A high-converting VSL is one of the most fundamental sale assets for any outbound or paid campaign as it is what will convert someone from being a complete stranger to trusting you in just a few minutes.

In this article, we are going to look at the exact structure we use to create our VSLs, the best way to record it and where it should be used.

What Is A VSL?

A VSL or Video Sales Letter is a short 12-20 minute video used in high ticket sales to turn someone from a cold prospect into a warm lead. If you've ever bought a high ticket service or info product then you have probably watched one of these yourself.

In case you've never seen a VSL before, check out ours on our landing page here.

Structure Of A VSL

Before you can go and record a VSL, you'll need to know exactly what you are going to say otherwise you will be talking with no plan will mess it up. It's also worth creating a presentation or Google Doc that you walk through during the VSL making it easier for you to present but also gives the viewer something to follow along with.

This is the exact structure we used to double the number of meetings booked from cold email.

1. Niche-Specific Headline / Hook

This first part of the VSL isn't actually going to be in the video but it's essential you have in place. The headline is the title at the top of your site that is going to draw people in to watch your VSL and will be referenced throughout the VSL.

The headline or hook will be at the top of the landing page and is essentially just your offer structured in a different way. If you don't catch the prospect's attention quickly, they'll leave the site and will never get to watch the VSL.

The headline should be targeted specifically to your niche and has to be a bold enough claim that someone would be interested enough to start watching. The better you know your niche, the better headline you can write since it truly hits their pain points, desires, dreams or fears.

We follow this general structure:

"How to go from (State 1) to (State 2) in (Timeframe) using (Mechanism) without (Negative Outcome)"

Let's look at a couple of different examples:

B2B Saas Founders: "How To Go From $100,000 MRR to $300,000 MRR in 41 Weeks Using Personalised Video Outreach Without Having To Hire Any New SDRs"

For Med Spa Owners: "How To Consistently Get 10 New Clients Per Month Using Targeted Ads Without Cutting Your Profit Margin In Half"

For Info Products: "How To Get Your First 100 Course Sales in Just 3 Weeks Using Organic Content Without Having To Hire Any New Team Members"

You get the idea.

This will be constantly changing based on what you find out about your market through market research and working with clients.

2. Reference The Headline

The first part of your VSL should reference the headline you put above the video, this is a really small step but is incredibly important as it lets people know they are in the right place so they will continue to watch.

This will be the first line of your VSL and should be used as a sort of one-line introduction. The structure we use is:

“Hey, my names {{FirstName}} and I help/I went from {{Current State}} to {{Desired State}} in {{Timeframe}} using {{Mechanism}} without {{Painproblem}}"

For example:

"Hey, My name is Ewan and I help B2B companies go from $10,000 per month to consistently making $100k MRR in just 180 days using personalised video outreach without hiring a team of SDRs"

3. Social Proof and Case Studies

Now that you've made a big bold claim in your headline your prospect is probably thinking "This is bullsh*t, what makes this guy qualified to say anything like this? He's probably never actually achieved this like all the other agencies I've been burned by."

We are going to break this thinking by showing social proof and case studies that show your past results to prove that you are a credible source to listen to and learn from. If the prospect doesn't believe you know what you are talking about, they won't pay attention to your VSL and everything past this point will go to waste.

If you already have case studies from previous clients your life should be pretty easy here. All you have to do is display the information in a concise way using this structure:

"Company X went from (State 1) to (State 2) in Y time frame after struggling with Z pain point."

For example: "Apple went from $20k in MRR to $200K MRR in just 4 months after struggling to consistently bring leads through paid ads."

You don't have to go super in-depth here, the aim is to quickly show them you know what you are talking about. Try to include at least 2-3 of these case studies as it helps build up as much trust as possible and shows your system is repeatable meaning it's more likely to work for them.

If you don't have any case studies, you have a couple of different alternatives you can use:

• Any of your own experience in the field from a career or studies

• Any awards or achievements you've gotten in the niche

• Public case studies from others that use similar processes to show the system works

An example of this could be: "This is the exact strategy that Justin Mcgill, the founder of LeadFuze, used to grow his company's revenue to $30k/month in just 12 months."

Another example: "This strategy is built on what I've learned from working in companies like Amazon and Apple for the past 7 years as a CMO"

This will not be as powerful as having your own case studies but it will get the job done at the start and is better than having no social proof at all in your VSL. As soon as you have your first case study, you should re-create the VSL to include it.

It may be tempting at first to lie about any past experience or case studies if you don't have any but this is the worst thing you can do as it will come back to bite you and the consequences will be a lot worse than taking a bit longer to sign your first client.

4. Identification

Before you get into the meat & potatoes of the VSL, you need to call out the audience so the prospect knows this was created specifically for them and that you understand their situation. The other benefit of calling out your audience is that you'll be getting on the phone with much more qualified leads because the leads who don't identify with this section will drop-off.

There are a variety of different things you could include here:

• Niche

• Company type

• Recent funding

• Specific pain points

• Current revenue level

• Offer a specific service etc.

So for example, you could say:

"So if you are a B2B SaaS Founder who has just raised a seed round and you want to break that $3M ARR mark before the year ends, stick around."

Or you could say:

"So if you are an agency owner struggling to get past $40k per month and want to double your revenue before summer starts, keep watching"

Once you've called out your audience, you want to make sure they stick around - we do this with a bonus offer. This could be something simple such as a mindset shift, a bonus step, a top tip, a free resource or literally anything else.

