I recently launched a home brewing eBook and have been running some adwords traffic to it.

So far my adwords click-thru-rates have been good, but the sales copy isn't converting. The site is Home Brewing|Beer Making Courses

My target market is the younger age group (college age), males, as well as people with no home brewing experience.

Some things I already know need doing that are on my list:
- Make the eBook Cover more proffesional/enticing looking
- Add more testimonials as I get them
- Change the "Buy" now button to something that eliminates the term 'buy'

Thanks,
Matt Tremblay

Matt,

When I clicked on the page, there's an open gray area along the left side, and I had to scroll horizontally to see the right side of the page -- that looks weird, and you'd want to fix that.

The main benefit of your headline seems to be that home brewing saves money -- you mention it twice. While that's a good selling point, I doubt that's the main motivation for people to go to all the trouble of brewing their own beer.

Your letter's lead doesn't give any new information or give any compelling reason to keep reading, it just repeats your name (which they don't really care about at this point).

The reference to an "unquenchable thirst for beer," followed by a reference to how beer is draining your pocketbook, makes me picture a problem drinker more than anything else -- not the image you're trying to create, I don't think.

Get more clear on what benefits you should be stressing in your head and lead -- people who haven't home-brewed may be put off by how difficult it sounds, so stress how easy your instructions are.

Another benefit might be how you know exactly what ingredients are going into your beer, and you can control its purity and quality. You mention these further down, but I think they should be at the top.

I'm not a fan of opt-in pop-ups in general, but if it tests well for you, that's fine. I think you should remove the second opt-in form partway down -- either move it towards the bottom, or put it into a sidebar.

I like the six-month guarantee. I wouldn't advertise the Gold Package until it's actually available, otherwise people can rationalize putting off buying the Silver Deal because they're waiting for the Gold to arrive.

A few thoughts .02 1/2

Ken S.

Thanks very much Ken for the reply.

Anyone have any ideas why some people are experiencing the horizontal scrolling? I'm pretty new to web design so probably some of my settings are off. It looks fine on my pc's but other people are getting the scrolling.

I've already implemented most of the suggestions you made. I'll keep modifying and testing with the adwords until my SEO starts to kick in.

Another thing, does anyone know how to add text highlighting in dreamweaver? I'd like to add some in to spice things up a bit more.

Tables are always a mess to work with, that's why I use CSS exclusively. I also see the problems in FireFox. Your CSS markup is also a little hard to read

body {
margin-left: 150px;
margin-right: 150px;
margin-top: 0px;
background-color: #CCCCCC;
}

While hardly the tables expert, methinks setting both margins and then centering a fixed table at 802 px is the problem. Next set backgroud color to #FFF or white.

Note: #FFF is equivalent to #FFFFFF -- You may want to look up the term "CSS shorthand." Try to validate your code, and write for FireFox first. IE is seriously not standard, so it's actually easier to go from valid markup to IE than otherwise.

I agree with Ken. I don't think people who like to brew their own beer (or who would be enticed by it) are really in it to save money. I've dabbled in it myself, and I have a few friends who are die hard brewers. They make their own recipes, speak their own language.

Your overall sales letter seems to reinforce your headline as well...that it's about saving money. I'd start over and push the vanity buttons. These folks view themselves as connoisseurs of beer, and they tend to look down on commodity beers such as Bud and Coors, etc.

My advice would be to find out where home brewers hang out, and ask them how they got started, why they love doing it, etc. And pay attention to what they say, as well as how they say it. Look for the non-obvious signs that signal why they love what they do. They may not even be able to formulate their reasoning why themselves, which means you've got to look deeper. This is one case where your research will pay off before you even consider the theme for your copy.

There are so many microbreweries now that make every kind of beer imaginable. So it's not just that they're seeking variety over what's available commercially. There's something else at play here, and it's up to you to find out what it is.

EDIT: Another thought. If you're targeting people with no home brewing experience, there's probably a reason why they are suddenly searching for your keywords. My guess is that they met a friend who's into it or became enticed by the idea of brewing their own beer somehow. You need to go out and find out what's motivating these newcomers to find out more about it. Figure out what buttons to push, and you'll have a winner.

