Transcription
Hi guys, it's Lab here. I am the co-founder of Copywriter Merkel, and I'm here with Mark Fischetti, the supplement genius behind all the videos you'll be watching. This is going to be one of the module videos that we've decided to attach to bring in supplements to the supplement copy.
So first, Mark, introduce yourself a little bit.
Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, there's a big distinction between writing health copy, supplement copy, and writing compliant supplement copy. Now, you can go onto ClickBank—we were discussing this pre-production—you can go on to ClickBank, and a lot of those extremely successful campaigns on gravity are largely list-based. The emails you could be far more aggressive and far less compliant. You'll notice a lot of these programs make claims that they really can't even substantiate nor does their product actually fulfill a lot of what they claim. And unfortunately, that has become common practice.
But unless so, you see companies—real companies—coming down the pike with substance, like Organifi. Drew Canole, the owner of the company, I met him down in San Diego at the Traffic and Conversion Summit earlier this year at Organifi headquarters. You know, here is a company that is going out of its way to create bioavailable supplementation that is well thought out. Ingredients are well thought out and structured.
You know, like for instance, I wrote for Pure; the main ingredient, lion's mane, its mechanism is helping the second brain—the brain in our gut—speak clearly to the first brain. So neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and leptin can reach the brain. Those hormones can flood the brain faster, and we're able to feel happier and feel more satiated quicker when we eat.
So that kind of gets into what we're going to be talking about here, which is mechanism, right?
Yep. So I mean, just to clarify kind of what we were just talking about just now, so essentially what you're saying is that by writing sort of ethical and compliant copy, by being ethical, by making sales promises that you know that our products can deliver, you believe that there's actually way more money to be made than these guys who are sort of putting out all these sort of non-compliant offers.
So we're talking cold traffic. We're talking about being able to hit, you know, three, four, five, six percent front-end conversion rates on cold traffic—on Facebook traffic, on Google traffic, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter—whatever social media platforms and whatever audiences are going to be the most resonant. You know, again, on list traffic, you can say things; you can do things that are outside the box of compliance, but on cold traffic, you can't do that. You get shut down; therefore, you can't help people, you can't make money, you can't realize your potential.
So just for some of the newbies out there, what would you say is a pretty sort of standard to good conversion rate on cold traffic? Because—and just again for those of you who don't understand—the difference between list traffic is when someone has your emails or some sort of contact with you, and so they don't have to go through and advertise to get in touch with you. Versus cold traffic, which is, "Hey, I saw your post or your ad on Facebook or on Google, and now I'm ending up in your sales funnel."
Because of that, advertisers or people like Google and Facebook are a lot stricter about what you can and can't say. So obviously these sort of less compliant guys, who may be the unethical operators, if you want to call that, they would rather drive toward less traffic. Whereas what Mark is talking about is that by being compliant, you have access to, you can sell to people cold, and therefore you're more likely to make more money.
So you're saying you’ve done offers that convert three to even five percent on cold traffic. What would you say is sort of average in the industry for cold traffic, though?
To give you a right-now example, I'm working with a company called My Doctor Suggests, selling alkaline structured silver—very different than colloidal silver. The mechanism of the product is amazing, so we’re able to describe exactly how it works for me.
So on cold traffic on Facebook right now, we have tested numerous pieces of content, different sales letters, and different variations of the same basic copy. Right now the winner is converting at 1.7 percent; however, it's not making money—it's losing money—because the CPA, the cost per acquisition, is too high and the cart value is too low. We need to get the cart value up to forty dollars. Right now it's at ninety dollars; we need to get it at a minimum of one hundred and thirty dollars, and we need to get the front-end conversion up while paying less money for those acquisitions.
So a couple of things are happening. We've isolated from the sales letter to the checkout page of the cart. There's a huge gap in communication, and it's very unclear what you're actually purchasing because what’s in the box isn’t spelled out, and that creates a lack of trust, and that is something that needs to be fixed.
Second of all, the offer really isn't that irresistible. People need to be on these products for a while to really feel the results. So I'm going to add that into the copy—that premise. You know, I’m forty years old; it took me forty years to get to where I am. Should I genuinely expect in the first few days, or even the first week, to be reborn? Does that miracle exist?
Well, if you're deficient in something, or overridden in something, you can replete; one can get rid of something. You're going to feel a difference, but long term—we're talking lifestyle. You know, diet, for instance, doesn’t mean you go on a diet. Diet literally means what we eat.
So, you know, one of the things about health and supplement copy is really conveying the lifestyle. A supplement is meant to supplement an already ideal, healthy lifestyle. If you're taking a supplement and you're drinking lots and lots and lots of alcohol, you really have no reason to take that supplement.
