I recently got an email from a client who I wrote a new sales letter for.📧
I was going up against a control that I thought was fairly weak…✋
But the client let me know that my new letter was “only” beating their control by about 10-12%.
Now, on the one hand, 10-12% isn’t bad…👌
But they also paid me my usual $50k rate to write the letter for them…💲
And the client asked if I had any ideas for how to help make the letter perform even better.
I told them absolutely…
And since I figured you might be interested in what I’m planning on doing…
Let me go ahead and share that with you right now.
First, I asked them to link me to the live version of my letter.
The reason why is because I want to go through and make sure there’s not some egregious design issue, or on-page issue, that is messing things up.
Then, assuming that there’s nothing wrong with that page or the design…
I’m going to take the time to write 5-6 new headlines for them to test.
I’ll do this because just fixing the headline can increase the conversion rate by 10%, sometimes even more…
So this alone might give my letter a nice big boost.
Third, I’ll sit down and write at least two new leads for them to test.
The reason why: after headlines, new leads are by far the biggest needle mover.
The one I used for this letter is super curiosity-driven and I liked it a lot…
But next I’ll probably test out an emotional story lead…
And then I may do another curiosity-driven lead that focuses on a different aspect of the “Big Idea.”
Then finally, I plan on going through my original sales letter and cutting a bunch of stuff from it.
When people ask me how long a letter needs to be, I often say, “however long it takes to sell.”
In the case of this letter – it’s close to 9k words, while the control is like 3k words.
That length is fine…
But the letter is for a $7 eBook…
So I have a hunch that perhaps I’ve got some overkill in my letter…
And maybe a shorter version will actually convert higher since the price is so low.
I might be wrong, but definitely worth testing.
So yeah, that’s my initial plan…
And I’d be shocked if I’m not able to get the letter to a place where it’s beating the control by at least 50% within the next month or so.
Oh, and before I finish up here…
There are actually a few more important points I want to share with you:
1. Note that I didn’t get down on myself or freak out when they told me my letter wasn’t a home run.
I mean, sure, I did beat the control at least…
But I’m supposed to be one of the very best in the world here…
So “only” 10-12%??
Even at my high level, I could have started to get worried that I’ve lost my edge…But, thanks to experience…
I know that hitting a home run on your first swing isn’t all that common.
This is why I often look at writing winning letters as an iterative process…
And it’s also why, when I work with a client who spends months obsessing over every little word in a letter I gave them…
Rather than just launching and trying to gather data…
It drives me freaking crazy.
2. When it comes to being a copywriter, don’t underestimate the importance of mindset.
If you’ve been following me for a long time…
You may have heard me talk about how, when I wrote the “Burn” video sales letter for VShred, the initial version didn’t beat their control.
Part of the reason why was due to an on-page thing (they had the buy button set up to show on the page after 6 minutes when it should have been 30+ minutes).
But the other reason was because my first lead just ended up not being very effective.
So, I immediately wrote the guys three more leads…
And one of them hit it out of the park…
Thanks to that new lead, the guys were able to scale a weight loss supplement on Facebook for the first time ever…
And to start doing anywhere from 1,500 to 3,500 front end sales per day as a result.
In return, this led to them hiring me for multiple other projects…
It made Nick and Vince advocates for me, and for Copy Accelerator…
And it gave me a great sales letter that I could point to and use to get even more clients in the future.
If I had just given up after the first lead, none of that would have happened.
3. You may notice that there was no push back or irritation from me.
I got the email from the client, and I responded within 5 minutes with the game-plan.
I didn’t ask for more money, I didn’t say it will take months, I didn’t groan.
I just said, “okay, no worries, let’s optimize the crap out of this.”
This is a super important attitude to have. These same clients paid me for two other letters…
That’s $150k I’ve put into the bank…
And I know they’ve got a ton of additional opportunities for me in the future too.
So, do you think it’s worthwhile for me to spend a few extra hours in order to go the extra mile for them?
Yeah, probably 🙂
But the important thing to understand is that I have this attitude with every client…
And I’ve always had it, even when I was charging $500 for a sales letter.
That’s the way you get a good reputation…
And it’s the way you have clients hiring you again-and-again.
P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link
