I have to admit I really dislike those long sales pages, you know what I'm talking about, right? They generally start with a big headline, or the date and "From the desk of...", etc.
I know the purpose of long copy without reading any of it -- to sell me on the value of the product, which I generally can't find until I scroll (and scroll and scroll) clear to the bottom. And sometimes the value is not even there, I have to make another click to find it. Sigh.
Oh well, I think I am going to have to get over it, or get used to it, because the truth is, long copy wins over short copy every time. How do I know? I've been reading up on this topic for my soon to be released eBook for coaches, The Insider's Guide to Web Marketing. What I've found may interest you, so I'll share a short bit of it here.
When it comes to sell pages for your products, the experts at marketingexperiments.com say long copy outperforms short copy by as much as 40.54%. That's a ton. The folks at marketingexperiments.com conducted three separate research tests on long vs. short copy and found the same result every time, long outperforms short.
Why should you care about this? Because, in the coaching business, part of what will make you successful is being able to package your intellect and expertise in the form of ebooks, audio, eclasses, etc. And to be able to sell these products, you will most likely need a sell page on your website.
With that in mind, here is a summary from marketingexperiments.com of the top ten guidelines to keep in mind when evaluating your copy:
-Testing is really important. There are no universal rules about the length that will pull best for you. Test and retest until you are satisfied.
-Generally speaking, higher priced products warrant longer copy. In other words, the more you are asking people to spend, the more information you will want to share.
-Information products often benefit from longer copy. This gives you ample opportunity to demonstrate the quality of the information.
-Quality is key. High quality short copy will outperform poorly written long copy every time.
-When testing your copy, make sure you control the other variables like site design, layout, graphics, etc. Those variables should be the same on each page you are testing.
-Utilize an A-B split test (more info at http://splittestgenerator.com/, http://splithit.com, and http://profitinfo.com/catalog/v4/ )
-Copy should be only as long as necessary to get the job done and no longer. Keep your primary goal in mind.
-Use bullets and numbered lists whenever possible to break up long passages of text.
-Use testimonials. Descriptions from satisfied users are more credible than your own description.
-Gain trust from the skeptical consumers (more info on Transparent Marketing here http://meclabs.com/cgi-bin/pl/pl.cgi?mtm ).
Are you convinced yet? I'm going to be speaking about creating products on a call for coaches in a couple of weeks. Send me an email if wanna know more.
Leave a comment