And so there's an education awareness process that is also involved with playing the compliant mechanism story-driven copy, and that's really giving people the opportunity to see themselves in the problem.
So it’s not just about writing compliantly; this is something that we're going to get into in a different video about how to be a leader, you know, how to direct the positioning, how to give people the opportunity to raise their hands and say, "Yes, that’s me—how did you know?"
Right? And one of the first things that we do to achieve that is mechanism. But going back to the cost and conversions: if we can get our CPAs down a dollar on the project, get the offer irresistible, so what I'm going to do is right now we're offering one internal drinking solution and a free gel.
So it's a yeast infection funnel, and they need the gel because they're going to need to put it under the genitals. They're also going to need to drink a lot because the gut is ground zero for all of their symptoms. So because I did a deep dive into the actual cost of maturing, I was able to propose that we give, instead of a $135 or a $136 offer, we're going to do buy one internal solution and gel, get two free of each.
So that first front-end low barrier of entry purchase is extraordinary. It’s absolutely what we want—irresistible. The second offer is buy two—one or two gels, two solutions, get three of each. That’s it.
So we’re going to test that; we're going to clarify from the sales page to the cart so that it's congruent. We're going to add a video on that page evening the test against so that everything is fed up directly from the face and voice of the company, Dr. Gordon Patterson.
Then I'm going to add in ventures after his pretensions because if you think back to those like cold infomercials, romp up your jet stream. You know, it’s like the inventor immediately goes into the invention process.
So I'm going to create a doodle—have my boy Ace create a doodle—and a simple short that describes the mechanism, which is how silver basically missing its electron vibrates up against Candida—bad bacteria—trying to pull its electron, it explodes! It vibrates it into explosion. A man cannot be right.
So now we’re creating an emotional connection to the mechanism. Those pieces are going to be tested this coming week or maybe the following, depending on the position of the creative that’s done. That should get us to a higher conversion because the offer's consistent, so there is much more substance and emotional connection for the mechanism, getting to the offer and their finger.
From the offer to the checkout page, they’ve seen those three things, which should get us from 1.7 or 1.1 front-end conversion rate to easily potentially doubling that or more while testing quizzes, interstitial pages instead of going from ad money page to interstitial pages so that we can get the cost per acquisition down.
Now, who is sort of one of the best ways to do that? Bring the cost down so that, say, $1,000 or $10,000 that are spent every day becomes exponentially more money because you're spending less to get people into the pump and you're converting at a higher level because of their offer and the congruence. Does that make sense?
Yep, cool. So let’s get stuck into the module. You’ve mentioned mechanism a number of times. Could you explain a little bit more about exactly what mechanism is, why it works, and maybe give us a couple of examples as well?
Absolutely. So mechanism is the heart and soul of every copywriter's tool belt. The very first thing you need to do is isolate. Now this is going to bleed into how to be a leader because you need to know what you’re doing.
So I do a lot of talking about the duck, right? I do a lot of duck copy; that is ground zero for virtually everything physically and emotionally—variance, scientific fact. So the mechanism is what makes it possible for me, right?
So it's like, "Oh wow, that person carries all those amazing results, but that's then; that's not me." That's one of the first objections that most—so the mechanism is essential to convey how it works for me. Now, the mechanism is also important for how you're going to position the campaign in the marketplace. Positioning is huge. It's how you enter the conversation, how you earn somebody's attention, and earn their trust as a credible face and voice.
Hospitable campaigns have credible messaging. So the mechanism for the silver, for instance, is that structured alkaline water can, for instance, defeat biofilm that surrounds bad bacteria and yeast—Candida cells—that protect them. That's why a lot of people who get Candida overgrowth, or yeast overgrowth, or bacterial overgrowth, maybe in this case for this campaign, suffer from yeast infections, men and women.
And then we get to the mechanism: the structured alkaline water defeats that biofilm and opens that cell or combats that, then the silver basically pulls the plug on it. It vibrates next to it because it's missing its electron, and it's pulling it from it until it explodes—that's the method.
So, just to clarify a little bit: essentially what you're saying is the mechanism is about saying, "This is how the product works." And the reason that it's beneficial is because it lets people understand that this is not just some random miracle fuel that worked on me and isn’t going to work on anyone else. This is a lot of fluke; it’s not genetics. This product works like this, and that’s why it's going to work for you, right?
You’re kind of bridging that gap. And in the just just now, what you were talking about was pulling the plug—and obviously, I'm sure you spend a lot of time researching all of these health—well, just the health industry in general—and you understand how the gut works, and whatever. But the prospect you’re talking to doesn’t necessarily have anywhere near that level of information, right?
