Press “play” to be sold… That’s the promise of video marketing. So why does it work so well?
It’s a mark of inexperience.
“Who would watch one of those long marketing videos — where it’s just text on the screen? Whaddya call ‘em? Video sales letters?”
“I’d never watch one. Whenever I hit a website that has one, I just click away.”
“I’ve even tried to watch one, and I can’t stand it!”
And then, invariably, the fatal jump occurs.
Because this person finds themselves uninterested in or annoyed by the long text-on-screen marketing videos, they write off the strategy.
And start justifying it…
“It’s better not to use those long videos because people today have such short attention spans…”
“They’re going to annoy my customers, so I won’t use ‘em…”
“They’re not going to work anyway, so I just won’t try…”
This is roughly the thought process that countless ignorant “newbie” marketers have used to write off one of the biggest innovations in online direct response marketing in this century.
Video sales letters. Sometimes called “PowerPoint” videos. It’s basically equivalent to taking the text of a sales letter… And line-by-line, putting each sentence on a slide… Which are then recorded being read aloud… And cycled through… So the viewer sees the sentences that are being read to them…
They can stretch on for an hour or more.
And often, the buy button doesn’t even show up on the screen until at least halfway through.
So even if you WANT the product, you can’t buy it yet.
Jon Benson, a fitness marketer, claims to have invented the format…
He used to do highly-produced videos on YouTube for his list, and one day he got lazy. So he put text on screen, and read it. Instead of his standard high-production video. And it got more engagement and generated more sales than any of his “live” videos ever did.
And he refined the format, made a whole bunch of money with it, then started teaching it.
Some became students, others just copied it. Either way, these things took off in the last few years. Showing up in nearly every market, and every corner of the internet. Generating billions-upon-billions of dollars in revenue.
One of the places Jon Benson taught was at a special private workshop at Boardroom, Inc., 2 years ago. The videos from that event have never been sold — but I managed to snag a copy off Brian Kurtz. They’re good stuff.
No matter who you learn how to do these from, they ARE something you need to be fluent in today.
Why? Because they get results.
Just the other day I heard of a brand-new VSL that had a $1-million DAY!
I think this is privileged information, so I’m going to keep the company secret. But there was a marketing video that was released the other day — one of these video sales letters — that sold a high-end financial service.
And within 24 hours, it’d done more than $1 million in revenue.
Because of the nature of the service, it won’t be “live” for long. But the total revenue will likely number in the multiple millions.
And the video was 66 minutes long!
That’s over an hour of “being sold to.”
Over an hour of mainly text on screen, with only a few relevant pictures interspersed throughout.
Why the heck would people sit through that? (And you can tell that they did, because they bought to the tune of over $1 million in revenue!)
Here’s the secret to why these things work…
In short, if you are interested in a topic, you can’t get enough information on it.
Let’s say you’re into direct marketing. You’ll sign up for a daily email like this one, and read every one as soon as it arrives in your inbox.
You’ll pay for information products. You’ll go to seminars and workshops. You’ll read books. You’ll watch videos. And listen to podcasts.
You’ll consume, consume, consume.
If you’re rabidly interested in a topic, you can’t get enough.
The best video sales letters — the ones that do $1 million in a day — don’t just sell (even though that’s essentially what they’re doing from beginning to end). They engage, entertain, and inform. You feel like you’re not just being sold to, that you’re being taught something, having something revealed to you.
As Gary Bencivenga wrote to me in a private message about his most successful promotion ever and why it worked so well… You should “make your advertising itself look, feel, and actually be valuable to your target audience.” A well done marketing video delivers value while selling.
Even more, you want to consume in multiple media. We all do. You may prefer one medium. Visual. Auditory. The written word. But you’ll consume in multiple media. Video sales letters combine visual, auditory, and the written word. They also add a human touch, through voice.
Here’s another secret from the infomercial world, on why these things work so well…
I was listening to my friend Wesley Murph’s Marketing Maniac podcast a while back, in an episode where he interviewed infomercial expert Steven Dworman (one of the guys behind Total Gym and so many other infomercial successes).
