Do long sales letters really work?
Have you ever found yourself on a web page that seems to scroll on and on and on?
The page usually starts off with “Dear Friend” which then flows in to an endless banter trying to get you to buy what ever it is that is on offer. And it’s usually punctuated with dozens of testimonials, hundreds of bullet points and the odd yellow highlighted text.
Welcome to the world of long sales letters.
But for most of you, it seems, you scream silently at your PC screen and hit the back button. This is not a world you want to be associated with – especially when it comes to selling your own products and services.
If you hate them so much, why do so many marketers on the internet use them? And do long sales letters really work?
First of all, let’s be really clear on what we mean by a long sales letter.
A long sales letter is not just a whole load of ramblings typed up on to a webpage. A long sales letter is actually a carefully constructed piece of copy writing that can take days, if not weeks, to put together.
It takes the reader on a journey, captures their attention and overcomes every possible objection until you reach the infamous “Order Now” button.
A long sales letter is a 24/7 sales representative that is there to convince you, the website visitor, to make a purchase right there and then.
And if you don’t make a purchase right there and then, there is every chance you will never return. You are lost for ever and the sale will never be made.
If you are selling a product or a service through the web, making that sale is critical to your long term success.
So why do you hate them so much?
Now, don’t get me wrong – there are some down-right awful long sales letters out there. Really cheesy ones that usually start off with that cringe worthy “Dear Friend” [how can I be your friend - we've never met!!]
And the reason why these don’t appear to work with you is that the copywriter has probably been following a formulated script that they have just filled in the gaps with appropriate words.
What they haven’t taken in to account are the most important ingredients in the whole mix – who their target client is, what it is that these target clients want and what style of language they like to be communicated with.
Without these ingredients, a long sales letter is like that bore you meet at a networking event who just keeps going on and on about their business and has totally ignored everything about you and what you do.
But written with your target client in mind, long sales letters can work.
And, especially if you are relying on the internet to make the majority of your sales, will be far more effective than just listing a whole load of features, the price and a buy now button.
If you are not answering every conceivable question that your target client may have about your product or service in your website copy, it is too easy for your target client to click away and keep searching for something that does answer all their questions.
A well written long sales letter can engage, inform and delight your target client – especially if what they receive after ordering exceeds their expectations.
So, love them or hate them, the long sales letter can work – that is as long as you take the time to really understand your target client and use the style of language that is going to reach out and engage them.
And spending the time to learn how to write great copy that reflects this can be one of the greatest investments you can make in your business.
What are your thoughts about long sales letters? Add a comment at the end of this article. I would love to read your ideas, too.
Other articles you may be interested in:
- Is your business really hard work at the moment?
- Article Marketing: 7 Ways of Making One Article Work Harder For Your Business
- 7 Steps to Attracting New Clients to Your Business
24 Responses to “Do long sales letters really work?”
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Interesting blog post Karen. They do seem to work. I think the point with the ‘long copy sales letter’ is that most people skim-read them – they scroll down and read the bits that are important to them or look for key pieces of information. For some people it will be ‘what’s included’ for others it will be ‘what people have said about it’ and so on. The writer doesn’t know what is going to be of most interest to the reader, so rather than have someone leave because they couldn’t find the relevant information or had an unanswered question, they include everything that people might want to know. It’s the same in the offline world too. When you get a brochure through the mail, you probably don’t read every word, but flick through and stop to read the bits that are interesting.
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I like this article Karen. For me the point of the long letters is not whether I like them, but do they work? What the well constructed ones do is to repeatedly anticipate and answer the reader’s unspoken questions – something that all business writing should do. They also incorporate the language patterns of hypnosis punctuated by repeated calls to action. There’s a lot more going on than just being ‘long’ although some are just that!
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Great article. I do find long sales letters tedious but as you say when they hit me with something I am looking for I will keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and then inevitably …. order!
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Thanks for stopping by Hannah, Lesley-Anne and Anne and adding your thoughts.
And Hannah, you’ve made an excellent point here about the offline world, too. Long sales letters have been around for a very long time – far longer than the internet!
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An interesting overview that thankfully is NOT too long, unlike the subject of your article.
Do long sales letters work? Depends on the audience I expect but in my mind these letters are deliberately targeted towards the doofus area of my brain and therefore I find them incredibly patronising. Does the marketeer really think I am blind to their literary coercion, do they think I am that stupid.
Karen comments on skim reading. Does this count? I read the first sentence, I immediately scroll down to see if there is an ‘Order Now’ button and, if yes, I delete. I have never, never, never read one of these from start to finish and never will. Better to hit me with a punchy, articulate paragraph that grabs my attention and links to an order page.
Just in case I haven’t made my point, I hate long sales letters.
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Great article. I find that sales letters that are too long don’t hold my interest for long. I always want to know the bottom line when it comes to price, and that is usually at the bottom of course! So in my opinion, yes they do work for some people, but not for others. There is often too much waffle included which I find uninteresting. If it is something I like and I consider is value for money, then I will consider it. Same as a brochure as has been commented already. I read the bits that interest me and not the bits that don’t.
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Karen great article and some useful thoughts from both you and those who have commented. I came across your blog for the first time as a result of someone tweeting about the article. So as one person commented, a short introductory paragraph (140 characters or less in the case of Twitter) engaged my attention. If the sales letter is about a topic/product that is of interest to me I will quickly skim for words which invite me to read more. I also quickly go to the bottom to see how much this “opportunity” might cost me – now that’s where I get annoyed because often these days the price is hidden – so then, unless I am really motivated to find out more, I click away.
Take care
Paul
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Hi Karen,
I loathe these sales letters with a vengeance! However, I admit they do work – in certain cases. They appeal to what I call “opportunity seekers” – people looking for the next get rich quick, no effort required, it’s all so easy option. It’s almost like these letters give them an adrenalin hit and then they buy!
I have never read to the end of one. It annoys me that they are so formulaic with highlighted texts, ticked boxes, capitals etc. I hope that people become increasingly jaded by them and that more creative and authentic styles of writing become more successful in engaging people and inspiring them to make a purchase. However, I doubt it.
People need to vote with their mouse.
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Just a thought… What about having the option of having ‘the short version’ where it gets straight to the point and ‘the long version’ which waxes lyrical about all the bells and whistles? I have a vested interest here – I am writing the copy for a new product of my own at the moment…
Karen I hope you don’t mind me gategrashing your discussion and asking this!
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You’ve reignited the debate Karen! I agree with previous commenters and would add that I think the length of a sales letter needs to be in proportion to the cost of the product or service on offer. No-one wants to read on and on if the bottom line is, say, £50. But if you want someone to spend £500, your letter needs to answer every single concern and objection they may raise – and it will be longer as a result.
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Thanks to everyone for some great comments here.
@LouiseBJ – absolutely – the bigger value the product, the more objections that need overcoming. And this why a good copywriter can charge a lot because they know the return on investment on a well written piece of sales copy.
@hannah A lot of marketers are using video to replace the long sales letter and finding it hugely successful. Same amount of information but in a more engaging medium. And why not have a click straight to the point version. It’s worth split testing and see which has the better response from a mailing campaign.
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Great article! My thoughts/opinions:
Professionally, all the comments I read say that long sales letters work… but no one has ever cited any personal stats or a broad-based study on how well.
Personally, I find that most people in today’s society have basically abandoned reading as a form of communication (sounds silly, doesn’t it?). Twitter has reduced communication to 140 characters or less. People watch TV news or play video games, communicate in bits of truncated text (Gr8!), and rely on images or simple headlines for nearly all content they absorb. If you ask many folks about the last book they read, they’ll either respond with, “you mean, like, a book-book?” or relate their latest audio book they’ve listened to in the car on the way to work. Finally, if you actually hand someone a brochure, many times they’ll hand it back and ask, “What does it say?” And also in my experience, their level of education does not change this social (as opposed to professional) behavior.
For all these reasons, I think a hybrid approach of a headline and subtitle designed to get your attention, followed by some sort of option for those who want to know more seems to work better. A letter with the main message concisely communicated, with testimonials in a separate column (to be read or skipped as desired) and a separate page or sheet or column with additional info for those that want it, is the best of both worlds. And get the meat of your message “above the fold” on the web page or letter.
And finally, I NEVER buy anything off of a long rambling sales letter or squeeze page. As you said, my attention wanders as the writer forces me to read items of no interest, my eyes glaze over, and I begin searching for the Back button.
Keep up the good work!
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Interesting article – one of the answers may be to hire a professional copywriter who knows what they’re doing and can edit your long sales letter into something short and snappy!
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Great topic, Karen! I have had several conversations with other marketers in the last week about this very topic. It’s funny that no one seems to like the long sales page format; yet nearly everyone uses it. Personally, I dislike the format; but that is because I want my information in bullet points, just the highlights. I suppose that for every person like me, there is someone else who really wants all that information, the endless testimonials, the restatement of value propositions.
