If you are not using Video Sales Letters in May 2024 where have you been hiding in the digital marketing space?
The use of VSLs has helped impact conversion by more than 72% according to the best lead generation companies in the UK.
How do you script the perfect video sales letter?
A great VSL knows how to predictably convert cold customers into buyers — which is the “holy grail” of advertising.
I’ll tell you how to do this in a bit. But first….
Table of Content
What Is A VSL?
VSL is an acronym for “Video Sales Letter”.
A VSL is a sales letter that includes a video rather than a load of text.
The script utilises Direct-response copywriting which involves communication directly to the customer in a way that compels them to take action.
A direct-response copywriting script video sees a much higher conversion rate than sales pages that just have text and images.
Does the VSL Design Matter?
The Video Sales Letter design is not one of the most important factors for conversion.
Frank Kern is a prime example in showing the design is not the hook to convert your clients.
If you check this video template you will realise Franks presentation design isn’t even that impressive. It’s only black text over a white background.
But how does Frank keep clients hooked?
Why do they keep listening if the design is just a simple black text over a white background template?
Let’s dive into what really makes an amazing VSL for conversion.
Best VSL Scripts
The best VSL scripts take the potential customers on a journey.
Click Funnels
Here are the best techniques for creating the best converting VSL script by Click Funnels.
- Explain The Problem — What problem is your target market facing? How can you empathize with their challenges?
- Agitate The Problem — Make that problem visceral for them. Explain why it’s a bigger problem than they think it is and how it’s really going to harm them over the long-run.
- Introduce The Solution — What is your solution to their problem?
- Build Credibility — Why should they trust YOU to be the provider of this solution? What makes you so great? Telling a story about your own journey can help build credibility.
- Show Proof — How do they know that it’ll actually work? Using a case-study or testimonial is a great way to show proof.
- Explain Exactly What They Get — Explain exactly what the prospect is going to get if they sign up.
- Give Reason To Act Now — Why should they buy right now? Use urgency or scarcity to put the prospect’s foot on the gas.
- Close — Close the sale with a final call-to-action.
Biteable
Here are the best techniques for creating the best converting VSL script by biteable.
- Attention grabber – Your opening should shock or surprise viewers. You want to grab their attention and hint at what’s to come.
- Highlight the issue/problem – What problem does your audience face that your service or product solves? Highlight the issue here and use any facts, stats, or quotes to drive it home.
- Speak to the audience on an emotional level – Really drive home the importance of the problem or issue. Focus on the pain point, and relate to your audience by sharing an emotional story and detailing your personal experience with the problem.
- Gently introduce your solution – This shouldn’t be a hard sell. You want to show people you can help, without pushing too much.
- Establish credibility – Position yourself as a trustworthy authority. You can mention your credentials here, but try to avoid looking like you’re bragging.
- Provide proof – You can’t expect your viewers to simply take your word for it that your product works, you need to demonstrate it. You can do this with customer testimonials, statistics, before and after pictures — anything that will convince your audience.
- Encourage action – You’ve laid out the problem, introduced the solution, and provided proof — what do you want your viewers to do next? This is where you make your call to action. You can also incentivize or create scarcity. Bonuses, discounts, limited availability, or a limited time offer can all help convince buyers to act now.
- Summarize – Close by summarizing the benefits of your product or service, and reinforce the reasons viewers should buy now. You want to briefly reiterate the action you want them to take, and why, where, and how to do it.
FatRank
Here are the best techniques for creating the best converting VSL script by FatRank.
Daniel Doan
Daniel is a direct-response copywriter and conversion specialist with a decade of experience leading growth teams and writing conversion copy for some of the largest brands.
I love his article on how to write a VSL that converts.
- Grab Your Audience’s Attention – It’s important to capture your audience’s attention from the get-go. Something like a pattern interrupt or an open loop would work well, but anything surprising or great value hack should do the job.
- Bring Up The Problem They Have And Explain Why They Need To Fix It – Now you want to make your audience aware of their problem, whatever it might be. It really depends on where they are in their buying journey in relation to what stage of awareness they’re at. Maybe they’re simply aware but not in the stage of consideration yet. That’s why you need to help them realise why they should solve their problem.
