Does Long Sales Copy on Web Pages Really Work?
Sales Copy Ad Nauseam --
Does Long Sales Copy on Web Pages Really Work?
Have you ever gone to a web site and unexpectedly come across a waterfall of seemlingly endless sales copy. You're forced to read miles of copy, sometimes several pages worth, before even ever getting to the price or the opportunity to buy. You've seen them: sales pitches for ebooks telling you how to "get rich quick on AdWords" or software that will submit you to "thousands of search engines and drive unlimited traffic to your site." For someone like me who just likes to get to the point, these long web pages of sales copy just drive me nuts. It's like a bad baseball game: long wind-ups and pitches but you just keep waiting for the hit.
What exactly is it about these long pitches with their multiple questions, highlighted text and endless testimonials that entices users to convert to sales? Do pages like this really work at generating sales? And is there only a certain type of online shopper who is attracted by these pages? The answer might surprise you. Read on.
Rather than let our own bias get in the way, we decided to talk to some top successful veterans of the entrepreneurial Web world and find out just exactly why such marketing tactics work. Our list of experts includes:
Willie Crawford - Willie hosts teleseminars as well as the annual "Internet Marketing How-To Workshop." He also runs an Internet Business Success Course at WillieCrawford.com and owns the shopping cart system ProfitAutomation.com.
Randy Cassingham - Randy is the author of THIS is TRUE and the creator of the TRUE Stella Awards.
John Skorczewski - John is the CEO of Market- Tek Enterprises, Inc. which specializes in search engine traffic and entrepreneurial web marketing. John also is the publisher of the "WebPromotion-Weekly eZine" and also the creator of Submission Spider software.
Andy Henry - Andy is the editor of the "money making newsletter" StartBiz, which focuses on ebooks, newsletter publishing and affiliate marketing. Andy also runs Learn-SEO.com, a search engine optimization tutorial site.
Paul Myers - Paul is the Editor of TalkBizNews, a business-oriented newsletter, who makes his living by writing and producing web books and sales letters.
WA: There's obviously something to these pages of long sales copy. Can you explain why they work?
Willie: I use long copy of most of my landing pages which are generally set up to capture email addresses of first time visitors. The pages are designed to sell them on the value of joining my list, and I don't believe that you can provide TOO much proof of the value of what you have to offer. It is critical, though, that you provide links at numerous places on the page where they can take action when ready.
John: Long copy is the ONLY way to go. In virtually every test we've ever run that has been the case. It just makes sense. You're selling over the Internet...the words you convey are the only tool you have to convince a potential customer to buy your stuff. (Well, now people are using audio...but that's still long copy in script form.) The more information a person has about your product, the more comfortable they will be in deciding to buy it.
Paul: A few points on this: Quoting Gary Halbert, (I think) "Copy can never be too long. Only too boring." If you read fiction or even newspapers you'll know that people will read whole books **if they're interesting.** If the copy shows a reasonable chance of offering a solution to a problem, the person with that problem will read it. All of it.
Randy: To be sure, there ARE people out there who don't like long copy, no matter how well- written it is. Just like there are those who "need" or require a long explanation, or to be convinced.
I tend to make up my mind pretty quickly, and tend to write quite concisely -- whether in content or in marketing. (And, certainly, you can't always tell the difference between the two!) Thus, my web site is pretty to the point, but there is usually a link after the short copy that says, "Why *should* I subscribe?" and clicking thru to that page is long copy! And it's written in a pretty entertaining way, if I may say. And I get a "lot" of subscriptions from that page.
Would I have lost those new subscribers without the long copy? Dunno, but my guess is "certainly some of them. Bottom line: let the customer decide how much info they need.
Andy: I have also asked myself your same question on many occasions and have always found it to be the case that longer sales letters are much better at communicating important details about a product's benefits. Having said that, needlessly "padding out" a sales page just to make it longer will not result in more sales.
I've concluded that most people (myself included) tend to quickly skim over a sales page to pick out key benefits and decide whether the particular need they have in their life/business will be addressed by the product or service being described.