Hope that helps.

John

jdrits: Just wanted to start by thanking you for your thoughtful reply.

Kind of the dillemna I'm facing is that I feel there is a very untapped market in terms of the college aged 'drinking fiend' demographic. I know that generally speaking it's not wise to create a need, but to sell to a market that already wants exactly what you offer. However, through myspace marketing, and other avenues targeted at bringing in the younger demographic I think that 'cheap, fast, easy' USP would be really effective. This is also a mammoth market that really is in the dark in terms of their awareness of home brewing.

On the other hand, the bulk of the people currently coming to the home brewing arena are middle aged men who do it for the control they have over the finished product, the great feeling of creating something, and probably some kind of "X" factor that I haven't really put my finger on, like you mentioned before.

Part of the problems I think I've experienced so far is a result of not having enough focus. I need to pick one well defined target market, and stick with it.

I definitely have some thinking, and research to do.

Any more suggestions or comments are very welcome...

Matt

I agree with John about brewers being in it for more than saving money. But... I think the money aspect shouldn't be ignored.

Here's why.

First... I think the product is geared not toward home brewers but those who have thought about home brewing. And in that group, money does matter.

Sure, once they start they will spend years (and a lot of cash) trying to perfect the perfect brew, but in the beginning they need to know it's cost effective too.

A friend of mine loves wine. He once talked about wanted to grow his own grapes and bottle his own wine. He never did it because he did a little quick math in his head and figured... "grow the grapes... pick the grapes... squeeze the grapes, age the wine. It's just not worth it!"

Had he found a product that promised he could do all this (simply and easily) and his wine would end up costing him $.50 a bottle, he would have.

Just my 2 cents.

Good point, Vin. Money may or may not be the main motivator, but it probably plays a factor. Especially with the college crowd.

Hi Matt,

Good stuff. It's probably not far from being a winner...

1) I'd add a privacy notice to the ecourse sign up. How are your opt-ins converting?

2) The header should probably be scratched and redone completely. I'd include a picture of you. Make them see it's coming from a real person. Maybe put the picture of you in action right below the salutation, to get them reading.

3) I'd more specific than "great tasting" -- that just too vague.

4) "Dear Fellow?" -- maybe just one or the other.

5) I'd lose the "since you've gotten this far" -- it's too early for that type of line.

6) Need more subheads.

7) Include some shots of you doing this stuff. Position the picture strategically to get them reading the text again.

Lines like this would make GREAT subheads:

"Think about this...Modern factory produced beer is loaded with inferior ingredients, chemicals, and low-cost 'adjuncts' ."

Center, bold, 16 pt font. Let your sub-heads convert the skimmers.

9) Your testimonials ned to be more promiment, plus have their only headlines. Include pictures. They are hard to read right now on the colour with no margins.

10) Your chart needs a headline summing it up. Or and arrow coming in fron the side.

I wouldn't be surprised if you could raise the conversion rate dramatically on this by just doing the above and make the design much more readable and professional looking.

If you threw in a few bonuses... Made a DVD version, possibly, you could raise the price to $97 and get MORE orders.

Let me know if you'd like some help with the copy and the design -- if you'd be willing to give me a percentage, I might be interested. It looks like a fun project.

John

Hey Matt,

I too think this isn't far from being a winner. I honestly read the head, lead and skimmed the rest.

Here are my thoughts in addition to what's been said:

1. Have you considered marketing this to the beer connoisseurs instead of broke or near-broke college kids? (maybe you already explained this and I missed it.) To me, you want to go after people who have money and are willing to spend it - even for a $20 ebook.

2. What's your backend? And is the college-age market going to able to support a backend? Another reason to target a slightly more affluent or at least mature group.

3. A lot of people do this and maybe it test well, but it drives me nutts. It's having your pop-up drop down right on top of the headline as I'm reading the headline. To me that's very annoying and distracting.

4. In your subhead following the headline you use the phrase "disgustingly easy". Maybe it's just me, but that hit me weird, especially when the headline talks about great-tasting beer.

Anyway, I hope that helps. BTW I like the "crusty, foul mouthed old-timer" story. I think you ought to try making that story your lead.

Good luck.