So whilst you need to hit them with the scientific stuff that explains everything, would you say then, mechanism? I mean, the metaphor included in the mechanism, like you said pulling the plug, is that another sort of beneficial way to get people to understand it?
Like, could we talk about boomers?
By that, it's an opportunity for people to automatically future-based themselves to see themselves in the healing space. So in other words, when I understand why something is possible, then I have the freedom to imagine possible because of it, right?
And then from a positioning perspective, it allows me to start out with something like: "What if it's possible to finally defeat yeast infections?" And you know, that’s weak, but it’s an example of how I can enter the conversation by understanding the mechanism, right?
"What if it’s possible to pull the plug on a yeast infection so you never have to have another yeast infection again?" Now that's a huge claim, but seventy-five percent of women only get one yeast infection in their entire life. Four or more a year is pretty common, and a lot of the prospects are dealing with chronic yeast infections, and I mean by combating the bacteria, yeast, and Edith in the gut. And then topically, they are addressing the core of what causes their symptoms.
So mechanism gets to the core of the problem. We're not treating symptoms; we’re getting to the reason why those symptoms exist.
Another campaign that we just finished for My Doctor Suggests: "Doctor, why am I sick?" That’s the headline. It's because a lot of people, their routine is "I have these symptoms, I’m livid with the doctor, the doctor is going to spend a few minutes with me. He or she is going to give me a prescription of some pills—hopefully, they work; hopefully, the side effects aren't as bad or worse than the actual symptoms." That’s Western medicine—it treats the symptoms; it doesn’t treat the root of why those symptoms exist.
So the mechanism also is getting to the core of why those symptoms exist, and so you're able to bring people, not with heavy science, but because, you know, people don’t digest heavy science; they digest simple things.
So the job of the copywriter is taking something this complicated and dumbing it down so anybody can absorb it. That’s the whole fifth-grade thing. I don’t subscribe to the fifth-grade thing because I use all the clicks in my copy, really. That's not saying being condescending or elitist; we're using big words for the science. Using big words, if I use a big word, I immediately dumb it down.
Now if I say dysbiosis, I immediately explain what dysbiosis is in a way that anybody can understand it because that's the credible scientific term. And then by making it easily understandable quickly, people get an emotional attachment to it.
So we’re continuing the conversation building on the mechanism. Does that make sense?
Yeah, so mechanism is kind of like the lever that kind of takes you deep dive in; you as a copywriter are taking a deep dive into the science, and then to bring the prospect to the level of understanding that obviously then I’m going to spend hours researching medical journals or whatever to understand it.
So, you use a mechanism as a lever to do that; the heavy lifting of explaining everything for you. You’re not going to sit there and explain this, this, this, this. You just say, "Hey look, it’s kind of like pulling the plug," and you know, here’s the science so you can look it up, and you can feel confident that what I’m telling you is correct.
But the mechanism does the heavy lifting, meaning that the prospect can understand everything that you’re trying to say.
Absolutely. And with the mechanism, you are able to write a 15-second commercial or a two-hour webinar. And into place, like this I’m talking about for the silver is for yeast infections.
The next one is a broader general health: “What’s making me sick?” Like trying to find it—just quickly bring it up. So it’s a doctor—"What’s the real reason I’m so sick?" You know, and I started out with science.
According to a recent landmark survey, 46 percent of Americans took a medication for finding health problems in the last 30 days. Here, over 60—the numbers get pretty gripping—a whopping 85 percent of us take medications for some sort of ailment.
The top three reasons are diabetes treatments, beta blockers, and meds for high cholesterol. That means most of us have some sort of chronic problem—or many. So the question must be asked: why are we so sick? Why is our general quality of health and life so bad? Why are we always inflamed? Why are we always tired? Why is getting a full night's sleep so difficult?
Why are we always trying to deal with one symptom after another? Why are our healthcare costs skyrocketing? Why is our ability to perform in life so impacted? Why is anxiety and depression becoming so common? Why don’t our doctors have the answers? You know, so in a sea of whys, we need answers.
So diving into the mechanism is the same for all these things. The next one I’m writing after that is the flu season and really going after families with kids going to school.
"Don’t use antibiotics on your hands—it completely malfunctions your immune system." That’s the mechanism. Structured silver neutralizes the bad bacteria and pathogens, then keeps the whole family healthy. Cold and flu season is huge.
And because of the mechanism, I’m able to position this seeing product in all of these different conversations—all because I understand the mechanism.