- Why It’s Important To Fix The Problem – You’ve already made them aware of their problem, now you try to drive it home. In the next step you’ll be able to get into even more detail so just make them even more aware of how real it is. The idea is to hit on pain points and tease that you know what they’re facing. Whether that’s something they’re missing out on or something they want to stop, make sure they know that you’re aware of it.
- Use Emotions To Seal The Deal – The next step is to make your audience feel like they have no other option unless they want to keep on suffering. You need to ramp up the tension and build to the worst possible results. Emotion is the best angle here and you should relate what you went over previously to what it actually means to your audience. You want the emotion to be you are kicking yourself for missing a golden opportunity.
- Give The Solution – Now you can involve yourself and propose your product or service and tell exactly what it can do for them. First, tell them that you can solve their problem with your offer. Then explain how it can do that. Just think, what are you offering? What does your audience want and what can you do to help them with that? You need to talk about how this benefits them.
- Establish Credibility – Tell the audience what makes you qualified, who you are, what you do, and your experience. Basically, anything that makes you a good choice over the other guy. And by now you’re well aware that there are plenty of good choices. So you have to think about why your audience should trust you. This isn’t a time to gloat or embellish, you want to stick to facts. Whatever it is that qualifies you to say what you’re saying. If there’s no trust between you and your audience you’re not going to be winning anyone over. Not only that, but your audience also doesn’t really care what you’ve done. It doesn’t mean anything to them. What they really want to know is how you can help them, so you have to relate your background to help your audience succeed. (e.g I’ve been doing this since 2003 and I started from the ground up, before there were any resources available. About 10 years ago I decided to start helping others do the same thing because I know just how hard it can be going into something blind. After all those years, I’ve helped multiple clients reach well over 7 figures, and the list keeps growing.)
- Prove Your Offer – It’s as simple as that, just give some proof. This can range from testimonials to stats, anything that can’t be called into question. Maybe you have some success stories from previous clients or some numbers that show what your offer is capable of. Anything that’s inarguably true. This ties into trust because anyone can make claims without backing them up. And people are savvy enough to know when those claims have no real foundation. So make sure you’re sticking to facts only.
- Explain Your Offer – This is going past offering the solution, this is where you tell about what your solution does. All the features and benefits, in detail. But it’s important to leave out any fluff, just tell them what they need to hear. This shouldn’t take much work since you know exactly what you’re offering. But you do have to relate your offer to benefits. So anything that you’re doing for them isn’t just a feature, it’s actually helping your audience reach their goals.
- Add Some Urgency – Like making any sale, this can make or break your chance at closing. No matter how close your prospect is to make a purchase, they might hesitate for a number of reasons. So, you can do a few things: you can imply that stock is low, that a special offer is time-sensitive, or offer bonuses. People can be easily influenced by all these methods, for different reasons. If the stock is low, they might miss the chance to get your offer. If you’re offering something like a discount for a limited time, they might end up paying a lot more in the end. These are things that people naturally want to avoid. But bonuses appeal to what people want because everyone likes getting a little something extra.
- Call To Action – You’re probably pretty familiar with this step by now. Like with any copy you just need to tell your audience what to do. Everything you went over before should come together here in a concise summary. It doesn’t need to be lengthy, it just has to hit on the right things. Get signed up today and see the benefits in no time.
Frank Kern
Here are the best techniques for creating the best converting VSL script by Frank Kern.
- Introduction – Big benefit-driven promise (which hooks the viewer to watch the video)
- Open A Loop – This is important as it forces the viewer to watch the video until after the call to action. You want the people to consume the whole video to prequalify whether they are the right customer
- Talk About the Problems – Touch on the pain points or problems and expand on this to show them why they really need to eliminate this problem from their life
- Story or Testimonials – How others have had these exact problems and managed to find the solution you are going to explain to them
- What They Are Getting – Explain the solution. Expand on why this solution is better than anything else
- Call To Action – Spoke about the problems, introduced the solution, and provided proof others have benefitted from your solution — what do you want your viewers to do next? This is where you make your call to action.
- Encourage Act Now – Create scarcity and apply a close with an amazing close to act now.
Here is a formula including the ad copy for a Frank Kern template:
Stages of Awareness
Learning how to create Video Sales Letters for the five stages of awareness is key.
No one wakes up in the morning and decides, “I’m going to buy something today.” They are influenced.
Instead, they go through a path to purchase that includes research and evaluation before committing to a sales call.
That journey is called the buyer’s journey.
