The Evils of the Long Sales Page

I didn't realize long sales pages were so evil!

I was recently browsing around and came across a blog with a very lively discussion regarding the "long sales page". There are quite a few people that had some very negative opinions of them, and a few of them to my surprise were internet marketers.

A link to the page is here. I posted my reply as follows:


Since this is an open discussion and most of the comments on here are against long sales letters, let me point out the opposing view.
The long sales letter is not the culprit, and there are plenty of legitimate marketers out there that use them. Unfortunately, there are less than scrupulous ones as well.
The #1 fact of the matter is this: information sells. People want information, and there are a lot of people that realize that there are people making money on the internet. What is wrong with wanting to better your life and find a way to make money online as well? Be it a second income, money to payoff debt, or to work full-time so you can spend more time with your family?
So many people have tried on their own and failed...so many people have tried "internet guru" methods and failed, but they often wisen up and learn how to spot a scam and when they are being "hard-pitched". If you have failed over and over to make money on the internet, would you not be a little more cautious and want more details before you purchase again?
Now in defense of the long sales page, if you are a consumer and you are being faced with the choice of parting with $5 for some information that may be valuable, you don't have much to lose, do you? What's $5 to most people? So you may not need a lot of information before you make a decision. However, if the price is more, say around $20, you are going to want a whole lot more information before you buy, right? I don't know about you, but I'm not giving $20 to someone who only gives me a couple of paragraphs and no examples of people who have tried it. I need some more details.
Think about this. If you go to a book store and you are looking at a book, but that book costs more money than you normally would spend, but this book seems valuable to you and you might consider buying, what would you do? If you're like most people, you would pick it up, flip through the pages, and take a look at the content to get more details.
Well, on the internet, you can't do that with an information product, can you? The only time you are going to see the "inside" of the book is when you purchase it. So you need more info before making that purchase.
As far as those who say digital products are not real products and they will stick with tangible items, that is all good and well. But producing a tangible item is very costly and not everyone can do that. Digital products open the possibilities to so many more people out there. What's wrong with telling someone how to make money? If you can improve the life of one person, isn't that a worthy service? Does that service not have value to the instructor as well as the student?
Keep in mind, the internet is a very competitive arena. Anyone selling something on the internet is blessed with the fact that the whole world is your potential audience, but that is a curse at the same time as the whole world is also your potential competitor. What are you doing to stand out? Why should someone buy from you? Can you really convey that in one or two paragraphs? People don't buy cold, they buy warm, and you can't warm someone up in 3 sentences.
As a final thought, if you feel that "sales" is a bad thing, who in here can honestly claim that they don't sell each day, and get sold each day. Your kid asks you for a toy, you're being sold, you ask someone out on a date, you're selling. We try to persuade people to do what we want them to do all the time.
Just remember, as long as you are in it to truly help others, you don't have to worry about making money...the money will come. People can sense when someone has a genuine concern for their success.
And that is my two cents...


What are your thoughts on this seemingly controversial topic?