People! So I can make this product—I can make it for yeast infections; I can make it for gas and bloating, weight loss. I can position it for emotional health, depression, anxiety, satiety, overeating, any numbers.
And because the mechanism is based on solid science, it means that everything is compliant as well. And it does for the brains, you know—all of the citations that I generally need to write any copy I want.
You know, like yesterday, I didn’t have to do any research; I was able to just write. Although yesterday was mostly a collaboration. But my point is, I understand deeply the mechanism. So it’s like you understand the mechanism, how it works for me, then you can speak to all the different people, all the different demos that can benefit from it uniquely and you don’t need to just be dependent on one very broad campaign like "What’s making me sick?"
I’m expecting, but you know, you never know—you’re always adjusting, and like that’s messing with getting our numbers for this yeast infection follow-up and knowing exactly how to do it. You have to know how to respond to data, which will be another video.
So if, you know, say I’m writing for a new product—a plant-based company comes to me and they say, "Hey, everyone needs rice and coffee." As you said, the first thing that we really need to do—the foundation of your copy—is finding the mechanism, right?
So it’s the CBD, right? So it’s full-spectrum. What’s the mechanism? Why does this work? What is—do you tell me? Do you know anything about CBD?
No? Really?
Okay, so throughout our bodies, our first brain, our second brain, our immune system—the biggest nerve—the traffic highway that goes from the second brain to the first brain, all these things are organs. All of these things have very unique receptors called cannabinoid receptors. There are all of the substances that we put into our bodies that do not utilize these cannabinoid receptors.
Now, cannabinoid receptors are very very special. Let’s take the immune system. What’s happening with a hyperactive immune response? It’s an immune system that’s attacking healthy parts of the body because it’s not functioning. It’s reacting to the cytokine inflammatory; it’s sending out these cytokine responses—flame, flame, flame, flame. There are bad things happening, and it doesn’t stop.
Now watch what’s happening: hemp has cannabinoids. CBD is one of those cannabinoids, but full-spectrum plants have all of the co-factor cannabinoids—the all the cannabinoids that we move—that make the plant intelligently work.
Distillates isolate CBD and can flood the cannabinoid receptors, so it’s like getting all the benefits for a few days and then you get your intolerance. Full-spectrum has all of the different cannabinoids, so it uniquely attaches to all the cannabinoid receptors throughout my body.
The immune system manages the immune system, helps bring it into homeostasis like an adaptogen. What’s an adaptogen? Adaptogenic herb: astragalus, ashwagandha.
So adaptogenic means if it’s too high, it brings it down; if it’s too low, it brings it up. So it has that adaptogenic effect—managing the immune system so that it’s then managing the cytokine response, the inflammatory response at the mucin— the immune system sends out when it thinks things are bad.
Right? Yeah, so that's the mechanism.
Now how do I sell that? Did you know that full-spectrum cannabis can uniquely attach to cannabinoid receptors and your immune system to manage it, so you have less painful inflammation? It’s true.
How else can I do that? Well we have receptors in our gut. What does that mean? Manage your serotonin. Don’t gather.
Why does full-spectrum hemp affect our ability to sleep? Because GABA is able to more clearly speak to the first brain. We’re able to relax and feel safe in our bodies, able to fall asleep and stay asleep. Science!
Now obviously results vary, and then there’s the value proposition. Oh, is it psychoactive? Actually, no—hemp is different from cannabis. They are in the same family, but one gets you high and one doesn’t.
Now when you bake this, you get a body high, but it’s relaxation, and it’s the mechanism working. And it’s because the full-spectrum hemp, all of the cannabinoids that make this intelligent, are attaching in my gut and are relaxing me at the core level of what makes anxiousness and anxiety possible.
Right, cool. Okay, so I think we’ve covered kind of what mechanism is quite clearly in this video. Just to kind of summarize, it’s essentially, I’d say that the leverage point that helps you go from deep science and taking that deep science and making it understandable to people, not only on a logical level but on an emotional level, so they can connect to it and say, “Hey, that’s the same problem that I have.”
And it is kind of the foundation point of any kind of copy that you do. Now obviously a lot of the stuff that we talked about for the mechanism involves a lot of research and asking the right questions, but that’s something we can kind of dive into a bit deeper in another module.
Well before we go, let me just give you an example on CBD. I just did one for sleep: "Wondering why getting a full, simple night’s sleep is so difficult?" The fact is chronic sleep issues are currently affecting millions of people.
You’re absolutely not alone! Get people—give them that serotonin effect. Always make sure you know what chemicals you’re going after so that when they feel that, you’re not surprised.
