About a week ago, a woman named Alexis came to my defense on Facebook.
The back story is that a growing number of people had started calling me out as a scammer.
I had been running an ad to promote The Little Black Book of Essential Oil Scams, a free lead magnet for Unusual Health, my aromatherapy mailing list.
The ad was running successfully for a long while.
But eventually, people started accusing me (yes, me!) of being the scam. They said I was trying to charge $10 for The Little Black Book, which I claimed to be giving away for free.
The real issue was that I had a “thank you” page after people opted in for the free lead magnet.
At the top of the page, I had instructions (in regular font) that explained the ebook will be sent by email.
Below that, I gradually worked my way into a sales letter (including a proper, large headline) for another aromatherapy book I am selling, Essential Oil Quick Start Guide.
Now last Friday, I was on a webinar offered by copywriting legend Parris Lampropoulos.
And Parris explained exactly why I was getting bullied and called out as a scammer (and no, he wasn’t talking about me specifically).
Said Parris, people’s eyes are drawn to large text on the page. That’s why he’s against using pre-heads (text before the headline) if they have any kind of critical message. People simply won’t read them.
And that’s what was happening with my thank-you page — the pre-head was effectively the download instructions, and many people weren’t reading them.
Easy enough to solve.
I kept the exact same message, but upped the font of the first sentence of the download instructions to make it clear that is something people should read.
Voila.
The complaints stopped immediately.
And several people, including Alexis, even came to my defense against the angry mob, saying how people should read the instructions and how I’m not trying to scam anyone.
So the lesson is to avoid pre-heads.
And more broadly, it’s to realize how design and overall marketing can completely dominate the copywriting message you might have.
This is something I’ll talk about in more detail in my upcoming book on email marketing for the health space. For more info on this book, or to get a free copy when it’s out, here’s where to go: