Reader,

"What is a VSL, that video sales letter thing, Connor?" — A question from my Father.

He receives my emails, and shot me a text asking the above.

And if he's thinking it, I'd hazard a guess you might be thinking it too.

So I'm writing this unsexy email for him — and for anyone else wondering the same thing.

A video sales letter (VSL) is just a video that makes a complete sales argument for your product or service.

You could take the exact words from your VSL and put it in a letter. We'd call that a sales letter.

So a VSL is just a video of you making a sales argument.

That's the answer. It's boring, but it works.

We present the sales argument in a video as it is the most engaging form of media.

Nothing mind blowing here.

You could have a VSL for paper clips. You could have a VSL for selling B2B services to Fortune 100 companies.

I say could. I mean should.

For example. If I ran a law firm, on the homepage of my website I would have a VSL that covered who we work with (family, business, etc), an overview of the problems we solve, the services we have for them, and then a sales argument as to why we are better than other law firms.

Then for each subsequent product, I would have a more detailed and nuanced VSL making a sales argument for each widget.

One for wills.

One for property.

One for B2B litigation.

You get the point.

You'll know you've done this correctly when the phone starts ringing with prospects who are educated and ready to buy exclusively from you.

The next logical question you should be asking me is "what is a sales argument?".

Many marketers have their own format, and the format should likely change depending on your industry.

But a great place for you to start is with Dan Kennedy's book, The Ultimate Sales Letter.

It goes like this: Problem → Agitation → Solution → Proof → Offer → Urgency → Action.

Fair warning:

Having a banger VSL is not enough in the pursuit of becoming richer.

It needs to be placed strategically in a marketing strategy.

No strategy. No bueno. No money.

You can have the world's best video, but if you don't have a proven way to get qualified eyeballs to watch it, you've wasted your time.

But if you do have that, and you do have a banger VSL?

You make more money.

Let me walk you through the numbers.

You can pay Meta £2 to get someone who is more than likely in your target market to click an advert and be shown your video.

And let's say you make an offer for them to book a call with you.

And let's say you spent £2,000 to get 1,000 eyeballs on your video.

Now not all those eyeballs are going to be qualified. Not all of them are going to watch the video.

Let's be extreme and say only 500 of those 1,000 eyeballs bothered to click play and are qualified.

Of those 500 eyeballs, you can comfortably expect 10 calls booked initially (ignoring any others that come from your follow-up campaigns).

Meaning you have essentially paid £200 per call.

Now of those 10 calls, let's say 8 turned up because people are assholes.

And of those 8, you make 4 sales.

Meaning you have paid £500 to acquire a customer.

Your reaction to the above will tell you everything you need to know about the problem with your business.

If you thought that sounds expensive — paid ads might not be for you (niche dependent). Either you are way too cheap and can never scale at your current pricing, or you are in a weird industry where you can actually expect to pay £50 a call.

Or, you thought the above sounds cheap. This is likely because you know you can acquire a customer for £500, and over their lifetime make them worth a minimum of 10x that in cash collected.

If this is you...

...You owe it to your bloodline to test paid ads and discover if you can feasibly 'buy customers' for £500.

Because if you can, then you have essentially discovered the closest thing to a money tree.

(Or you are in a weird niche on the other end of the scale where the cost per call is likely closer to £5,000).

Your biggest takeaway here should not be the VSL.

It should be the need for strategy.

To summarise:

A VSL is simply a video that makes a complete sales argument. Nothing fancy. But when you pair a strong VSL with a proven strategy to get the right eyeballs on it, you've built yourself a system that can predictably turn ad spend into customers.

The VSL is the weapon. The strategy is knowing where to aim it.

Get both right, and you've got yourself a money tree.

Stay buying clients,

Connor Benham

–CWB

P.S. If you're reading this thinking "just do it for me, Connor" — that's what we do at 15words.co. We're not taking new clients right now. But we're opening a few spots in a week or two. Apply now, and when the doors open, you'll be first to know.

​15words.co​

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