What's your take on the Long Sales Letter

[Clinton]

akirk argues about the long sales letter in this post

I would suspect that the reason that many people fall for it is that the feel / psychology of the spiel is very up-beat / positive - therefore by the end of it - you don't quite know any more what it is offering but you feel good! therefore you want to know more - the spiel deliberately focuses on the up-beat positives - the tantilising possibilities - the goals of success - all pressing on the buttons of what the viewer wants... but deliberately doesn't tell you the precise details - therefore you need to sign up to find out more... it is a very clever marketing approach - but perhaps not ideal for members of EP who are perhaps a little more cynical than the norm?!

I would suspect that you will get a different group of people signing up based on different sales pages - so it won't just be about the overall numbers, but perhaps the type of person...
If the product is very good then a shorter - more detailed page will bring in the higher calibre / longer lasting customer - but numbers won't be as high... (less of a sales pitch may put off the less experienced)
If the product is not very good then the longer - should bring in more (lower calibre) people - who won't stay as long...

On principle I avoid buying the product if a long sales letter format is used. I haven't been able to put my finger on the "why", but the post above explains why you marketers who use LSL lose customers like me. I feel I'm not your target customer. That you're looking for the more gullible customers, the ones who desperately want to be convinced, the customers who lack the cynicism that comes from experience.

Articles explaining how to construct a LSL seem to think there's no such thing as too long, only copy that's not engaging enough.

On the first page of Google for the term long sales letter is this parody site I own: ClickHereYouIdiot. In short, my take is that the target customer for LSL is the village idiot.

But ... it works! It works on a conversion level but only in some markets. If you were selling a product to business professionals, say CRM software, this. copy. would. not. work!

What's your take? Would you use it to sell product? Have you bought from a LSL page despite not being the village idiot? Do you see the LSL in decline or becoming more and more popular among marketers?

[monty]

I also avoid buying products if its an obvious long sales letter.

If a page uses the term "From the desk of" , has their sales copy dated with todays date and yellow highlighted text with loads of testimonials and so on , I almost always just close the browser window as its usually a good sign the product will be underwhelming.

A/B testig is pretty popular in the SAAS app market, but I don't recall seeing many long sales letters. Maybe long sales letters work better for one off impulse purchases where you don't research and compare alternative products than they do for more considered purchases .

[crabfoot]

I don't know anyone who likes to read a long sales letter, and mostly I don't want to buy whatever the letter is selling - and that viewpoint is echoed by everyone with whom I've ever discussed the "long page" selling method - which includes people who do use the method to sell things.

Long sales letters work - otherwise people would not use them. And those people using them very rarely write their own long page - they hire someone to do it.

The people that specialize in writing long sales letters get paid very highly for doing it, in comparison to other writing jobs.

Recognizing when a long page will sell a product is a particular skill, generating a long page that produces a high conversion of views to sales needs another skill set.

Most people (me included) don't see how it works - and studying the things does not give many clues as to why they work. The point that annoys us all is that it does work to part people from their money, and we do not understand why.

Old proverb:The clever man laughs at things he does not understand - the wise man does not laugh at anything.

[Kay]

Not only do I not usually buy from these pages, I'm also reluctant to sell products with those LSLs. Let's say I found the best eBook in the world about moving to Timbuktu. It would be ideal to sell on my expat site, but I would cringe with embarrassment to say, "I recommend this product" and send my readers off to such a page. I guess it depends on your relationship with with your site visitors. On my main sites, I'm Kay, and my reputation will be judged by what I do and say. On the crappy little sites I own, I'm less fussy because there's none of "me" in them. I just happen to own them, that's all. But overall I would prefer to avoid LSL pages completely both as a buyer and seller.

So WHO is exactly is buying from them and why are they so successful? "Village idiot" might be an accurate assessment.

[Chabrenas]

The people that specialize in writing long sales letters get paid very highly for doing it, in comparison to other writing jobs.

Even in comparison with some non-writing jobs. Clayton Makepeace is 'winding down' by giving up blogging and running seminars, concentrating on two or three big customers to build his retirement fund.

I've read the history of the development of copywriting, but I'm no wiser as to why or how it works - on people different from me. I may be an extreme case, since I cannot remember feeling satisfied with anything that was sold to me rather than coming as the result of my searching for it.

[crabfoot]

So WHO is exactly is buying from them and why are they so successful? "Village idiot" might be an accurate assessment.

Now if you could tell us the answer, that would be helpful. I bought a whole load of old PLR stuff last week with the intention of re-writing some of it in up to date terms and using it as site content - so that explains one sale.

