Case Studies
Project: Sales Insert
Advanced Resveratrol Formula
Background:
A couple of months before this insert went out, the media built up hype around a Harvard study involving obese mice. Although overweight, these mice resisted heart disease because they were fed resveratrol. This news boosted sales for resveratrol supplements. Dr. Rowen wanted to take advantage of this new surge by selling his resveratrol supplement to his newsletter subscribers.
Problem:
Resveratrol supplements have been around for years. Generally, resveratrol doesn't sell well in comparison to other supplements. The main reason is because people don't see immediate benefits from taking it. It's more of a quiet preventative supplement so people tend to forget about it. Unless news comes out announcing a new benefit of resveratrol, sales remain stagnant. And the sales spike doesn't last long before people trade resveratrol for a more exciting supplement.
Approach:
Research shows Dr. Rowen's subscribers are highly educated, take pride in being very knowledgeable in alternative medicine, and try to follow healthy eating habits. The average age is 70 years old. At that age, their main concern is preventing or curing heart disease, diabetes and other common age-related diseases.
I concluded his subscribers basically fell into two personality categories:
- People who are extremely careful about what they eat and probably secretly tired of always being "good." They're tired of resisting the bad foods they miss. So I give them an out by saying they can cheat once in a while and not hurt their health... so long as they take resveratrol.
- People who eat well now and don't miss their old foods. But they likely ate terribly in their younger years and worry about how that will affect them in the near future. So I give them peace-of-mind talking about how resveratrol can reverse some of the damage done by their past.
Project: Sales Letter
Lewis Appraisal Service
Background:
The client is an appraiser in training. So she needs to work with a mentor and clock a certain number of hours appraising property before she can earn a full license.
Problem:
The client's main obstacles were that she came in when the real estate market started to slow down. And she was coming into an industry where there's a lot of competition from established appraisers who've been around for 20+ years. She needed to stand out from the other appraisers and not let her training status be a weakness.
Approach:
Research shows the biggest complaints area lenders have about appraisers are: they're not responsive, they won't go out to outlying areas and they don't always pull accurate comps on unique properties so loans get rejected.
The client's mentor was a retired engineer and very meticulous about numbers, detailed reports, etc. And he enjoyed working in the outlying areas. With that, I named them the "outlying appraiser specialists" to showcase a benefit and make that their unique selling point. The client wanted to use a Wild West theme. We used a bit of that language in the copy, designed the sales letter as a wanted poster, and sent the scrolls out tied with a twine noose.
Project: Web Copy
Simple Pump
Background:
The client wanted to increase site traffic and make his website more informative and user-friendly.
Problem:
The client's current site was a jumble of data that seemed overwhelming for some readers and not technical enough for others. The client also wanted to attract more commercial clients instead of the home-user.
Approach:
We identified the client had 3 major market segments. Then we designed a site that gave each of the segments their own pages. So the lingo, the information featured and the benefits were tailored to each of the three segments. The copy was also filled with keywords to optimize rankings.