The Birth of a Better Salesletter

Some marketers “get it.”

When I wrote my free white paper, “The Death of The Salesletter,” I mentioned that the web is changing, whether we agree with it or not. Long-copy, text-only, static salesletters are slowly being replaced by more dynamic, cleaner, pithier, multimedia-based, content-driven sales messages.

One case in point is my friend Jack Humphey and his Authority Site Center. His latest product, launched today, is a membership site that teaches people how to create “authority sites” that drive traffic and sell products through content, in particular with the help of Web 2.0 websites, communities, and applications.

Jack actually offers a free report himself on this latest trend. You can download it for free — there’s a mini-video introduction that leads to an opt-in page, where Jack offers his free report, the “Authority Site Blackbook,” after you sign up.

But let me bring your attention to the salesletter for his new product, which is what I really want to focus on and what’s pretty amazing…

Granted, the special report is loaded with great information on the latest trends in creating authority sites, and how Web 2.0 is changing things — from RSS marketing and social media, to video marketing and blogging.

(I highly recommend that you at least download it and read it. It’s pretty good stuff.)

Before I tell you about some of the latest strategies used in this salesletter, let me give you a bit of a preamble.

According to Jack, “As Web 2.0 becomes less of just a buzzword and more of a reality, cookie-cutter article sites are on the way out. Web surfers will become more value-focused and web companies will become larger.”

He adds, “Over the next few years, expect larger conglomerates to be buying up profitable websites in their chosen markets. Expect smaller sites to either be bought or driven out of business. My intention is not to scare you, but this outcome is inevitable.”

As a result, the trends are pointing to an increasing popularity — and demand — for what Jack calls “authority sites.”

This is not a new term. According to Jason Dowdell of Global Promoter, “Authority sites are sites that have been linked to and referenced on other web sites covering the same subject matter and they also will have hundreds if not thousands of pages covering that subject matter and nearly every facet of it.”

With Google slapping sites like crazy, and the emergence of their brand-new Pay-Per-Action program just launched this week, pageranks are increasingly favoring sites that are linked to, talked about, and regarded as useful resources — with authoritative content, links, tools, and discussions.

But the key question is, what do 99.9% of authority sites provide?

In a sentence, an incredible amount of original content and a superb visitor experience. That’s what the search engines want, and as a result they are penalizing the converse — think splogs, link farms, and content-less sites.

According to Jack, “The search engines want you to succeed and they want you to make money, but you have to play by their rules.” To that end, he adds, “In the future, focus your efforts on visitor optimization and content optimization, instead of search engine optimization.”

The rest will work itself out in the end. (I agree.)

Furthermore, “You want to create a site that generates thousands of visitors a day mainly through the major search engines, and would ultimately be the one-stop source for information in that particular market.”

In fact, Jack defines three types of authority sites: 1) Dynamic, 2) Interactive, and 3) Consistent. He even offers some examples of each one.

I’m a big proponent of niche marketing for many other reasons, beyond traffic generation. I’ve written about this many times in the past, so I’ll stop here.

Just keep in mind that Jack offers some incredibly insightful content on the matter. You’re better off getting the free report for more details.

Granted, it does promote a product in the end. But it’s the salesletter that promotes this product that I want to show you, where Jack applied many of the strategies I cover in my Death of The Salesletter report.

In my estimation, there’s still a bit of work needed. It’s not perfect by any stretch. But it’s definitely several steps ahead of most clunky-looking, long-scrolling, ugly salesletters we see so much of these days.

For example, you’ll notice several video snippets strategically located throughout the page. There’s even a dynamic countdown alert at the top telling you how many spots are left.

The letter offers tons of proof, and even provides a video tour. Plus, Jack offers a video showing actual examples of authority sites — so you can immediately grasp what the concept is all about, from both visual and auditory standpoints.

Scroll down a bit more and you will see the first-ever, dynamically loaded, “testimonial tag cloud.” This is pretty cool: you click on any name in the tag cloud, and the testimonial opens up on the page, on the fly.

Next, and after a few video testimonials, there’s the order form. It’s like most order forms you see on these types of salesletters. But the neat part is, you have a list of commonly asked questions that follows.

At first glance, these seem to be just regular links. But when you click on them, the answers “fly in” automatically on the same page. (People are not driven away and get only the answers they need, and therefore they are not distracted and follow the flow of the pitch.)

There are a couple of other items on this salesletter that makes it very appealing, easy to navigate, visitor-driven, and dynamic. I still find the letter a bit long and clunky, but it’s a lot better than most salesletters I’ve seen.

Bottom line, we’re getting there.

The question is, does it work? When I first saw this letter, I knew it would do well does because my findings were based on actual test results.

But I was curious, so I called Jack on the phone a few days ago. And he told me that, in preliminary “pre-launch tests,” the letter is converting at a pretty impressive rate. (A lot better than I anticipated.)

I can’t disclose the actual conversion rate because Jack didn’t give me permission. But let me just say that the letter is successfully converting more sales than 80-90% of websites out there.

Bravo, Jack, for an awesome salesletter. To me, being an authority also means “leading the way.” And Jack Humphrey is definitely someone you should watch out for.

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