If you and others think "that way" we are never going to understand how and why they work. Being contemptuous about the people that do buy adds nothing to the discussion. If "the man in the corner shop" only sells things to people he is fond of, he's not going to make a good living. Now, he'll sell you a tin of pilchards or a box of porage, and he'd never eat either himself, but at least he's tried those things so he can make his mind up about them.

You wouldn't use it, you never tried it, you just don't like the idea - that's analagous to being a vegan staring at a plate of roast pork.

Truth is, however legal the sale and selling may be, to buy from a long sales letter goes against your instinct - just like an aversion to street vendors or door to door salesmen.

However, not everybody sees the world that way, and they are the buyers - we just don't get to meet many of them.

Many people started out by selling door to door, eg. Lord Sugar. They picked products that they could see value in, and sold them by pointing out the advantages to their buyers, usually with the price advantage that comes from not having fixed B&M overheads.

I suspect that those who have succeeded in that way would be the people who succeed with long sales letters. Not having the mindset, I don't know what skills transfer from one situation to the other.

[Matteo]

The LSL is the infomercial of the Internet. When was the last time you bought something from an infomercial? I never have, yet I see them all the time. They must be working on enough people.

It works by "brainwashing" the visitor. Only the "susceptible" people buy. It's like hypnotism, they want to believe so they are open. Lucky for the sellers, there are plenty of them.

They evolved over time testing and became a "formula".

Some legit products use them as well because they work, but how do you know the difference? You don't.

[mikeb]

It is hard to test a "long sales" letter against a "short one" without bring so many elements into play that there becomes reasonable doubt that "length" rather than "focus" or "content" is the reason for conversion.

I can say that I have tested on a number of occasions SPECIFIC aspects of length. For example 10 bullets against 15 or 20, and in every case the addition added conversion.

I also dispute the "Village idiot" theory.

Long sales letters seem to work just as well in specialized niches where the audience is already well informed.

I think that the ziggernick effect is the problem. Your mind hates "incomplete" so wants to read on despite knowing that it is more or less impossible to read all of 20, 40 even 60 pages on the web. And it is that aspect that annoys people - it is basic psychology jarring with them. So they speed read looking for reasons to abandon...first the price. Trouble is if the price is "possible" for them, they then dodge around the deliberate devices and traps laid for them, Like the PS at the end, the core bullets before the call to action, and a myriad of other psychological devices that tell them "dont leave this".

In the end their minds assume "it must be comprehensive" but is annoyed the letter ends up being to big to digest, to the point where it becomes easier to look at the product rather than the sales letter! So their minds give up on the impossibility of reading "all" and looks for reasons why it is safe to proceed instead.

So at that point the mind normally uses the "guarantee" or trial combined with core elements of proof to give it the benefit of the doubt. But your mind is still annoyed because the ziggernick effect is always uncomfortable if it has not "completed".

Not wanting to enter the discussion again regards the rights and wrongs of this issue on tycoon specifically: I made it clear what I think there.., but that letter fails for me because of lack of proof offered, and social proof, testimonials. more you tell, more you sell, demonstration money back guarantees are needed to make a subject real and are part of all the best long sales letters, and the "imagine" of the benefits of the solution is hard to do without specificying the outcome. ie length is no good if vital compentts of the sales process are missing, eg proof and imagination both of the the problem and the solution.

Oh - and one final point, REALLY important. People will often say they believe or think, support or oppose something for the reason they percieve it improves their percieved standing to do so, even subconsciously. So the fact that a lot of people say "do not buy from long sales letters" is not necessarily true. They percieve that they will be considered somehow fallible if they own up to it. A lot of copywriting is plays on just such psychology. Read "influence" or "predictably irrational" and see just how you are a robot to subconscious!!

[Clinton]

In the end their minds assume "it must be comprehensive" but is annoyed the letter ends up being to big to digest, to the point where it becomes easier to look at the product rather than the sales letter! So their minds give up on the impossibility of reading "all" and looks for reasons why it is safe to proceed instead.

Why then do people pay large sums for the top copywriters?

[mikeb]

Why then do people pay large sums for the top copywriters?

I don't understand why you address that question to me? I am a copy geek, and fully support the value of copywriters.

I also fully support the fact that the long sales letter converts better PROVIDED it is written well and contains the key elements all of which are vital. (including the proof missing from the course on the "other" thread - to avoid dragging that subject up again, except in its context of a vital part, if not the vital part of sales letters)

For that reason copywriters are valuable, and it is the skill all marketers should learn.

I am trying to explain the apparent conflict between
(a) People say they hate long sales letters.
(b) Long sales letters convert better
(c) It is not only newcomers that buy from them
(d) People deny ever buying from them, but you probably cannot trust it when they say they do not.

The "hate them" is all down to the so called "ziggernick" effect.

All four can be and are simultaneously true..