Long sales copy vs short sales copy

My girlfriend's mom ( I swipe her junk mail) makes quilts
and recently got a pretty well put-together offer for
a crafter's guild membership: sticker, grabber, salesletter,
no-risk-offer, the whole nine yards. Because I do direct
mail I saw it for the bullshit it is, but they claim to have
280,000 people with memberships, at $12 per year, so
the must be onto something. Realistically I think it's probably
the sort of thing where the mailer is hoping to break even
and then segment and rent the list based on craft preferences.

You might try to track it down - very similar offer to
"The Handyman Club of America"... which is targeted at
dudes, obviously, but had a similar mailer last time
I got one. They seem to have figured out what works.

____

oh,yeah. The craft niches are more than a casual interest
of mine as well because I worked for years as a skilled artisan
before going into direct marketing.

For "ideas" long-copy rules. For tangible products it is often
not necessary, unless the product is complex and unfamiliar
to the target market. Even when introducing electronic
gizmos like PCs to the mass-market in the 1970s Joe Sugarman's
copy never ran more than a page (or maybe 2) in his catalog,
as far I recall from reading his books.

With a membership site you are asking the prospect to buy
your IDEA - it's considerably more abstract than a tangible
product and thus long-copy works generally better than
short. Today some marketers are using video in instead
of long copy. I would test a video against a long letter for
this before a long vs. short test - but that's just me.

This is why I am posting on a forum rather than a blog, I take no offense when somebody has an opposing idea to my own.

While the mustang example is a good one, it is also comparing apples and oranges. They are both fruits, and car salesman and webmasters are both marketers of sorts. In person, I wouldn't trust somebody unless I have had a long conversation with them, I fully agree with this.

When I am interested in buying a product online however, I want to get the facts as to why I need the product then decide whether to buy it or not. When people hear that a long sales page is good, they make a 2000 word hyped up essay rather than a page that flows, so I usually advise people to keep it short (since there is a tendency to go on for too long).

Here's a longer explanation of my logic for going with a short sales page for crafts. Pretend I am an average consumer:

When I am going to go out and buy an ebook about something I've never heard of such as Forex. I like hearing lots of things about the industry and product and how it can all make me money in the end.

When I am somebody that has been doing crafts for a good chunk of my life, I don't need an explanation as to why making crafts will benefit me or what making crafts entails. I just want you to outline what new crafts I can pick up as a result of reading the ebook.

My general rule:

Things people about know, keep the sales copy short.
Things people have never heard of, write an essay.

Hopefully this clarifies my logic for you

The analogy of a salesman selling a car is excellent. I am not a copywriter but feel that the price also matters. If you sell a $4 ebook over 2000 words the person may wonder what the spiel is all about and not buy. If you are selling a $498 package you may have to soften up the customer with a pre-sell before moving into the main sales pitch. thanks.

While there's no "official" dividing line between short and long copy, I'd say 1,500 is definitely on the short side. That's only going to be 4 to 6 pages at most. A "long" sales letter might be 20-30 pages or more.

I'm not weighing in on how long your copy should be, just making sure everone's on the same page as to what is considered short and long.

Justin,

Right... and that's exactly the wrong way to approach it. Instead, if a copywriter concentrates on what the customer needs in order to make a buying decision (i.e., if they view the problem from the customer's point of view), they wouldn't have to spend quite as much time "hoping."

That's my point. It should be over -- because it's a moot point. Write until you've written enough to accomplish the task and cover all your bases. To try to arbitrarily determine the number of words it will take is rather pointless (unless you're constrained by space).

If I was building a house, I wouldn't obsess over the number of nails it would take to complete the task. I would just keep pounding nails until the job was done. And, at that point, I would know how many it took (but still wouldn't care).

Johnny