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Articles And Resources On Marketing, Sales, Public Relations And Business Development... |
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Long Copy or Short Copy... This is the Questionby Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan In spite of overwhelming research and market feedback, many business owners are still rebelling against long copy on their marketing materials. They argue that people don't read so much verbal vomit anyway. Well, anyone, who is even slightly familiar with the fundamental principles (not the tricks) of marketing, knows that serious buying decisions are preceded by information gathering. And information is not about fancy pictures, Flash animations but words and more words. Features, advantages and benefits. Now, you may join the choir and say, "But no one reads it." Fair enough. Here is something to consider... Worth recounting is the story of Max Hart (of Hart, Schaffner &Marx) and his advertising manager, the late George L. Dyer. They were arguing about the validity of the long copy. To clinch the argument, Mr. Dyer said, "I'll bet you $10, I can write a newspaper page of solid type and you'll read every word of it." Mr. Hart scoffed at the idea, "I don't have to write a line of it to prove my point," Mr. Dyer responded. "I'll only tell you the headline. That would be... 'This page is all about Max Hart!' So, Let's See How People Actually ReadThe objective of good promotional copy both off- and online is both to expose the value of your stuff and articulate how it helps your target market. Your copy must persuade your readers to take action... right now. Most advertisements write 120-150 words maximum. But really and truly reader who are about to buy the stuff you're selling want all the information they can handle to make an intelligent buying decision. Most people stupidly argue that nobody reads long copy, and they are partly right. Nobody reads long crappy copy. Do you remember the emperor from the movie Amadeus? The emperor disapproved Mozart's Marriage of Figaro because it had "too many notes". Can you imagine? The imbecile tells the musical genius how to write music? Well, life is full of self-righteous idiots telling geniuses what to do. Hm... Studies conducted by linguists indicate that it takes about 300 to 500 words to cover a topic. Another study also shows that...
So, if your readers decide to read beyond 50 words you're safe. Their comprehension will drop after 300 words but they keep reading. That's why you have to keep your message simple and free of jargon and industry-specific mumbo-jumbo. So, the big hairy truth is that you simply can't explain your case under 300 words, but beyond 300 you can go up to 3000 words with no problem. Remember, the more you tell, the more you sell. The longest direct response letter I have written is 31 pages, and had 17% response rate. In contrast, a typical response rate of 1% is called excellent by many companies. Their goal is to be short and sweet, and they are very good at it. But my goal is to sell, so went to learn from the greatest copywriting masters, like Dan Kennedy, Gary Halbert, Clayton Makepeace and many more, who are damn good at that. Thoughts from the ExpertsAnd here are some comments on long vs. short copy from some of the highest regarded copywriters. Again, you make your own conclusion. I'm just delivering the facts. Mike Fortin, The Success Doctor:"People object to reading copy because: a) they are not targeted and b) the copy is boring. Length is the excuse because it's a common currency. Boring is subjective. Long is objective. When copy starts to bore you, you naturally are inclined to say it's too long. It's too long because of the fact that it started to drag, causing the reader to lose interest." "Clicking to another page causes what psychologists call 'cognitive dissonance.' (Also known as 'buyer's remorse' or having second thoughts.') The idea is that, by clicking to another page while one is engaged in the reading process of sales copy forces readers to think twice, as it causes a brief, mental disassociation or distraction, which interrupts the flow, momentum and intensity of the sales pitch." Dan Kennedy:"The person who says 'I would never read all that copy' makes the mistake of thinking they are the customer. And they're not. We are never our own customers. There's a thing in copywriting I teach called 'message-to-market match'. It is this: when your message is matched to a target market that has a high level of interest in it, not only does responsiveness go up but readership goes up, too. The whole issue of interest goes up. The truth about long copy is that, first of all, there's abundant, legitimate, statistical research, that's split-testing research, to indicate that virtually without exception, long copy outperforms short copy. There's some significant research has been done that indicate that readership falls off dramatically at 300 words but does not again drop off until 3,000 words." User Interface Engineering:1. "Our research shows that fewer, longer pages may be the best approach for users. In the trade-off between hiding content below the fold or spreading it across several pages, users have greater success when the content is on a single page." 2. "Increasing the levels of information, similar to adding sections to an outline, also seemed to help users." 3. "Users may tell us they hate scrolling, but their actions show something else. Most users readily scrolled through pages, usually without comment." Gary Halbert:Gary is regarded as the best copywriter alive. "Copy can never be too long. Only too boring!" The Marketing Experiments Journal's StudiesHere are some website conversion results over a five-day period
In our initial micro-test, long copy outperformed short copy by 40.54%. Click-through traffic sent to the short copy page was unprofitable (-14% ROI), while traffic sent to the long copy page produced an ROI of 21%. In this first micro-test, it appears that the long copy page performed much better than the short copy page. However, a five-day period is not enough to account for statistical fluctuations that may skew our real results. So we continued to test. We maintained the same test, expanded our keyword bidding slightly, and gathered additional results over the subsequent five days:
Again, long copy outperformed short copy, this time by an even greater factor of nearly four to one. Our ROI was a dismal -66% for the short copy page and a very respectable 50% for the long copy page. On SummaryOther advantages of long copy are…
But at the end of the day it's about quality. Good short copy is better than crappy long copy. Now you have it. Again this is not my opinion about long copy, but empirical evidence. You can call me anal, but my background is in engineering, so I rather follow empirical data than falling for myths, legends and hearsay. Once Napoleon commented on the enemy's resources: "My calculations are based on more exact data, upon mathematical inferences. In the last resort, no one has more than he can have." While I'm not as much of a military genius as Napoleon was, I like his approach. At this point business owners have two options. They either keep rebelling against long copy or just pull their heads out of their arses, face the reality and get with the game. What's your choice? And remember! For your health's and wealth's sake, don't sell harder but market smarter. Both you, your employees, your clients and prospects will find it more enjoyable and more attractive. Recommended Tools And Resources...Bob Bly's Information Library. Then scroll down to "World's Best-Kept Copywriting Secrets" and "Write and Grow Rich". They are great stuff to improve your copywriting skills. Magnetic Marketing Toolkit by Dan Kennedy Infoguru Marketing Manual by Robert Middleton |
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© 1997-2008 Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Utility Sausage Provocation Station, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. All Rights Reserved.