Do "Long Form" Sales Letters work for Physical products ??

Hi Jay,

I tried it and it did work. I included a pic of the product in the top right corner of the screen and wrapped the text round it. I tried to model my layout on successful newspaper ads. I used Verdana in the body text and Georgia for the headline.

I don't think it matters what you do as long as you clearly tell them what it will do for them, the benefits and you full fill your searchers intent.

Rich

Long sales pages, especially with killer testimonials, will always help if they're well-written. Focus on the benefits to the client rather than the features or your credentials; people buy for a real or perceived benefit.

Good luck!

Stephanie

I'd do this a little differently these days, it's an ad I wrote awhile ago...

Piano Sale

But it worked

-Scott

When I'm shopping online for a physical product I would go
to several sites to find reviews, testimonials and specs on
the product. If I had all that information in one place it
would make my buying decision so much easier and I think
it would for a lot of people too.

In essence that's all a long form sales letter is: you are
giving the prospect all the information in the same place.

At least that's the way I view it.

-Ray Edwards

That letter was rushed/half baked.

It didn't take me long because I knew the product well... It was to help my Dad out with an Ebay/Direct Mail campaign.

I didn't spend hardly any time proofing it, it was kind of a "stick this up and see if it works" thing.

A paid client letter would have a LOT more polishing, editing and rewriting. Looking at it now I used too long of sentences and paragraphs to start it out. I should have broken up the text a little more, but it did the job.

IMHO copy doesn't have to be grammatically perfect. Too many mistakes, or obvious mistakes are bad, but sometimes to keep it flowing correctly you'll break some "conventional" writing rules.

Yeah, to setup shipping and answer questions. On Ebay they could still bid, not sure what happened when they took it offline, but I'd imagine the main call to action would be to get them on the phone/in the store with a sales guy.

-Scott

If you are finding that your prospects are not reading long copy, this could mean you are going after the wrong market. If they're interested, they'll read.

I used to sell an eBay marketing package with a 32 page sales letter. I took that many pages to tell the whole sales story. Advertising mostly offline, it used to convert at around 10% at $697.

Long copy SUCKS and will hurt your sales big-time UNLESS...

...you know how to write well >>> AND <<< have information so compelling, the prospect will read on even if his wife/girlfriend is yelling at him to get off the damn computer (seriously).

It's simple: Avoid long copy whenever possible unless you have an incredibly targeted (engaged) audience that needs an incredibly specific product/service.

Remember, every second that your customer spends reading your boring and "salesy" copy, they lose interest and want to leave.

For retail and ecommerce physical goods - KEEP IT SHORT.

If people want to read/learn more, than you've got them right where you want them. It's a lot easier to talk a customer out of a sale, than it is into buying.

For get rich quick scams you've got to use long copy to talk the idiots into buying the crap. Long copy has its place, but the answer to your question is negatory.

Go get the AdWeek Copywriting Handbook by Joe Sugarman. It contains countless examples of how to sell physical products with long form copy.

The book contains actual control pieces that have been used to sell exercise equipment, calculators, houses, air planes and countless other great examples.

BTW - If anyone has an extra copy, I loaned mine to an aspiring copywriter about a year ago and never got it back. It's a book that is sorely missed. If you have an extra, PM me and I'll buy it off of you.

It depends: "a physical product" is very vague. You could be talking about an impulse purchase of $5 shoelaces, or a more considered purchase of a $5K greenhouse. And you didn't specify whether you're talking about selling online or off.

Which means much of the feedback you'll receive is speculation.

Of course you can successfully sell physical products using long copy. Companies have been doing it for years. But whether you need long or short copy depends on the product, the prospect, and the medium.

Whether to use long, or short, really depends mostly on how much information your prospect wants - and needs - to know in order to make a purchase.

Offline, long copy is used all the time to sell physical products. Online, where attention spans tend to be shorter and readers lean towards skimming, long copy is often broken up into 'bites' that the prospect can opt to read - or not.

An example of a company that uses both long and short copy to sell: the Amish Heater by Heat Surge. Offline, they use full page ads; online, the copy is short, and bulleted.

(You could make an assumption - because Heat Surge advertises so heavily offline - that many of their online visitors already come to the site with a baseline of product knowledge in place. And therefore don't need additional copy to push them to purchase.)

Another company that does long-offline/short-online is The Skier's Edge. They place full-page ads that offer the reader the choice of ordering from by mail, phone, or web site. And, on the web site, their copy is significantly shorter than their print copy.

Another example is Steinway pianos: People buy a Steinway either for (a) serious piano playing, when quality matters, or (b) as a status piece of furniture. So Steinway gets both pianists and status-seekers with short intro copy, and the option to click on for more detailed information. The really serious information-seekers even have the option of requesting Steinway send them (presumably) a full-on brochure on their pianos.

And although it is customary online to go short-to-long, you'll find examples that work with long copy landing pages. Gary Bencivenga's Kubota Ham copy (2007) is a fairly recent example of long copy that successfully sells the hell out of a ham. Even a die-hard vegetarian would want one of these expensive haunches after reading that copy.

Additionally, you have to consider how the online world is changing. If you're marketing using SMS or any other promotion going to mobile devices, you are NOT going to be using long copy in your ad. But you could still use the ad to push buyers of physical products to a long copy informational-style landing page.

As a very general rule of thumb, the more technical the requirements of the purchaser, and the more expensive the purchase, the longer the retail copy needs to be. How it's presented, though, will vary depending on the medium you use.