One thing Steve said really jumped out at me. He had tested an infomercial where the call to action — the point in the show where they actually tell you to call in — didn’t show up until deep into the show. More than halfway, if I remember right.
This broke all the rules of infomercials at the time. The general “rule” for how to structure your infomercial was 7 minutes, CTA, 7 minutes, CTA, 7 minutes, CTA, and you’re out.
He had essentially removed that first CTA, in the interest of doing a little more selling before actually asking for the order.
Well, it worked.
But everybody thought he was crazy, so he agreed to test an earlier CTA.
This spoils the punchline, but you might guess… That earlier CTA — to cater to shorter attention spans — suppressed response. So much so that the show would have been considered a failure had he tested the earlier CTA out of the gate.
What was the lesson learned?
In order to make the sale, your prospect needs enough information to make a buying decision.
You can’t give them too much, either. But most folks don’t fall short there.
You need to give them your full sales story.
All the reasons why for buying.
Your full promise, and the proof behind it.
You need to make your incredible offer.
And so on…
Here’s what happens when you apply this lesson to online marketing videos…
You realize that these long videos that don’t even let you order until 30 minutes or 45 minutes in…
That tell a complete sales story before you are even aware you’re being sold…
That educate as well as compel you to action…
Are doing just the right thing in order to generate maximum response.
It’s not magic, but it can be…
Simply putting bad copy and bad sales techniques into a video won’t magically turn you into a millionaire overnight.
However, good copy put into a video sales letter format often lifts response.
And the best of these things have generated in the tens of millions of dollars, and made small personal fortunes for everyone involved in putting them out.
There will be formats that supersede the video sales letter, but today it’s an essential skill for direct response marketers…
There has already been some testing on different online video formats that are actually able to generate even more revenue than the video sales letter.
Things you might call newsmercials and documercials. They look and inform like a newscast or documentary, but sell like a commercial. (Stealing a naming convention here from the direct mail magalog and bookalog formats.) However, these require another level of skill, and another level of production budget.
A video sales letter works, well. And can be produced in an afternoon, with very little skill or equipment, on your laptop.
These things are here to stay, and they will continue to generate a ton of revenue going forward.
If you’re a direct response copywriter, this is a skill you need.
And I’ll note, it’s part of my November Advanced Direct Response Copywriting Workshop. And remember: you have until Friday to secure $900 savings with the “Early, Early Bird” rate…
Learn more about the workshop and lock in your savings here.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
I really enjoyed reading this, it confirmed a few of the thoughts that I had been considering about video and infomercials. I too have been annoyed by some of the more clunky and crass video sales letters but also stimulated and inspired by the better ones (I received a great one from Mary Ellen Tribby a couple of weeks ago).
I love blogs that I learn something new from too and the piece on breaking the rules and leaving the first CTA out – letting you tell the whole sales story first, was an excellent little 'gold nugget. One of those 'Aha' moments because it makes so much sense, why did no one think of it before. Thank you for a great read.
Thank you Lesley! YES — many video sales letters wait 30 minutes or more to put the order button on the page… And it works like gangbusters!
I was interested in the topic. The video said just three minutes and kept rambling on and on and on with me screaming at the screen “Quit telling me what you are going to tell me!” I hung in because I was genuinely interested in the top. And it kept going on and on and on some more. I was so aggravated sitting there like a dummy for nearly 40 without them ever getting to the product. What idiot thinks this is generates lots of customer? Arghhhh.
The idiot who bases their analysis on measurement and not opinion. That said, long does not ALWAYS equal better, if a copywriter doesn’t know how to do it in a way that works.
Sorry, but I don't have 60 minutes to listen to a video to get to the main point. I'm a doctor. I want to see the basic information, the abstract, so to speak. You can't give that to me? I won't listen to the video. We're entering a generation where people's attention spans are incredibly short. I am amazed at what people call novels when they are technically novellas. JUST STOP IT!
We do what is tested and proven to get the most response. It may not work for you, but it works for most.
Don't you have a written transcript? I'm a speed reader, and that's so much easier on the brain.
Incidentally,the video said cashews are legumes. They are actually seeds and related to pistachios and walnuts, both nuts on Dr. Gundry's "happy" list.