"If this is you, stick around and at the end of the video, I'll give you X"

5. Background Story & Credibility

In this section, you need to answer the question of who are you and why are you talking about this. You've already told them the results you are capable of achieving but they don't have a clue who you are. Here again, we need to increase your credibility so the prospect listens to what you say and believes what you are saying.

You can use things like:

• Track record

• Achievements

• School qualifications

• Awards

• Career

This section should be relatively short and quickly get the prospect to know you a bit better.

For example:

"By what makes me qualified to show you how to do this? I was the senior marketing director at Amazon UK for 8 years and in that time helped the company drive over $2B in revenue and our department won various awards as a result. I've also run 2 other agencies in the past that scaled to 6 figures in just 3 months."

6. Core Concept

Now that you've hooked the prospect in, introduced yourself and explained why the prospect should listen to you, you are ready to present your mechanism. Before the prospect is ready to buy your offer, they need to be sold on the delivery mechanism e.g. cold email, paid ads, organic content etc.

If the prospect isn't bought into the mechanism you are using to deliver results, there is no chance they will ever consider buying your offer.

The idea of this section is to educate your prospects on why your machine is so powerful, how it works and why it works but how you do this will depend on your niche's awareness & sophistication level. You don't need to give them an exact step-by-step tutorial on how to do it, you just have to give them a high-level overview of what it is and why it works so well.

For example:

Let's say you were running a cold email offer on a pay-per-meeting basis, your structure might look like this:

• Setup Tech

• Identify ICP

• Scrape Leads

• Write Copy

• Start Campaign

• Iterate

  
  

You would then break down each of these sections giving a brief overview of how it works. So for identifying the ICP, you could talk about how you need to do market research, discover pain points and who needs the service/product.

If your market is more saturated and is high on the awareness sophistication scale, you'll need to develop methods and strategies they haven't seen before and show that it is the better way of getting results.

7. Option 1 or 2

In this section of the VSL, you'll show them 2 alternative options. Option 1 is them going out and executing the plan themselves or with another service provider versus option 2 of paying you to do it for them.

You need to create logical points of why they should choose your offer instead of just doing it in-house.

For example:

"Now you can start building your own cold email system in-house; however, you'd need to spend thousands of dollars in tools, months into learning all the small nuances in the process and spend 2-4 hours every day into managing the cold email campaigns...

Or you can work with us and start getting results in the next 2 weeks from starting"

Now would be a good time to remind them that this system works and you have done this before, include a quick case study. This doesn't have to be in-depth, just a reminder of the information you gave them at the start to keep their attention.

8. Benefits

Now you need to sell yourself more, you need to paint a picture in your prospect's head of what happens if they choose to work with you. Don't focus on the features of your service, talk about the actual end benefits that they are looking for. These should relate back to the headline/hook you created at the beginning as this is what got them to stick around and watch.

For example:

“When you work with us, you’ll be able to:

• Go from $100,000 MRR to $300,000 MRR in 7 months

• Grow so fast you’ll be featured in Inc 5000

• Have investors reaching out to you daily since you clearly have a product in demand

• Focus on building a better team without having to focus on lead generation”

The better you understand your niche, the better you know what their actual desires and dreams are making it much easier to target them. Keep in mind that you are a bridge between their painful state now and the dreamland they want to be in, you have to get that across.

9. Features (How does it work?)

Now you can finally present the features in your offer, they need to make sense based on what you've explained in the core concept part of your VSL. Each of your features should be explained in a way that makes it easier, faster or cheaper to use the mechanism.

To make it even more compelling, assign a monetary value to each part of your process and show the total for all the systems. For example:

• ICP Identification System - $2,500

• Lead Scraping & Scoring - $5,000

• Tech Stack Setup - $1,500

• Email Copywriting - $10,000

• Etc.

10. Call To Action

Now that the prospect is sold on your mechanism & proven that the best option for getting results with the mechanism is by working with you. Their next question will be, "Well how do I get this?".

We answer this question with a call to action such as booking a quick discovery call using a link to the calendar below or giving a free resource. For example:

"So, if you are interested in seeing how we can help you achieve (Outcome), click the button below and I'll give you a free action plan on how to do so!"

Hopefully, you noticed here how we've used that free resource or bonus you were going to give them as a reason to book a call. It’s a perfect hook and also improves your show-up rate.

How To Record a VSL

Writing the script was only the first hurdle in creating your VSL, now you've got to record it which is just as crucial. The way in which you deliver your script through tone, energy, conviction, visuals and more will ultimately decide how well your VSL will perform.

Delivery

Simply put, energy transfers. If you're low energy and relaxed, so will your viewer but if you're excited, so will your viewer. If you have conviction, your viewer will also have conviction.

Having a disgusting amount of conviction is key to a good VSL, if you don't sound like you believe in your product then why would your prospects? You have to convey just how much you believe in your product and why they should believe in it too.

Background

Before you record your VSL, you should make sure you have a clean background and have as few distractions as possible. You need your prospects to focus solely on the information you are providing and nothing else.

Editing

You want your VSL to be simple and easy to follow, don't include heavy editing as this can create a false feedback loop of people saying they love the VSL but never actually book a meeting.

Length

Your VSL should be no shorter than 12 minutes and no longer than 20 minutes. We don't want the prospect to become bored of watching your VSL but we also don't want them to walk away without enough information.

Conclusion

A VSL is essential for any outbound campaign you are running, it can massively increase the number of meetings you book because it makes it so simple to build up trust with your prospects before they get on the phone.

Your VSL needs to hook the viewer in, explain why they should trust you and explain your mechanism with the ultimate goal of getting them to follow an action such as booking a call or claiming a free resource.

If you need help creating your VSL or with anything lead gen and sales, book a call with our team here.