You need to create content that helps them along that path while positioning you as an authority in your space.
Here are the 5 phases of awareness in VSLs you need to try and cover.
Completely Unaware
Your target customer is completely unaware they have a problem.
When you ask your target client “How is Business at Present?” their subconscious answer is “Yes Business is Great Thanks for Asking”.
The subconscious mind never says “Yes business is good but I am missing a great lead generator” is they do not know this is a product available.
At this stage you need to grab their attention with possible pain points they did not understand was common in the industry.
i.e. “Are you a tradesman that is struggling to bring in a consistent flow of enquiries right now?”
Now you have highlighted to the completely unaware potential client they have an issue they might need to resolve.
Problem-Aware
The problem-aware stage is your target customer understands they have an issue with our example of lead generation.
But although they are problem-aware they do not understand there is a solution to fix this.
At this stage, you need to reassure them there is a solution to their problems.
i.e. “Generating leads via SEO, PPC, Facebook Ads or other marketing platform is a professional trade.”
Now you have highlighted there is a solution and you can assist here.
Solution-Aware
The solution-aware stage is your target customer understands there are solutions but unaware of which is the best solution to take.
At this stage, you need to convince the consumer your product or service is the best in the marketplace.
i.e. “Optimising for the buying intent searches and segmenting leads based on best-converting data all helps assist your conversion of leads to sales.”
Now you need to highlight you are the market leaders and touch on the pain points and establish credibility.
Product-Aware
The product-aware stage is your target customer understands the service you are offering.
But although they are product-aware they do not understand if you are the best value for money or whether your service will help them.
i.e. “I want to introduce you to a method called LEAD SEGMENTATION that allows businesses to improve conversion.”
At this stage, they are aware they need the product but comparing the market for the best companies to use.
Now you need to highlight why your service will benefit them. If they do not see benefits from your service they will not sign-up.
Most Aware
The most-aware stage is your target customer likes your service but needs an offer or deal for them to take action.
This now is where your sales pitch or welcome offer needs to encourage them to take the action.
i.e. “The tradesman pays zero upfront for enquiries and only pays a percentage if any leads turn into a confirmed mortgage.”
At this stage, they have a desire to want more leads and you have offered them something they cannot refuse.
This is known as tripwire marketing as to get started you are not asking for the customer yet to commit but they have taken the first steps to partner up.
Stages of Awareness Common Mistakes
Making sure you adapt your VSLs to understand the buying journey is key.
Here are the most common mistakes made on the stages of awareness:
- You try to hard-sell your service before they even identify they have a problem
- You try to hard-sell your service without building trust and establish credibility
- You offer a voucher code without the target customer not even knowing who you are
- They are looking to buy and you don’t give them clear enough offer, coupon code or discount to make the purchase
- They are looking to purchase and you go back through the cycle of educating them with “What is Lead Gen” blurb
- They are looking to buy and do not display a clear enough call to action
- They are ready to buy and you do not instil and urgency for them to take that action now
AIDA Model
The AIDA model is just one of a class of models known as the hierarchy of effects models or hierarchical models, all of which imply that consumers move through a series of steps or stages when they make purchase decisions.
The steps proposed by the AIDA model are as follows:
- Attention – The consumer becomes aware of a category, product or brand (usually through advertising)
- Interest – The consumer becomes interested in learning about brand benefits & how the brand fits with the lifestyle
- Desire – The consumer develops a favourable disposition towards the brand
- Action – The consumer forms a purchase intention, shops around, engages in trial or makes a purchase
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re struggling with video sales letters or haven’t tackled one yet, it’s important to learn how to produce them. And there are a few things that go into them like the format and the video quality.
But you’re dealing with sales, and sales come down to good copy. That’s why it’s so important to write a good script. Because without compelling copy it doesn’t matter how much of an expert you are at video production.
The offer is what people are interested in, the video is just a medium to get through to your audience. They don’t care so much about the video itself, but what the video is explaining to them.
Granted, an amateur-looking video sales letter isn’t going to be effective either, even with the best copy. But it all starts with a good script.
So hopefully you have a better understanding of what makes a good script now. Because a solid video sales letter can make a huge difference in your business.
But if you’re still having some trouble or just don’t have the time to put one together, don’t worry.
A copywriting consultant might be your best choice if that’s the case. They’re pros at this stuff and can save you plenty of time and headaches.