I close down the site as soon as I realize it's going to be one of those endless teasers. At work I have to absorb masses of info on products in a very short time to determine f they can be used in a new system. Zero time and tolerance for waffle and repetition.
I think you miss the point. Waffle and repetition are not the same as length. The videos that sell are not waffling and repetitive. They are always moving forward, and presenting new information, carrying the viewer through the sales story.
When you land on one of these that is well done, and which you are the perfect prospect for, you will want to close it but you won't because you will be thoroughly hooked.
That's how they work.
And the numbers prove they do work better than text, even as people make comments like this about how they hate them and never watch them. Behavior says otherwise.
Well, not really. These info ads repeat the same talking points over and over again. Additionally, if someone had to spend 30 minutes convincing people or an hour the product always turns out to be over priced, not verifiable as to quality and effect by recognized testing agencies and disrespectful of wasting people’s time. To quote PT Barnum….”there’s a suckered born every minute”…to which I would add: although it may take an hour to prove his point.
Correct. Only someone interested in a gross waste of time would endure the endless ordeals.
I just wondered why they do it. When I look up some herbal treatment for pain -why they give me the life story of a patient and his wife and tell listeners (wrongly) that there is no joint pain in the country where the herb comes from when it really has the highest rate of joint pain in the world. It sort of makes sense now. They know their target market and I am not it.
I disagree with the thought the ads give as much information on a subject and if your interested in a product you can’t get enough info, I’m interested in the cure, not how someone visited a remote village in some third world country. I want the solution. The ads sound like a sad soap opera. Get to the point.
What you’re describing is bad an irrelevant ads, not necessarily the length of ads.
If the ad is well-written, gets to its multiple points at a decent pace, and keeps moving forward toward the solution (explaining why other solutions won’t work for you along the way), it can be an hour and its TARGETED AUDIENCE and FUTURE BUYERS will hang on every word.
Reading your canned responses that say the length isn’t the or problem is like fingernails on a blackboard. When the ad nauseam narrator kept saying to give them 3 minutes and I kept seeing the length line of the video stay static, I quit watching because I was frustrated and fed up.
I have done both: quit and read to the end. No marketing strategy works 100% with 100% of the people. The open rate of emails is some 2% which means 49 out of 50 woulldn’t care less, yet emaill continues to be an effective marketing tool. If we wwere to apply that same ratio to long video letters, no wonder many would quit reading before getting to the call to action, but the fat that the strategy is in use proves that it is no less effective than emails.
As I said, I have been in both sides, and I always feel the urge to shut down but, if my interest has been picked, I will read to end and very often click on the buy or register button.
Marketing is not just lettuce but a mix of vegetables. I do not think we are been urged to rely only on video letters but in an assortment of advertising of which video letters, for certain products and services, may be as much or more effective than other .
The people who commented against this approach were so interested that they read the whole lentgthy article. I rest my case.
By the way, I am past of the 2% and I registered. The long article worked.
Suggestion: I do not know why marketers use gray instead of black fonts.
I agree with most of the critical comments here. I have a science background. I consider myself to be pretty fast on the uptake. I find these teasing long winded ads incredibly annoying and most times when I perceive I am being teased in this way, I quit. Often I can do a query on a search engine about the presenter and find out elsewhere what the great secret was that often turns out to be not such a big deal after all. Maybe they work for many people but clearly not for people like me and others who have been equally critical in this thread.
Okay. So I imagine you’d agree that a scientist follows the data? In this case, regardless of background, the data says that as a general rule, these work. Which is why, as a scientific advertiser, I use these.
I just clicked out of “What eggs do to seniors brains” after 3 minutes because of what it was doing to my brain. Good grief! If there isn’t a transcript, there is no way I’m sticking through 30-40 minutes of useless fluff. They obviously work, which confirms for me how many silly people there are out there.
Advertisements is a fascinating subject. I find most commercials extremely boring, stupid, annoying, insulting. But I also acknowledge that they are highly effective. Maybe they just don’t work on those of us who hate them?
Your hate for them probably clouds your awareness of when they work on you. I know people, personally, who openly hate ads but then I see responding to SPECIFIC ads.
most of the videos are ego trips, and repetitive. I lose interest after 3 mins.