How Long is Long Enough?

This subject comes up every so often and usually inspires a long argument. That being said, I think 40 to 50 pages is a bit of an exaggeration; at least I don't see too many sales letters that are quite that long.

The short answer is that the letter needs to be as long it takes to get maximum conversions. Speaking very generally, the more expensive the product, the more copy you need to make the sale.

Re your typical reader who immediately scrolls past several yards of type they don't want to read so they can go to the bottom to check the price: I wonder if that same person found that same sales page only one-screen long with the price clearly visible above the fold, would they either consciously or subconsciously feel there was something missing, and be more likely to go away without buying, even though they wouldn't bother to read the 40 pages of copy if it was there?

I would like to add to the above.
The length of your copy should depend on a lot of things.
Personally I believe it depends greatly on the level of expertise of your intended audience.

Let's say that you are selling a network router. This is a technical product and people that are specifically searching for such a product are likely to be at least somewhat knowledgeable. Chances are that they are looking for features and price and thus need little 'emotional' selling.
They would most likely show the scanning behavior. They would scan the page looking for headlines and images that they expect to attract their attention. For instance a headline that says something like: 'This router X has the following great features!'
As soon as the scanning prospect see this headline he will either decide to read what follows or decide to scan some more.

Now, if you are selling an 'emotional' product to a not so knowledgeable audience you probably need more copy. In this case 'the more you tell, the more you sell' would most likely apply.
Let's say that you are selling a weight-loss product. You audience is most likely not too knowledgeable on the human anatomy and biology. Instead of just showing the audience all the features of the product, you would most likely be better off showing the features and telling a story.
Take the features and explain to the prospect why and how it would change their lives etc.
This would take more copy as you need to get connected on an emotional level as opposed to the logical level.

Hope this made sense.

Regards,
Mark

you got me at "Tortuously Long Sales Letter". I am probably from a very similar school to you. And this is after studying engineering and marketing (a few years apart). But you know I have a friend who uses one of those letter styles on their website. they swear by it and have also added many different font styles and colors, pics, numerous testimonials etc.

They read this from some sales guru in the US that its all about the psychology of it. I think the plan is to bombard the reader so they give up. hey with so much text its impossible not to believe it. I view it as amateurish and childish, but they say the amateur thing is what they after, like a friend wrote it to you, not trying to put too much of a gloss on it so again it has credibility.

If this is going to work, its probably best for sites and products that sell a commodity and overcharge for it. Somewhere along the line before the reader gets to the price, they have to equate the time they have wasted reading the content with the value of the product.

Maybe someone else can reveal what they believe the real psychology of this kind of promo is in 2011?

If a reader gives up on a web site -- they leave. They don't buy. This isn't a dealer's showroom with a poor, hapless, browbeaten customer caving under pressure and buying when they don't want to.

There is a simple way to make your point. Beat a long format page with your short one in an A/B run, split test. Beat proven, tested, iterated long pages consistently and you'll hear no more about it.

Don't sabotage the long effort to prove your point. Don't set up false, untested, long pages to prove your point. Just prove your point.

Most advocates of long pages only do so because they want better response. They'll drop long format pages like a hot rock ....if you simply put your results where your forum posts are.

I am confounded by people who haven't really studied the details of the "people scan and don't read" myth on the web.

People are not customers. Show five thousand apartment dwellers your long (or short, or medium) length sales page on aluminum siding for their home. They scan. They leave.

People scan trash, searching for something that is not trash to read. They scan until something captures and holds their interest ...and then they read it. That is the whole of the test data from the "people scan" tests.

Holds true for copy. Holds true for articles. Holds true for text.

What I have made is a testable proposition. You need not believe me, trust me, or do anything but test for yourself. You do need to keep an open mind and do an honest test.

Or, just provide your opinion of what you believe should work and post the same thing year-after-year. That does seem to be the current norm. It does, however, fail to convince.


Related Reading:
(but who am I kidding, who reads?)

EyeTrack07: The Myth of Short Attention Spans As you've no doubt heard before, for every myth there lies a small core nugget of information. People scan the web for roughly the same reason you'll get a lot of channel surfing behavior on public access cable TV -- people scan trash.

Long Copy vs. Short Copy Tested Spoiler Alert: Long copy wins. The myth of long copy on the web is you couldn't allow the reader to choose, in essence telling the site what kinds and parts of a letter apply to their segment (without a name, rank and serial number interrogation -- because that, also, is tested and it doesn't work).

long enough to make the sale

That's an easy bull**** answer. Both sides think that is exactly what they're doing.

All you have to do to win a gold ice skating in the Olympics is not fall down. I have proof. All the Gold medal winners didn't fall down.

Who can argue with that.