5 Tips for Writing Video Sales Letters

As a copywriter, you might be asked to write a video sales letter (VSL) to promote a product or service for your clients. 

Video sales letters are super popular, and you’ve probably seen a ton of them on YouTube, whether you recognize them or not. On YouTube, they usually come in the form of those longer ads that seem almost like a mixture of an infomercial and an explainer video. 

And if they’re done well, they hook you and you end up watching the whole thing.

Or, if you’re a copywriter, you end up watching the whole thing just because you want to either cringe at it or gain inspiration from it. 

Either way…

If you’re a copywriter, you definitely need to add writing video sales letters into your list of copywriting skills. 

But if you’re new at writing video sales letters, you might not know where to even begin.

So let’s talk about what you absolutely should be paying attention to when you’re writing a video sales letter.

1. The Hook

When writing your video sales letter, your hook is arguably one of the most crucial parts. After all, if you can’t catch someone’s attention, you won’t be able to keep it. 

Start with something really grabbing–something that will capture your audience’s attention in the first 3 seconds and leave them saying “Yes, I absolutely need to see where this is going.”

 Choose an emotion associated with what you’re offering and go from there. 

Remember everything is emotionally charged. 

For example, if I was creating a video sales letter for my direct response copywriting course. My audience is people who want to quit their soul-sucking 9-5 jobs and launch their freelance copywriting career. I might start with something like “What would your life be like if you didn’t hate your life 71% of the time? You work five days a week. If your chest is heavy with dread the moment you wake up on the weekdays, then this is for you.”

Because hating your life 71% of the time is pretty significant. And a lot of people can relate. It hits people I’m trying to reach right in the gut.

2. Strategically Placed Calls to Action

The goal of your video sales letter isn’t necessarily to have your audience watch it all the way until the end. Your goal should be to get your audience to watch long enough to BUY.

But there are two primary types of buyers: 

The kind who are going to skim your offers and skip most of your video sales letter and just hit buy, and the kind who will watch it all the way through and then do further research after it’s over.

You don’t want to drag out your video sales letter, but you don’t want to make it too short either. 

But no matter how long your video sales letter is, you need to intersperse calls to action so that the people who don’t want to wait until the end can take action as soon as they feel compelled.

For example, let’s use the example I gave earlier. If I was writing a video sales letter for my direct response copywriting course, I would let people know at strategic times how to buy it. I might do that after I go into detail about how easy the course is to follow, how you can do it on your own time, or how it’s one of the most affordable and information-packed copywriting courses on the market.

Your call to action isn’t just for the end of your video sales letter.

3. The Tease

Don’t give everything away in your video sales letter! A video sales letter isn’t a webinar. You don’t want to give away the whole recipe for success in the few minutes you have someone’s attention. 

You need to TEASE your audience just enough to keep them curious.

For example, in my direct response copywriting course, I go through my signature method that’s guaranteed to compel the right audience to buy every single time.

But I wouldn’t go into the method in the video sales letter.

I would just talk about the method, giving hints of information that intrigue the audience enough to check it out for themselves.

4. The Audience

Nobody wants to watch a video sales letter if it talks far too much about the company and not enough about the audience. 

What’s in it for your audience? What shift or transformation are they going to see if they take advantage of the offer?  

That’s what you need to focus on. Nobody cares about the bells and whistles, they just want to know what benefit they’ll get from making the purchase.

5. Social Proof

This is huge in a video sales letter. Social proof shows your audience that their peers aren’t just buying the product, they’re seeing the results.

And: this is important. 

Focus on the story behind the social proof. 

If I feature someone who’s taken one of my courses in a video sales letter, I’m going to tell their story. Where did they start, where did they end up, and how did my course help them get there?

People envision themselves in other people’s stories. And that’s how social proof works.

Video Sales Letters Can Generate Tons of Revenue–If You Do it Right

Video marketing is absolutely where the future of advertising is going. And as a copywriter, if you want to stay relevant, you need to adapt to the trends and hone your skills where they’ll be of best use to your clients.

Use these 5 tips for writing your video sales letters and let me know what kind of results you see!