Info-Profits Talk - Long Versus Short Copy

infoready

What do you think is most effective, long copy or short copy?

I've heard some people express that the more copy you have the better, however as a customer I prefer a shorter, more hard hitting message.

jason_ga

I think it really depends. I've asked several people who I've interviewed about this, and they've all said (paraphrasing of course ;) ) that long copy for the sake of long copy is stupid.

Copy should be long enough to do the job, and not a word longer.

If that means that the copy should only be a page, it should only be a page. But if people have a lot of questions beforehand that you need to address, you may need a lot longer letter to answer all those questions.

Mind you, I also think the letter should have "buy now" links throughout it, so if you are ready to buy the product, you can without having to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.

Cheers,
Jason

RoyB

Well for myself I usually read the first couple lines then skim the rest till I come to the features. Then glance at testimonials. Then go to the end to see if I can afford it and worth the price.

So I guess you could say short and sweet for the most part.

infoready

Yeah, that's what I do too, Roy. I guess that's why it's important to put in Bullets :)

jason_ga

Originally posted by infoready
Yeah, that's what I do too, Roy. I guess that's why it's important to put in Bullets :)
Just to be contrary, the bullets are usually the part of the sales letter that I will skim over. Often I'll read the rest (at least, the first part, to determine if its something I might be interested in).

No idea why the bullets turn me off, they just do.

Maybe I'm just odd ;)

Cheers,
Jason

Joe

Hi Everyone:-)

"Long Copy vs Short Copy" ....

Oh dear oh dear. This subject has been debated, and debated, and debated - for decades.

By coincidence I wrote an article on this very subject a few days
ago for my Copywriter's Digest newsletter, which also links to a
tutorial at my Copywriting site.

I'm glad I did, because it saves me writing a long answer to this
post:-)

You can read the article at
http://adcopywriting.com/digest/109.htm

Keep smilin',

Joe

Louis

Hi Joe - thank you very much for that. :)

Something that's stuck in my mind is that unlike face to face selling, copy is written of course so you can't get any direct feedback from the reader/prospect.

Whereas face to face you can monitor the prospect's reactions, ask if they have any questions ... and hopefully this can help you overcome their objections to buying now.

With this in mind I try to list every possible benefit & objection beforehand and make sure it's fully covered in the sales letter in an interesting and easy to read way.

However - a few years ago with a mail order letter the person I was working with wanted to stick to 8 pages - I believe for cost reasons - so a 12 page letter was cut shorter in that case.

It worked pretty well, but since we didn't test the longer letter I can't give any comparative figures in that case.

George Chapin

I think as a general rule the more expensive a product is the more copy that is needed.

If you are selling a $20 product you can get buy with a very short page but look at products that are $100 to $1000 and they have very long copy. It takes people a long time to commit to spending $500+ dollars and they will often read every bit of a long sales page before parting with that amount of money.

Remember the Mark Joyner package? I think the sales page was 20+ pages when printed out.... seemed to sell out too.

George Chapin

I also wanted to say that this is a great topic to bring up and a very good example of a good survey.

Kennon

It's interesting because I have a tape that features information
from Ted Ciuba where he talked about having a 60-page sales
letter that pulled. Well, I shared this tape with someone and he
got back to me pretty upset! He felt the comparison of a 2-page
sales letter vs. 60-page sales letter was pretty far out! He went
on to say that he thought Ted just couldn't write a good 2-page
sales letter!

Well, the shortened version of a sales letter that this guy (the
one criticizing Ted's speaking) wrote, did not pull any sales on a
special offer I watched him do!

So, my idea is simply that whatever needs to be said... NEEDS to
be said. And AS LONG AS you keep your reader's attention, then
you're going to do fine. If it is a topic of interest to them, the
prospective buyer will keep reading. All that counts then is to
keep giving them a call to action and to appeal to the feeling and
value they will experience from having made the purchase.

Surely this makes sense. ??

Kennon :)

infoready

Another part of this is taking into consideration different peoples needs/wants. I remember that one of Jay Levinsons books talked about different kinds of people. Some needed all the details, and then some, and some just wanted an overview. There were 4 different styles and he explained how to sell each one.

Personally, I can be sold by a 1 page ad as well as a 20 page, because when the copy gets too long, I just start skimming. Worse, if I do force myself to read it, I get bored.

When I'm reading sales copy I'm interested in finding out...

> What the product will do for me?

> Who's offering it (are they trustworthy?)?

> How much does it cost?

> What format will it be delivered in?

Of course I know that I buy because of emotinal reasons, and whne you're explaining what it will do for me and who you are, you will need to hit some of my hot buttons to make me really excited about the product.

Louis

Originally posted by George Chapin
I think as a general rule the more expensive a product is the more copy that is needed.

If you are selling a $20 product you can get buy with a very short page but look at products that are $100 to $1000 and they have very long copy. It takes people a long time to commit to spending $500+ dollars and they will often read every bit of a long sales page before parting with that amount of money.

Remember the Mark Joyner package? I think the sales page was 20+ pages when printed out.... seemed to sell out too.

I did finally succumb and buy the Joyner package (I might sell it since I'm not in fact using it after all that) but I felt the sales page didn't have enough info for me. I had so many questions about the bundle that just weren't fully answered in the text.

I believe a lot of the success of the offer was the fact it was genuinely limited, that it had a high commission and therefore you couldn't get away from it on the net since everyone was plugging it!

And since there were a lot of well known marketers promoting it that gave the whole offer a lot of credibility, plus there were interesting marketing methods used which helped keep driving people back to the offer, including free to distribute interviews with Mark about the package and free teleconferences.

There was a lot of talk and info about the product even before you got to the sales page, so that all helps reinforce the offer and get people visiting in an excited/open frame of mind I would say.