Dear Friends,

Who else watched John Ritz video for the Copywriters Toolkit? And what do you think?

First, I don't know John Ritz personally. So the following thread is not a disguised promotion for him or an attack against him.

Here's the link to the videos:

Copywriter's Toolkit

It is just my 'opinion' on what an online video should do and why online videos can't replace a good sales letter.

Here are my points.

1-An online video is linear while a sales letter can be browsed, scanned.

Here's what I mean: when a video like John's is being played and there is a part that doesn't wake me up, I can't skip it. I have to listen to it or else I can just leave the site. I can't preview the whole message by scanning it.

In a good sales letter, I can preview the message: read the headline, subheadlines, guarantee or what have you before I dig for the details.

2-An online video is slow in delivering the message. The eyes moves faster than the mouth. Reading aloud is slower than reading with the eyes only.

3-An online video supposes that every viewer has the time to wait for the content to upload, the same way a graphic-heavy site assumes that the visitor will wait three minutes for the site to upload.

4-An online video needs reinforcement and needs focus. Here's wha I mean. As certain words are being said, if these are key words, these key words need to be printed on the screen so that the message can be re-inforced.

5-An online video can't mask the lack of basic salesmanship in the video.

In John's video, there were many instances where John talks about features instead of telling the viewer what the thing will do, and more importantly how the "videos" will help build a better copywriting career.

What the resources will do the the reader? What will the mother lode will do?

6- An online video must have a script so a "specific message", a specific USP can be conveyed through the message.

7-Try to have a spokeperson in the video: not just another website. But a real leader who is taking a stand.

8-An online video should answer the "so what question?" The video must ask for action, some kind of measurable action.

In John's case the video ends with "thanks for watching".

I am afraid that Web 2.0 tools alone will not bring the answer to the internet marketer's challenge: how to convince visitors to take action.

If anyone else has watched John's video, I'd like you to share your reaction.

Hey John, this post is not against you. I have just watched your video and thought of Rosser Reeves, about his lessons about USP, and thought about having a main theme in the video.

Sincerely,

P.S: So far the only person who does online videos with true salesmanship is Dr Kilstein. I watched some of his videos and I can see a structure, a main message the is being repeated, and the viewer is asked to take action.

I just read the first two points then I knew it were going to be a humpy ride to read all 8 points. See, you said you leave the site if the message is bad in a video. I do the same when the message is bad on the text sales letter.

A good video informercial is a powerful marketing tool, so I dont see why you are bashing the video so much.. just watch the informercials on television.

They rake in Billions of dollars. That 'tova night' (Halbert helped with the launch) perfume sold 60,000 units in a day. There is a lot of money to be made with video.

But crappy video = crappy results
Same goes for sales letters.

Just my two cents.

Peace
Peace

Well, I watched the first two videos. To me, John was doing more of a soft-sell "here's what you'll find inside the Copywriters Toolkit" type of video.

John's an avid tester so maybe he found he's getting a better conversion rate this way... or he started testing this method.

I've been a member of his site and it's jam-packed with a lot of great stuff. Definitely worth it IMHO.

Re: salesmanship in videos. With all respect to Dr. Kilstein, he's not the only one on the 'net who does a solid job of selling infomercial style video on their site. I could rattle off a couple other names that are top-notch too, like Ken Calhoun, Brian Tracy, Dan Kennedy, and Anthony Robbins.

My 2 cents,

Mike

Dear Maxojan,

Yes, you're right about the comparison between videos and sales letters.

If the sales letter can't get your attention and hold your interest, then you'd leave. And it is the same with videos.

But I think there is, at least for now, one little advantage in the sales letter: the sales letter is scannable while the video is not.

This discussion is not to bash videos, but instead to invite savvy marketers like yourself to discuss the use of videos online. And you've already participated.

Informercials? I love them. Last time I was on John Carlton's. On his latest post he is talking about "sales challenged geeks" and actually one of the "geeks" called long copy sales letters : "informercial" on the web.

No I have no problem with informercials. I am a hard core believer in salesmanship in print.

But my interest is in:"How you and I can use videos to help visitors solve their problems". Should we refer to Rosser Reeves?

Your insights are more than welcome.

One last thing: I once posted a video here for critique.

Sincerely,
Swans G Paul

I have to disagree with you on the subject of "soft sell." There is no hard sell or soft sell. Hype doesn't mean hard sell; hype means unsupported claims, unbelievable promises. And that's not selling: it's rather insulting the reader and murdering trust.

Now a focus on features is not: soft sell. It's just that a list of what there is in the "product", but not much of what the product will do for you. And beyong what the product will do for you, there must a greater picture, a unifying promise.

In the case of John,

after watching the video, here's what I think should be done. Again, I am basing this on Rosser Reeves' research and his work in one presidential election.

First each major section of the site should have its own video. For instance, the I Track system should have its own presentation. What it is? What it does? How does it benefit the user? And why it's a good reason to join this site?

Do you see what I mean?

A major promise about the website and then showing how the specific components of the site helps achieve this major promise?

Also, maybe it's just me. But after watching the video, I didn't remember anything about the video. Why? Do I have a short attention span? Yes, I must confess? But also, was the video a pot-pourri of many different features? Yes, it was. And it goes against what Rosser Reeves discovered, mainly, " the prospect tends to remember one specific claim from the presentation."

In the case of Kilstein, I still remember his story about his debit cards being declined, his business card being declined, and the same unfortunate thing happening to his wife. And then he introduced John Carlton as the solution to his problem.

I am sure he's not the only one. But so far, he's the only I have seen doing it and doing it well.

Mike, I like your insights. Let's keep this discussion going.

Sincerely

Hi Swans,

It's a little ackward for me to guess what John has or has not planned for his site without talking with him directly.

I do know that each tool in the site has a training video, including the I Track system.

I think the reason why it's not sticking with you as well is John didn't share it with you in a story. i.e. He was banging his head one night wondering why a client sales letter wasn't converting well... so he wrote I Track to solve the problem.

Again, John may have been trying to do more of a virtual tour angle...similar to what some marketers do as part of the Product Launch Formula method of building prospect anticipation before the actual launch itself.

Having talked with John at JV Alert earlier this month, I believe his site isn't officially launched yet. I say that because I am working on a complimentary membership site and didn't want to overlap his launch date.

Hope that helps,

Mike

Speaking of drkilstein

Anyone knows what makes drkilstein's videos so appealing as compared to the other gurus?

My guess...

One of the appealing things is simplicity.

Steve hits the nail on the head!

drkilstein has a way of using short - very short - sentences to entrench his message in the reader/viewer

dun believe? go check out all the posts drkilstein has made and you'll find they are written in "2 paragraphs" chunks

also, watch any video produced by drkilstein...

notice the constant pauses he makes in between each word and sentence... which gives his message an added "hypnotic" oomph!

That's one part of it, the human brain can only hold so many thoughts at one time. Overload it with with lots of short "open" sentences and you create a confusion state... just waiting for an escape. It's trance-inducing.