WA: What works for you? What tools or techniques do you use when creating these long pages that help your success?
John: Well, we use as many testimonials as we can. I've used highlighted text before but not seen much significant change in response rate. Also I keep my paragraphs short (1-3 sentences) with bolded and centered sub-heads every few paragrahps...and lots of white space between paragraphs (which makes the text easier to read).
Willie: Testimonials do an excellent job for me and I use as many as I can on many of my pages. I gauge how many to use by page size and load speed. To lend credibility to testimonials, I use lots of photos and live links to other web sites. I configure the links to other web sites to open in a new browser window so that I don't lose the visitor.
I [also] have hundreds of autoresponder sequences for fully automated follow-up. Some of my autoresponders have up to 30 messages in the sequence. I have not tried video yet but have seen it used very effectively. Audio and video have to both be used in a way/place where they don't pull the prospect out of the written message.
Paul: B2B products tend to rely more on reviewer testimonials than B2C offers. This is so prevalent that when I asked a few people for critiques of one book, they all responded with testimonials. I had to go back to them and emphasize that I really wanted criticism, and wasn't fishing for testimonial comments.
WA: What sales page techniques have you tried that have bombed for you? What audience would you not recommend long sales copy for?
Paul: Technically-minded folks are much less likely to read MOST long copy, because it contains words and refers to feelings with which they're uncomfortable.
Marketers are often more intolerant of adjective-laden copy, because they think they understand the psychology of selling in print, and they read adjectives as attempts at control. These folks are rarely accomplished at any form of advertising, as folks who know understand that verbs sell far more effectively than adjectives.
Andy: Before I'd learned about the power of sales copy and the right and wrong ways to do them, I put up a series of pages which had far too much information about the product but didn't explain the benefit that those features would have. Benefits sell; features are used to justify the purchase.
John: One thing that once bombed was when I created a sales letter with nothing but a headline and a long page of many testimonials. The headline was something like, "I Can Describe This Product to You but I Thought I'd Let Our Customers Do It For Me..." Then, I listed the long page of testimonials and at the end put an order link.
WA: What advice would you give to a mainstream online business that is interested in improving conversions by testing these kind of long sales pages?
Andy: There are a lot of people getting this process wrong, but I've found (and I believe there are those who agree) that each page should be focused and limited to achieving only the purpose it serves. Diluting your message by doing anything more than pre-selling and/or obtaining subscribers is more than the job of a single page. The more options you give people, the less likely you are that they'll do whatever the primary purpose of your page is.
Paul: If the benefits proffered are enticing, or well presented, they'll read the long copy and not be aware that it's long. Much of what I've written in the past few years has been for info products in the $1,000-$25,000 range. For more expensive items, copy is no more or less important than for lower priced stuff. The credibility of the producer, though, is a MUCH more important factor in cases where the price is significantly above the usual.
Here's a little-mentioned secret to selling more expensive items. It works well for any kind of non- commodity copy, but it's amazing what it does for sales of higher priced items:
**Get the reader's imagination involved.**
Specifically, craft the copy in a way that causes them to create their own scenarios for how they'll use and benefit from the product.
This is how we sold a $1,000 software and audio package with no tech support, no guarantee, minimal documentation, and 30+ products, each of which should have had a sales letter of its own.
No matter how well you know your market, you'll never be able to pinpoint the absolute best and most important use of your product as well as the end user will.
Willie: Long copy can work on mainstream business sites too if the product lends itself to it. The primary reason a lot of copywriters use long copy with lots of bulleted benefits is that you never know which benefit will be the hot button, which triggers the buying decision.
If the page has a lot of white space, easy-to- scan sub-headings, and a logical flow, then long copy will work in any product category. If a person is really interested in a topic they will read a lot.
It is critical that they can find the order link when they are ready and that there is a quick summary somewhere near the bottom of the page for those who just skip to the bottom.
fr.: http://www.webadvantage.net
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