Paulie Sabol is a friend of mine and quite an accomplished seminar promoter and Internet marketer.
He's giving a seminar next month I'll be speaking at. So when he asked me to critique the sales letter Web page on a live teleseminar, I felt compelled to give him a warning:
Paulie, don't expect me to be polite and praising. If I find something wrong with the page, I won't mince words.
Paulie said he expected nothing less and gave me the green light to "have at it."
I did!
In the opening screenful of this long, elaborate sales letter, I found four -- count 'em, four -- major errors, with:
- The prehead (also known as the "kicker") ...
- The language on the logo ...
- The first testimonial quote ...
- And even, with Paulie's own picture!
And that was only at the beginning of the letter.
Paulie was a good sport about it and posted all 90 minutes of our conversation, in four convenient segments, on the Web.
Normally I only do critiques for my premium mentoring clients, so this is a rare opportunity to hear me get down and dirty.
Here's the link: http://www.davidgarfinkel.com/critique
If you'd like to see the Web page I'm critiquing: http://www.davidgarfinkel.com/page-I'm-critiquing
Note: Even though I found dozens of areas for improvement, Paulie and his teammates are such good marketers that they have already sold out the 500 person event.
As of last night there were maybe a dozen seats left. So this is not a sales pitch... in fact, you'll be lucky if you can get in at this point.
But it is a terrific real-world lesson in copy that works... and even how good copy can always be much, much better.
I would attribute the success they had with this copy to their relationship with their prospects/buyers and the fantastic offer they made on the page -- and, as flawed as it was, the copy was still pretty good.
Check out the critique here.
David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter