Why Long Copy Often Outperforms Short Copy
But Only If You Keep The Interest Principle In Mind
But only if you keep the interest principle in mind
A prominent, online business guru sent an email recently criticizing long sales copy. She compared longer sales letters to listening to a speech. She wrote:
Whoever said, “I wish this person would take longer to get their point across.”
Her argument seemed like common sense. If you’re listening to a boring speaker who is blathering on without getting to the point, of course, you don’t want them to take more time on the stage. You want them to hurry up, make their point, and then go.
In the comments on her article, there were a lot of people nodding in agreement. They thought sales copy should be short too. But I disagree.
Consider the following:
Have you ever read a novel and lost track of the time?
Have you ever enjoyed a movie so much you wanted to watch it again?
And here’s a kicker, ever had sex that ended too soon?
Notice that length is not always an issue. Interest is. If you like something, having it be longer is not a problem. You can’t wait for the boring speaker to get off the stage. But the one that makes you laugh and cry could stay a bit longer.
Good copy isn’t boring because it speaks to your issue
If you suffer from fear of public speaking and you read copy that empathizes with your fear and the main consequences it has for you, you read with rapt attention. It then suggests a positive outcome — you a confident speaker. Again, you are still paying attention. Finally, it tells you there is a service that solves your problem. At this point, you may be on the edge of your seat.
But the job isn’t yet done.
You want to see evidence that the product or service can produce these results. The writer will show you features that make it real that they can help you and testimonials that show that others like you have gotten results. Of course, all this takes up space, doesn’t it?
The best performing sales letters of all time were often several pages long
To inform the reader enough to buy required quite a bit of space. Direct mail organizations would spend thousands of dollars to create and print multi-page documents to hawk their wares. One of the most famous is often called The Billion Dollar Sales Letter as it is reported to have produced $2 billion in sales for the Wall Street Journal over a 25-year period. That letter is several pages long.
But isn’t it possible that a shorter sales letter could have produced the same or better sales
The Wall Street Journal tested this letter against many other letters of different lengths and styles and none of them could beat their Billion Dollar Letter for over two decades. But the Journal stopped sending that letter in 2003.
So maybe long copy worked then, does that mean it still works today
Let’s see. Whichtestwon.com featured a split-test for a company called Speedwinds Nutrition. Short copy featuring a series of strong bullets was tested against long copy that goes into a lot more detail. The longer copy converted 84.6% more browsers into buyers. A recent test on MarketingExperiments.com also tested long vs. short copy. The long copy outperformed the short copy by 40.54%.
What about those souls who don’t care to read long copy
First, consider that great copy is written on two levels. On one level it is written for those who need a lot of information before making a buying decision. All the juicy paragraphs explaining what your product or service does and how it does it are for them.
On another level, it’s written with catchy headings placed strategically to draw the attention of the skimmers. Those are the folks that … well … skim. They might decide to do a deep dive into a section or two of your sales page but often won’t read every word. These folks will still buy as long as you have enough headings and nice bullet points.
Second, depending on what you’re selling, a person not willing to read may not be a great client or customer. If you’re selling a 20-hour course or a 200-page book, someone who won’t put in the time it takes to read your copy may not be willing to spend the time to learn what you have to teach.
As you can see, to handle that business guru’s objection took some space, didn’t it? If I’d only said, “She’s just wrong” how persuasive would that have been?
Summary
Length should not be a problem in a sales page, it’s interest that matters. Just as in the world of entertainment, no one complains about something being too long if they are so engrossed that they’ve lost track of time.
What gets people interested in a sales message is if it speaks to their interests, concerns and need for persuasive information
You can design your copy with headings so that those who skim and don’t need much information to make a buying decision can still get the main points
When someone gets to the end of your sales message, you want them to be glad they read it, even if they aren’t going to buy today. Ideally, you will entice and inform. It might be a bit much to expect them to say “I wish they had written more” but you can write well enough that someone will want to read your copy a second time.
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