“Too many notes.
There are only so many notes the ear can hear
in the course of an evening.”
Thus advised Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II in the movie Amadeus, after hearing Mozart’s 1782 opera, “Abduction From the Seraglio.”
Are you like the Emperor when you look at a company’s lengthy information presented to their prospects, whether as a sales page on their website or as a sales letter mailed to them? Is it true that, in today’s fast-paced, time-starved world, people today will not spend the time needed to read too many words?
With YouTube videos of 30 seconds to 5 minutes, do people have the patience for anything longer? Well, people who handed over $52 million in 1984 to watch 160 minutes of Oscar winner Amadeus. And they gladly shelled out over $326 million in 2008 to watch 120 minutes of best-picture winner Slumdog Millionaire.
Let’s see what one of the world’s most respected copywriters — who has specialized exclusively in direct response for more than 40 years, who apprenticed under giants John Caples (Caples literally wrote the book on direct response creative) and David Ogilvy (often called “the Father of Advertising”), who has generated over $1 billion dollars with only his words, and who has trained the best of today’s best — has to say about the sales performance of too many words (or long copy’s ability to outpull):
The Real Reason Why Long Copy Almost Always Outpulls Short
by Gary Bencivenga
Don’t shorten your copy because you may fear that this unmotivated 95% won’t read long copy. Take it for granted that they won’t and just write them off, as counterintuitive as that may feel.
The truth is, the unmotivated 95% won’t read short copy or long! So if you shorten your copy in a misguided attempt to get higher readership among the unmotivated 95%, you’ll lose that unmotivated 95% anyway. But you will also deprive the motivated 5% of the longer sales copy they need to make a favorable decision. You will waste 100% of your money if you downsize your message to accommodate the unmotivated 95%!
Write instead only to the motivated 5% and upsize your message to include everything your most motivated, eager-to-buy prospects want to know! Let your long copy sing out with all the benefits, proof elements, specifics, details, premiums, and special offers that your motivated 5% will eagerly welcome as they carefully consider making an important purchase.
The master says it brilliantly: sell to those who want to buy, and write everything you can to help them make the choice.
I hope that helps you make some music out of all the noise about shorter attention spans in today’s marketplace.
So what do you think? Is longer copy (like one of those 100-foot-long webpages or 30-page “magazines”) only for high-priced items? Do you think it will work for something under $20? Under $10? Are you convinced that this makes sense, but just don’t know how to put it into effect for your own business? Where can you use help? Add your opinions, questions, requests, and comments below now and I will see how I can help:
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I may not be a “typical” buyer, but I like to have a choice about my informational diet. Sometimes I only have time for a quick byte,
and sometimes (especially when the purchase is higher dollars or commitment) I want to be able to know everything about what I’m looking at. Disclaimer: I read and enjoyed “David Copperfield” in elementary school when the other kids were complaining about the thickness of the book.
Electronic writing (e-books, websites) offer this wonderful 3rd dimension of optional drilling, so if you can write in a way that offers information in much the same form as the old inverse pyramid of journalism: you can capture the reader, interest them into going deeper, and then give them that depth. Absence of depth communicates an absence of knowledge, absence of imagination, absence of substance, etc. I have absolutely made the decision to NOT buy many times based upon sizzle without steak.
On the other hand, hitting the reader with everything you’ve got up front without any choices, communicates a sense of urgency, scarcity, fear that you won’t buy unless I tell you everything about everything, and so forth. Offering a full meal means you start with an appetizer, and you fulfill the promise with the entree, etc.
Like a well thrown spear, if your copy is properly pointed and sharp at the beginning, it will take the shaft through the same opening, regardless of length.
Wolfgang would be proud that even today good copy is like music to the ears and that his is a standard.
Ian Blei summarizes everything quite well in his third paragraph above. Likewise one cannot appreciate the lengthy “Bolero” as music alone if not played with emphasis on the right notes or getting an introduction in what the music is essentially about.
Unless you are using a movie as a sales letter, a relatively short and interesting Youtube video can get many visitors to your site and be ‘targeted visitors’ to boot. Similarly, such a video on the site itself has a 50% chance of reader retention. Barring that or not, the sales letter requires a good opening as stated above.
Another copy writer wrote about this on his blog also, a while back and reposted it recently, to state that short copy is usually only effective, even to the hungry 5%, when the reader has already been presold via other means and only requires your re-confirmation to be convinced to pull out that credit card.