Why Your Email Copy is More Important than Your Sales Copy

[Desmond Ong]

Hey folks,

Now, I've been studying and implementing product launch techniques for some time now and I've also learned a lot of stuff -- thanks to people like Brandon Fredrickson (a member of this forum), Jeff Walker and Mike Filsaime.

I've done several launches and I recently managed a "mini" launch for one of my niche sites in the health and wellness niche and together with my business partner -- we have $500 to spend for our launch.

We spent about $200 in designs, videos and some technical stuff and I spent the rest of the $300 to pay for a great copywriter to write EMAIL autoresponder sequence for us instead of paying him to write a complete sales copy for us.

Now, we know that people are spending thousands of dollars upfront to top copywriters to write their sales copies -- but I don't find it necessary with a product launch. When we launched the health site, we've over 230 blog comments on our launch blog.

Almost all 200 of this people who left a comment are excited with our launch and guess what? We screwed up our sales copy.

Apparently, my business partner did not like the idea of overspending the initial budget of $500 -- so he wrote his own copy and I helped him to fix it. Now, both of us are not from native English countries -- so we speak and write our English differently.

To cut things short -- we screwed up our sales copy.

Our initial sales target is just 200 sales. And one day before launch day, we said to ourselves that 50 sales will just do us fine because again, WE SCREWED up our sales copy. I couldn't sleep that night because I felt like I disappointed my business partner. (It was my idea to spend $300 on an EMAIL autoresponder copywriter)

The next day, my business partner phoned me up and told me we had 189 sales on our first day.

A few of my fellow marketer friends who also jumped into the pre-launch actually told me that they agreed that we screwed up the sales copy...BADLY. But they also told me that they love our emails (that I hired someone for $300 to write) and those emails totally persuasive.

And so, after realizing this, I ran another mini re-launch -- this time, in the online dating niche. We didn't put on a sales copy and just the order button on the web page with no text, no nothing -- just the "Add to Cart" button.

From our AWeber stat, we found out that an average of 200 people are reading our emails -- and on the launch day -- we made 101 sales.


Lessons learned: Don't worry if you screwed up your sales copy. Just don't screw up your emails.

[Mike Merz]

Just goes to show you the importance of pre selling your prospects, Desmond.

Reminds me of the time Frank Kern basically slapped a couple of sentences and a payment link on a sales page to prove the power of pre selling and an effective pre launch cycle ... he sold out.

When done right, prospects can be sold before they even hit the sales page.

Of course, Frank also worked very hard on his self and product brand in addition to his Marketing before he was able to pull that off.

Cheers,

Mike

[BrandonFredrickson]

Desmond - you are one of my marketing hero's and I'm not kidding!

Everyone should look at you, an 18 or 19 year old kid -and every single time I talk to you, YOUR DOING STUFF.

You heard it here first, if this guy decides he wants to stay on the 'net selling info products, he's going to become an A level player in 3 to 5 years time, period.

[citrus]

I'm 19 years old and when I grow up, I wanna be like Desmond. LOL.

But seriously, Desmond's already making big bucks with flipping...it's just a matter of time before all the gurus start finding out about him and asking him for JV's :)

Back onto the topic at hand...I think this could be a completely revolutionary tactic - to skip the salesletter and sell directly with emails. Guys like Robert Plank, Lance Tamashiro, and Jason Fladlien are experts at email marketing - I'm sure they get ridiculous open rates like 200% or something like that. Their readers (me included) love them and are always really hyped every time they launch something.

Plus, Jason and Robert write their own copy, so they wouldn't have needed to hire someone anyway :)

Curtis

[Desmond Ong]

Just goes to show you the importance of pre selling your prospects, Desmond.




Yeah Mike. Even right now for most of my niche sites, what I do is set up two websites (two separated domain names) and one sells my product -- the other pre-sell my products under a pen name. This way, I don't have to worry if I screwed up my sales letter.




Desmond - you are one of my marketing hero's and I'm not kidding!

Everyone should look at you, an 18 or 19 year old kid -and every single time I talk to you, YOUR DOING STUFF.

You heard it here first, if this guy decides he wants to stay on the 'net selling info products, he's going to become an A level player in 3 to 5 years time, period.


Well, it's kinda weird for people at my age to be making money online -- SERIOUSLY.

I remembered my college Accounting lecturer laughing at me in front of the whole class (about 30 - 40 people) when I told him I made 5-figure income online. Oh well...what to do...




Plus, Jason and Robert write their own copy, so they wouldn't have needed to hire someone anyway :)



Hey Curtis, yeah my partner said the same thing to me. He told me to write the emails myself because I can be pretty good at writing weird but great headlines (or subject lines).

But somehow I decided to spend it all on a email copywriter.


Cheers.

[psipi]

Des..

Video...

if you need a hand with UK sales copy..
you know where I am..

but the whole thing.. goes back to mr frosty himself.. just folly the formula..

and if you get the jvs, affiliates doing their jobs properly
all you need up is a "Add to cart" button.

we should try that :)

[Mike Hersh]

Interesting post Desmong.

With all the good information you spilled here, I still can't 100% agree with you.

If you made almost 200 sales using nothing but your email campaign, if you had a professionally written sales page you would end up with 400.

Writing a selling sales page can only increase your sales. In my opinion you can't put the trash infront of your door and expect people to enter your house. As we can see there will always be some who do because they are desperate, but believe me that if they had another place to go in that case they would.

