News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Anatomy of long sales letter by nhangen on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @10:55AM (#2275862)
Written by a direct response copywriter, so it's going to be a bit biased.

I've tested short and long form, and while long form tends to do better for information products, if you are actually providing something of value, then usually a short form can work just as well.

Essentially - to sell shit, you need to spend a long time persuading someone to buy it. To sell gold, you just need a buy now button.

Re:Anatomy of long sales letter by JeremyReeves on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @11:54AM (#2276146)
I don't think it's biased at all.

I do agree that long form tends to do better for information products.

However, it also does better in 90% of cases, as well. As I mentioned in the post... it does NOT do better in EVERY single case.

You're "essentially" comment is absolutely wrong... and TOTALLY biased after you just said my post was biased.

It depends on the market maturity, the branding of the company, and MANY other factors.

All in all - all I'm saying is this.

Long copy works in 80-90% of cases... TYPICALLY. It depends on a lot of factors, and the only way to really know... is to test it with a GOOD copywriter.

After all... long copy that sucks will always do worse than short copy which is brilliant :)

Jeremy

Re:Anatomy of long sales letter by nhangen on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @01:20PM (#2276520)
That comment is from my own experience. I've sold a bit of both in my day, and while I don't hate long form copy, I hate pages that look like crap, such as some of those examples.

Again, I'm not hating on you, or your piece, but the fact that often times long form copy is associated with horrid design. That's the trend I want to see disappear.

Re:Anatomy of long sales letter by JeremyReeves on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @04:49PM (#2277347)
No offense taken. I'm actually personally re-doing the order form on the 1 example so it looks more "clean".

The design doesn't matter though.

"Pretty" doesn't sell.

Trust me on that one.

What sells is understanding your customer, having a product which gives them exactly what they need at a fair price, and showing that customer how different that product is from other similar products.

Re:Anatomy of long sales letter by nhangen on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @09:12PM (#2278191)
I guess it depends on your customer.
Re:Anatomy of long sales letter by JeremyReeves on Wednesday March 02, 2011 @06:24AM (#2279205)
EXACTLY :)
Re:Anatomy of long sales letter by paraschopra on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @10:59AM (#2275880)
I think it is wrong to say that long copy writing is a substitute of inferior offer. As Jeremy (in interview) himself emphasizes: long copy cannot sell a poor product.

Though I agree best idea is to A/B test long v/s sales copy to see which one clicks with your target customers.