Since I am currently writing (and re-writing) several of my own sales pages, I find this whole subject quite interesting. I will probably try going with something shorter initially, but may well end up with the 15-page litany eventually.
Really enjoyed reading everyone else’s thoughts on this. Thanks again, Karen!
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Hmm… everyone here seems to dislike them! Karen, interesting point about the videos. I notice Armand Morin has put out a like to a 1hr 45 min video as a promotional tool (http://www.armandmorin.com/72hours/). That’s the length of a movie! It’ll be interesting to see how this works for him. Personally, I’ll struggle to watch it because my decent internet connection is in my office and I work a strict 9-5, oh and it’s being deleted in a few days. Yes, I know I could set aside the time to watch it and I could be missing great content, but all I’m saying is it’s going to be hard for me. I think that most people have been conditioned to the YouTube length video. I’ve just started dabbling in that, so could adapt for my promo perhaps…hmm.
Karen, I notice you put my twitter name down – it’s actually @hannahmcnamara
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HI Karen – great debate I see happening everywhere at the moment. What I’m particularly interested in at the moment are whether the internet marketing techniques taught by the IM ‘gurus’ about, let’s face it, how to market to the people of the US mainly, work on the people in the UK? Perhaps, and it’s a gross generalisation, we are more cynical, just want the bare facts and a clear price and are not so convinced by pages of testimonials, bonuses etc?
Obviously people use the internet to market globally, but what if you want to use the internet to market UK-wide, should we be using a different approach?
I’m trying to get a particular IM marketer to answer this question for me at the moment and if he does I’ll be sure to share with you here
(and I watched all the armand morin video in 20 min chunks all weekend Hannah and it’s actually really interesting and worth the 1.45 hours!).
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hello, bit late to the debate … one of the key psychological reasons cited for using long copy marketing devises (they stop being letters after the first few paragraphs in my view) is that the longer a reader spends with the copy – the more committed they will ‘feel’. I think the long copy ‘letter’ comes from the old skool sales approach so beloved of the door to door chaps – get in, get comfy and don’t leave until the old girl signs up.
That’s how I feel when I read them, and for professional reasons, I’ve deconstructed a few in my time. Even the best of them end up annoying and patronising, and the worst are bullying and tedious.
I don’t specialise in long copy – I have spent my life, persuading communicators to get to the point, give their customers what they want, up front and without a lot of cynical marketing nonsense to wade through.
Mostly I think its self indulgent to take up so much of my clients’ or their customers’time.
Well targeted, well written, well organised and well signposted material gets great results.
Lets start a revolution – and save ourselves some time.
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Hi there, I’m a bit late here too, but as someone who has a fairly long sales page, based on a 2 day workshop I attended last year, I have sold my product (an ebook), but I have never been happy with it because of its length and the fact that it is the same “formula” as millions of others. After reading the other comments here, I think I will “go with my gut” and re-write the page the way I want to, which is short, to the point and with the cost above the fold, then all the answers to questions further down, plus either audio or video (I already use a 30 second video on the “dreaded” squeeze page! I would have to “up” my advertising, however, to be able to “split test”!
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Could I ask then, if you do have something to sell, what do you consider to be the best way to connect with a customer if not with the long sales letter.
Great website by the way…
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This is a great one Karen. I thought I was the only one that hated those long sales letters. In particular, I hate the ones that have yellow and red highlighted text. I have become immune to them. I think the model has been over-used in certain circles maybe.
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you mean sense full long letters will work… but than again I find it very difficult to get convened because targeted audience do not have time.. and we are entering a generation where people are viewing rather than reading stuff…
As I know the quality of you content … I happen to read this long post if not would have jumped to the next tab.
so do you think reorganization makes the difference?
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Hi Karen,
Great article talking about something that many of us get irritated with, what’s more you’ve pointed out why some of them really really annoy me, while others are OK and others get me to click.
Well written and the ability to skim on a subject I’m really interested in – guess what I do (even though inside there’s a voice going, “no, it’s a long copy sales page”)
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Karen Skidmore Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Good sales copy needs to be written for skim reading too, doesn’t it? If you can allow people to skim, get the drift of what it is you are offering but then still offer the detail they can go back to overcome their objections to encourage them to buy … then you are on to a winner
Thanks for your thoughts, Jon.
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