Making your front door appealing is crucial for the success of your product. Having a good autoresponder siries is important in the same level.

But thanks for all the info, I'm sure I learned new things from you. We never stop learning I guess :)

Mike G

[Daniel0604]

Thats a big fat golden nugget if I do say so myself. It really makes me think about how to do my launch. Should I just get great emails done or blow over 1k to get great sales letter copy. If you wouldn't mind spilling the beans, could I get your email writer ;)

[joel chue]

This is an interesting and insightful post on the power of PREselling.

And who says email marketing is dead?

Build enough rapport with your subscribers and emails can still sell like crazy!

[Desmond Ong]

Interesting post Desmong.

If you made almost 200 sales using nothing but your email campaign, if you had a professionally written sales page you would end up with 400.



Hey Mike G.

First of all, like I said, WE SCREWED up! ;D We could've ended up with 0 sales but we turned the situation around with our email copies. But pre-selling is definitely more powerful than just selling through the sales copy.

That why there's product launch and something called "warming" up your email subscribers. ;)

If I am to choose between email copy and sales copy -- I would go with email copies for sure.



could I get your email writer ;)


Hey Daniel,

My email copywriter is working non-stop for me right now. So I can't share her service with anyone else at the moment. ;)

[Mike Hersh]

I can understand that email copy is really important while selling, but I still think that a good sales copy can only help to raise the numbers.

Email campaigns are the strongest tool out there for promotions, no doubt.

[lginger]

Hi Desmong,

Thanks for sharing this. That's awesome you made so many sales.

This is absolutely what Jeff Walker says in his course, but was something I forgot. Just spent a lot more to have my copy written then the emails, I'll definitely at least spend some quality time on my emails.

I just signed up for your list the other day, great info.

Lisa

[Desmond Ong]

Hey Mike G,

Yes you are right. Sales copy is very important too and that's why the top dogs are spending tens or thousands of dollars just for a page of words. ;)

But what I'm saying is that when people read your email (even if your email contains some sales pitch) -- the people's mindset are set to "Receive". When they are reading a sales copy, their mindset is set to "doubt".

I don't know if you know this -- but Frank Kern recently shared a great video called "Triangle of Trust" (I think it was the same video that John Reese pounced on Frank Kern).

Here are why email copies are better than sales copies:

- You are "warming" your prospects up to buy your stuff

- You are building a relationship with your subscribers

- Your subscribers feel closer to you

- You don't sound like a typical sales man


Now, I'm not saying that what I'm saying here is 100% accurate. You gotta test this in your niche. This worked fine in my wellness and dating niches. :)

[alvinhuang]

Hey Desmond,

Any recommendations on who writes good email followup salescopy?

Alvin Huang

[Desmond Ong]

Hey Desmond,

Any recommendations on who writes good email followup salescopy?

Alvin Huang


Check out Jay White. :)

[alvinhuang]

Thanks for the recommendation Desmond. =)

Alvin Huang





Hey Desmond,

Any recommendations on who writes good email followup salescopy?

Alvin Huang


Check out Jay White. :)

[Mike Humphreys]

I can understand that email copy is really important while selling, but I still think that a good sales copy can only help to raise the numbers.

Email campaigns are the strongest tool out there for promotions, no doubt.


I agree.

One of the reasons why Desmong made the amount of sales that he did (Congrats Desmong!) was his efforts at pre-selling via email and blog prior to launch day. That allowed the truly interested prospects to decide to buy in spite of the sales copy.

If you find yourself in a similar situation to Desmong's about the sales letter, it's still a good idea to contact a professional copywriter and hire them to at least professionally critique your sales letter. Implement their advice and it can make a major difference in sales... and that's somethign your affiliates and you will appreciate.

The other thing is... if you do decide to hire a copywriter, don't wait until the last minute. Most of the top copywriters are booked for weeks or even months in advance because they are that busy with client work. And if they are like me, a typical client project is a 40-60 hour time commitment so there's a limit to how many clients I can work with and keep a high level of customer service and sales copy written.

Hope that helps,

Mike

[Rob Toth]

Every launch I've worked on had a salesletter or video that would take 10-30 minutes to work through...

Yet, once the site went live, initial sales came in instantly.

Nobody was even reading the copy.

I've heard other marketers attest to the same fact...

And it should be quite intuative... in the movie industry, the movie trailers and other buzz pre-sell you on seeing the movie. You don't need to read a long review (aka sales pitch) to know you want to see the movie... the teasers already did this.

Recently a friend ran an in-house coaching offer... he mailed once to say the coaching offer would be made on X day and explained why his readers should be interested.

He mailed on the "launch" day and said "if you're in, PayPal me _____ to _____"

Then he mailed a follow up with the same.

From what I'm told... he brought in a quick $10k (ie: sold out and met his goal). Nothing big... but it was a modest sized list, no salespage, no order button. His emails though were getting read and those interested enough jumped on it.

[Desmond Ong]

Sounds like I have a new name: Desmong. ;D

Desmond + Ong = Desmong

I wonder every marketer friend of mine calls me different names from Dezz to Desss to Desmund to Dessy and gosh, one person actually called me Dessy.

:P

[Rob Toth]

I got "Roth" plenty of times... it's even more impressive when it's an affiliate recruitement (ie: JV pitch) soliciation..


Dear Roth,
______________