Why are sales letters the way they are?

Without delving into the rest of your post, your major question can be answered authoritatively right here.

The answer is "no." And it's not just that "we don't think so," it's that these things have been tested and compared, re-tested and re-compared countless times. And long copy sells better.

I'd love to live in a world where a handful of relevant facts outsold hype-intensive, long-winded copy. But we don't live in that world. Trust us: we checked.

I suspect a lot of it depends on what you are selling. Since most information products are basically selling snake oil to people desperate for it, we are not generally dealing with a discerning public, we are dealing with a desperate public. People willing to believe what they want to believe. They probably aren't given to as much a careful weighting of the facts as they are seeking to be convinced of what they are already hoping. Sales letters are trading on emotion, and thus must make an emotional appeal.

If you don't have the taste for it, and heaven knows I don't, you might want to focus on physical products. I'm still fairly new at it, but I do have at least one very successful site which I am now using as a model for all my new sites.

I'd also make one other observation, since you are from Germany. I lived in Germany for a number of years during my youth. I must say in all candor, that there is a rather significant cultural difference between Germany and the US.

Here in the US, people are far less private and far more emotional. A generalization I know, but if for example you look at how Walmart flamed out in Germany but is wildly successful here, you quickly see there is a real difference. The biggest feedback Walmart got in Germany was annoyance at the Walmart greeters, who Germans often found to be too intrusive and disingenuous. They would say they were uncomfortable with some complete stranger getting in their face with a big smile and talking to them.

There was of course also the overwhelmingly negative impression Germans had of Walmart once they learned of their ruthless treatment of their employees and flagrant flaunting of German labor and competition laws, but that's not what they complained about in customer surveys. The greeters were.

American culture by contrast is very "in your face", and so you need the extreme sales measures to get through to them I guess.

Sales letters are the way they are because this is direct response marketing... That means we're spending money on advertising and we're going to use what brings us the best ROI. The typical format you see is used because it works...

That being said, long copy works as well. But the length of the message isn't nearly as important as what it says.

Poorly written long copy, un-targeted long copy, boring long copy... There's a ton of reasons long copy won't sell. But when it's done right, for the right audience, it's proven to work.

Regarding people thinking it's a scam... Smart marketers/copywriters realize this, and they overcome it. They do it with proof, authority, facts. pre-selling and whatever other tools they have available for the specific situation.

Back to the length of a sales letter... One way to think about it that you're face to face selling. Each presentation takes 30 minutes, you do 5 presentations, and you get dozens of different questions and objections each time.

Translate that to print. Each 30 minute presentation you did, if you had it transcribed, would probably be 20 pages. So you've got 100 pages and dozens of questions and objections to overcome...

Now your job is to strip that down, address the questions and objections, and do it without writing a novel. You're left with a long sales letter.

Depending on what you're selling, you've got a lot of rapport to build, you've got a lot of proof to demonstrate and you've got dozens of questions and objections to overcome.

Another thing to consider, people WILL read as much info as possible, including long sales letters, if it's a topic they're passionate about.

Take a high-school kid studying Judo. He's got dreams of being a pro MMA fighter.

He's really into it, goes and trains for 5 hours a night after school. In the little free time he does have he's consuming information about it... Reading magazines and websites, talking on forums.

He sees an ad on a website about a new defense against a certain type of throw (I know nothing about Judo) created by a world-famous Judo champion.

If the company selling the product hired a good copywriter, that kid is going to read every word of the sales letter for entertainment/education value alone. And he just may buy.

People are passionate about things they're interested in.

When I was joining the Air Force (years ago now) I stayed up late for months reading everything I could get my hands on about it. If there was a "Survive Basic Training" guide for sale, I would have read every single word of that letter and bought it without hesitation... Assuming I believed what they were telling me. Making me believe is their job.

99% of people who see my copywriting website probably think it's some kind of scam or is cheesy or they're just not interested in reading it...

But if they're looking to hire a copywriter, or better yet they're in the market and were referred by a friend to my site, they'll read every single word. Beyond potential clients and other copywriters curious about my sales pitch, no one wants to read it.

And that's fine. They aren't who I'm trying to market to.

That's my little rant on long sales copy.

Hope that helps.

-Scott

P.S. I don't have time to get into it right now, but another thing to think about is a lot of people will quickly scan a sales letter. Many people, including buyers, don't read every word. They want the quick details and they order. Just because the letter is long, if it's designed to be "scannable" it's still a quick read for those who don't want to read it word-for-word.

I've read through some very long and boring sales pages before and I think
that the more you can emotionally engage them the better off you'll be.

I struggled with the concept of long page sales copy forever until I actually
tried it and saw my sales go through the roof

Long sales letters work best for products NOT AIMED at other IMers
...people who don't see

- 200 emails a day
- 200 sales letters a day

...people who have the time to relax and digest ( not skim ) the letter
about the one product they believe exists on the matter.

...as opposed to the bazillion products we're exposed to and know are crap.

One page long copy is even the format that is being more and more adopted by large companies.

Sales letters probably started small, and became longer and longer as the copywriters decided to add more and more value to the product. My sales letters are 30-40 pages and that's after I've removed all the "fluff"

If the letter isn't targeted at you then it likely won't keep your attention regardless of how long the copy is.