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Monday, June 9, 2014

Are Videos More Effective Than Sales Letters?

By Bilal Syed


This is one of the most hotly debated topics in the world of copy-writing today. It seems that the controversy is whether or not video sales letter will eventually replace long text sales letters in the world of direct response marketing. There are a few reasons to think that it may, because video has many advantages, such as: Watching a video actually takes less effort than opening and reading a business letter, so people are more inclined to actually view it. When it comes to sight and sound v.s. just sight, watching a video engages more of your senses than just reading a letter. Some types of video sales letters, specifically those with a face shot of a person, can really be an effective tool in building trust and personality in your content, text letters can't achieve this kind of result.



Will video sales letters convert text letters?

Split testing the effectiveness of sales letters v.s. video sales letters has shown that a good video always improves a sales letter's conversion rate. That is why many marketing businesses are offering clients a brief 1-2 minute long video along with their long form sales letter. So the era of the long form sales letters may not be over after all. In fact, quite the opposite.

As powerful as video is, it seems to work better as a complement to text rather than as a replacement for it. If you combine video and text, it always out-pulls one or the other, hands down. Split testing has shown that using long form structures can generally work better for text than for video. If you think about it: a video is supposed to be stimulating and engaging to watch and the minute it starts to get boring, people tend to you just turn it off.

Now on the other hand, text is supposed to be interesting and tell you what you need to know; but when it starts to get boring, readers can generally just skip a few sentences or paragraphs ahead. So if you try to sell with just a video, then you're losing the main advantage of text. And if you just try to just sell with text, you lose the advantage of having video, as it entertains viewers and reduces the bounce rate. So obviously the answer is to use both in sales letters.

Be sure that the video is no longer that 3 minutes, or maybe even 2 minutes. Any longer and you run the risk of an interruption or boredom can occur, and you will lose the impact that the video will have. It is easy to make your own video on YouTube or Vimeo, and put a link into your video to your website which can have your sales letter information for more detail about the product or service that you are offering.




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