That makes sense because when you’re—it’s like why do cows that are in the center of the herd feel much more serotonin than the ones who are around the outskirts? Because the ones that are on the edge are much more likely to get attacked first.
The ones that are in the middle feel protected by the community. When you’re a part of the community, you get a serotonin response. That’s the mechanism of a mechanism.
But until we understand why we can’t sleep, it’s very difficult to treat the poor—discover the core of our sleep problems. And a recently FDA-approved treatment line because you can say CBD or internal CBD, right?
And then you know there’s quizzes and whatnot. But then I got Abbott Oriole, I did all—oh, we even did—you know, like video ads, by the way, are very popular and they do really well.
Here’s a video ad, and it’s not a voiceover; it’s just music and captions with a stock video: “Sleep is the genuine foundation of youth. We all have access to sleep as when our bodies repair and rejuvenate themselves, keeping us driven and able to perform in life. That’s why failing to get eight hours' sleep at night can dramatically reduce our quality of life.”
But researchers have discovered how our main excitatory neurotransmitter has been malfunctioned by our modern day, modern way of life—stress, being overworked, processed foods, environmental toxins, alcohol use, and less active lifestyles have taken their toll on this sleep neurotransmitter.
It’s pulsing too fast, making it virtually impossible for us to ever relax and easily fall asleep. Discover what this neurotransmitter is now. And you know, they may go to either a quiz or they can directly indirectly—let’s say they take a quiz.
Your quiz results are in your email, but this is your one-time chance to finally discover why I can’t sleep. And then we get into the mechanism: “It’s the simple truth that doctors and nurse practitioners don’t have the time to discover the core of our sleep problems.”
And other sleep supplements like melatonin don’t address the core of your sleep problems either. You must address and manage the core issue: GABA.
Now GABA—is the neurotransmitter that is your gateway to feeling calm, relaxed, peaceful sleep inside of your own body—able to easily fall and stay asleep.
There’s no transmitter supposed to beat at a slow harmonious pace, but it’s like a freak-out just to really help you understand why you can’t sleep. Imagine a metronome point—it’s 60 beats per minute; here you go, click it—just to really help—that’s what a healthy GABA neurotransmitter sounds like.
That’s when you’re able to easily cause as you age, and lifestyle use of the nutrients that regulate GABA and keep it stable. The neurotransmitter functions sounding more like this—can you hear it?
Much faster GABA beats when it isn’t getting the nutrient needs to keep you feeling safe and relaxed. That’s why you can’t sleep—GABA is telling you, "I need help." It’s trying to survive and get your attention, and it’s not going to stop until you stabilize it.
Blah blah blah blah blah! Introducing Prism CBD full-spectrum hemp drops. This recently FDA-approved sleep treatment can do something prescriptions your doctor gives you can’t—they stabilize and quiet your hyperactive neurotransmitter.
Here’s how it works: CBD molecules bind to the GABA receptor and inhibit it or slow it down. It’s like giving GABA the all-safe signal for your mind, allowing you to let go, even when your life circumstances might be a source of trauma.
There’s something really interesting you said earlier that I think really summarizes everything we’ve covered here. When you said you want people to read, deal with the mechanism, and say, “Oh, that makes sense,” right?
And that’s the SSI because once you know when someone says, “Hey, you know this nutrient’s going to help you sleep,” your immediate response is, “How do I know this is true? Coronas isn’t a scam.”
When you hit them with a mechanism that logically and emotionally leads them through the process and makes them go, "Huh, okay. I can see how that would work."
And as soon as that curiosity is piqued, then you kind of—I’ve got a nail on the head when you watch a movie. What allows you to immerse yourself in the movie unless you believe it?
You need to be—right? The mechanism is that suspension of disbelief. It gives you permission to believe, and that’s so important because if I don’t have permission to believe, I’m not going to buy it.
You want to get every objection that I can throw at it to compare it to everything else failed. But if I have permission to believe, I’m much more likely to buy.
Yes, yeah. Alright, cool. Alright, and guys, as ever, this is a dynamic system that we’re building. We’re always trying to build more stuff and add more value to this.
So please feel free to get in touch in the membership section if you have any questions or any other topics that you want Mark to cover in a bit more detail.
And yeah, then we can kind of dive a bit more into other things in the other modules. For example, research—how to ask the right questions so you can understand the things that you need to understand in order to come up with an effective mechanism about how to make prospects and customers associate a brand with the problem it solves.
And loads of other really valuable stuff that’s going to help you just really skyrocket yourself as a something we'll comprise. So thanks, Mark, and good to see you guys!