollar value is odd and unusual.
Jack
Robert,
how do you do set up each clickbank product so that an affiliate can send a customer directly to that product if it isn’t the main product on your clickbank account?
do you use something off the shelf, some code? or?
I have a new membership site being launched next week.. and cracking my head to figure out how an affiliate can send an order straight to the clickbank order page for that product?
Thanks!
Izzy
P.S. DailySeminar is GREAT!!