Reader Question: Does long sales letter copy *really* work?

Jim,

Thanks for being there! As a subscriber to your newsletter as well as Paul’s Front Page Tips I appreciate what you’re doing to help us “newbies” out.

But I have a question regarding your sales letter for the www.minisitecreator.com

I’ve noticed that these letters (I get them from Joe Vitale and others, too) are all VERY long. They go on and on down the page with so much verbiage and reasons and value statements and testimonials that, by the time I get to the bottom of the page, I’m tired of reading! – I just want to cut to the chase.

OK, you sold me. . . now how much is the dang thing!!!

It seems to me that you’re overselling and I wonder if you wouldn’t you get better results by reducing the sales letter down a bit?

You’ve been doing this a long time and have some great success at it so there must be a reason for the lengthiness(?) of them ‘cus it seems everybody does it.

I’m getting ready to market our first online e-class and will probably order the Mini Site Creator course, but I wanted an answer to this question first.

Your response would be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,
Karen

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Hi Karen,

Bottom line: long form sales letters work.

The purpose is to sell by remote control… especially since you can’t stand there and look at someone as you would selling face-to-face.

A long form sales letter is actually a complete sales presentation in print.

By writing one of these, you’re trying to respond to every objection every person with every background and communication style will respond to…. that’s where the length comes from.

You try to provide various paths for people to read (subheads, p.s.)… but bottom line you’re trying to answer all questions and objections in advance.

Also, you’re trying to communicate what exactly comes with the product so that they KNOW what they’re getting in no uncertain terms.

People buy benenfits… not features.

If this were not the case, then you could just list off a bunch of bullets describing what the product is (size, weight, etc.) and everyone would buy it.

I can tell you that I used to try selling without long-form sales copy… and my results were not nearly as good.

Hope that helps

Jim

PS – if you really (and I mean REALLY) want to put your copywriting on steroids, check out Yanik Silver’s http://www.UltimateCopyWorkshop.com