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Classic direct response copy – direct mail and print – was always long copy....
“Mail order” was part of the culture long before the Internet, television, and even radio. There was much less competition for the prospect or customer’s attention and time, way fewer pieces in the mailbox.
In general, attention spans are significantly shorter these days. But with self-help products, and in the investment advice and health newsletter arenas, for example, people still wade through a tonnage of persuasive, "reason-why" copy. And what works in direct mail (print unfortunately being a dead medium for most direct marketers) is transferable to email and to Web sites.
But some copywriters, entrepreneurs who sell services to copywriters, and even some clients believe that no matter who the audience is nor what the product or service... the only way you can get a response on a Web site is to present the reader with a Dickensian barrage of copy. It doesn’t take a (Uriah) Heep of thinking to wonder: “Are there circumstances in which the marketer would do much better with short copy?”
Understand that when I talk about a tonnage of copy on a Web site, I’m referring to how much is on a single page. If the copy is relatively short on each page, but there is justification for multiple pages getting deeper into the subject, that is not Dickensian copy but James Pattersonian copy.
My attention was called to a site that offers a marketing system to small restaurants. The one-page has about 2,500 words on it. The writing is spectacularly good, and the design helps – but 2,500 words? Will the guy running a pizza shop have the time or patience to wade through this? I think not.
I’d love to see a test that takes sections of the immense letter and breaks them up into separate Web pages. You’d have some links between the pages, but the major push would be to get prospects to the response device.
MarketingSherpa applauds the trend to base copywriting and offers on persona research. Their research deals with business technology communications, but could well be applied to any audience. Picture your prospects. Will they really read through all that copy in one fell swoop on the Web? Make a mistake and you could be working in one Bleak House.
Technorati tags: copywriting content Dickens direct_marketing
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Comments
Good stuff, Lee. Having made my living as a marketer, public relations guy, writer and editor for nearly 35 years, I always approached the craft with an eye to clear and concise.
However, some of today's copy writers and marketers seem to think the "long sell" works best. It can be confusing.
I would like to see specific research done on copy length for all media. Until then, I'm sticking with short and concise.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 07.21.06
Lewis, thanks for the post. In direct mail, we used to test, say, 6 page letters vs. 4 page letters all the time... but I haven't seen any of that lately. The most common copy-length testing is undoubtedly for emails and landing pages, and it seems results always depend on the nature of the prospect or customer.
Posted by: Lee Marc Stein | 07.21.06
Specific research can be had from our friends at MarketingExperiments:
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/long-copy-short-copy.html
Maybe way more than you wanted to know...but....FWIW!
Posted by: Ann Handley | 07.21.06
Thanks Ann. Interesting but not very reassuring.
1) The research deals only with web copy, and I think that research still points to direct mail as delivering the best ROI within any given marketing mix, and 2) the research concludes by saying essentially that neither short nor long delivers ROI and that both short and long deliver about the same negative ROI.
Yikes! Now I am really confused. Nevertheless, Ann, thank you for pointing us to the research and, as always, making great connections.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 07.21.06
Hello Everyone,
Was just browsing and noticed this post. Ann's link provides some good information, as well as several links to software for A/B Split Testing.
I would like to add that we've (MarketingProfs Team) designed online split and multi-variables software with full rich text content editing capability, and click-thru and conversion reporting. You can manage your entire campaign via our control panel and find out what works for your business.
I don't want this to sound like a pitch, but it seems relevant to the discussion. For more information and to try it for free please see TestLab at Marketingprofs:
http://testlab.marketingprofs.com
Regards.
Posted by: Aaron | 07.21.06
Short copy often works better than long copy. That's why so many magazines have vouchers and double postcards as their direct mail controls.
Posted by: Bob Bly | 07.24.06
It depends on the subject.
On my experience (selling to a 100k spanish-speakers suscriber list), knowledge, software and non-common products or services need larger copy (for this I've done A/B split test - using MP's tool - it's great!).
And I disagree with Bly in his last comment... last month I bought from him a report for $29 that uses more than 2.800 words... ¿so? ¿is that really Bob Bly commenting?
Posted by: Juan Fernando Zuluaga | 07.24.06
Thank you for the post, Juan. Couldn't agree more that long copy normally fares better in marketing information/knowledge products and services, no matter what the communications medium. The critical factor, again, may be how the copy is structured or layered rather than how long it is.
Posted by: Lee Marc Stein | 07.25.06