When Does Short Copy Work Better Than Long Copy?

(Hey! For all you diehard long-copy purists, the answer is 'sometimes it does')

There's a lot here.  Stay with me.  It will be well worth your while.

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I stand united with most direct response copywriters in supporting long copy over short copy.  As a general rule.

But some recent events have caused me to take a closer look at the issue.  And come out in favor of short (or at least, much shorter) copy.

Just for the record, when I say short copy, I'm not talking about uber-hip ad slogans like...

Caca-Cola: Burp!

... which many people in the advertising world consider a week's work for a copywriter.  (It took me about 3 seconds to come up with that bad-table-manners joke, but your average 8-year-old boy could have easily beat me to the punch.)

No, when I say short copy, I'm talking about a handful of paragraphs as opposed to a tree-killer's delight. 

(I'll be telling you further on down about a very successful piece of long Web copy -- $750,000 in sales in one DAY -- that printed out on paper to 53 pages... and that's what I mean by long copy.)

So.  Here's the deal:

If the purpose of your copy is to generate a meaningful business response (that is, to create a sale or move the prospect one measurable step closer to the next sale, which could be the first sale)...

... then there are 3 factors I have identified which will give you a pretty good idea on how long or how short your copy should be (with "short" being, say, 150-1,000 words... and "long" being longer than that, often thousands of words longer).

Now. Why do people need to read long copy before they buy something in the first place?

A friend of mine who is a brilliant entrepreneur and one of those natural-born, irresistible salesmen, boils the whole sales process down to a few words:

"It's all about education and relationship!"

Of course, once he starts talking, believe you me, it's more than a few words!!!

So, I would say that describes the basis of how long or how short the copy needs to be to generate a meaningful business response.

Namely:
- How much education does the prospect need to understand and want your product enough to buy it, and
- What is the level of trust and familiarity your prospect has in his or her relationship with you as a business?

The less education necessary... the higher the trust and familiarity level... the fewer words you need, the easier the sale will close.

"Relationship" is what branding is all about.  Yes, you have a relationship with FedEx and IBM and H&R Block and KFC, whether you like or use their products... or not.

In that you know about these companies (at least if you're in the US and you don't live under a rock).  So, for the purposes of this rant, you have a relationship with them.

In the model I'm about to present to you, I'm going to focus more on the education aspect, since that's what determines the length of the copy more than the need to build familiarity and trust.

Here's a nifty little chart with the three "education" factors spelled out:

Now this is more a "guess-timate" device than a scientific tool.  But I believe that it is the first method to give

marketers and copywriters a handle on how long copy should be.

The key things to pay attention to are:

1) how familiar your prospect is: with you, with the concept of what you're selling, and with the actual product you're selling, and

2) how immediately in touch your prospect is with their desire, and with an awareness of how well or how certainly this product will get him or her to attain that desire.

Some examples:

1) My most successful mailing added $5 million a year to a business for almost 10 years in a row.  It was, in effect, a $50 million letter (give or take a few million).

This was for Abacus Travel Management.  Two and one half pages, 959 words.  Hardly long copy!

But it worked so well they could only mail 25 at a time and eventually had to stop mailing altogether.

I've never released this letter except as a bonus in my Breakthrough Copywriting Course.  To find out more about this course (which can help you with short and long copy), click here.

2) A friend of mine in a highly competitive industry has just sent out one of the most compelling one-page letters I've ever seen.  It's going to CEOs of major companies on the West Coast.  Too soon to tell, but because the letter writer has a Fortune 500 brand name to use as part of his marketing -- and because the CEOs reading the letter have high desire for what my friend is offering -- I believe this letter will be a slam dunk.

Utilized effectively, this letter could lead, literally, to hundreds of millions of dollars of new business.

One page.  Not long copy!

3) The ever-famous Wall St. Journal Letter: "On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college..."

This letter is reputed to have sold $2 billion in newspaper subscriptions.  It's 2 pages - 757 words - long.

According to direct marketing virtuoso Denny Hatch, no ad has ever produced more direct sales results than this letter.  And 757 words is not exactly "long copy."

4) A recent Web promotion for a fairly easy to understand product/service combination that anyone in his/her right mind would want.  The sales page was only handful of paragraphs long.

Nearly $1 million in sales.

I can't be more specific about this one because I would be violating confidences if I did.  But I can say that the reason the relatively short copy worked, I believe, was because all of the familiarities and desires were high enough so that long copy wasn't necessary.

5) BREAKING NEWS!  This just in.  Really.  My mentee Mike Morgan of Outsource Copy just penned a sales page for Ewan Chia's Super Affiliate Cloning Program that's 53 pages long when you print it out on paper.

12,584 words.

Now that's long copy!

In the first day, the letter made just shy of $750,000 in sales.

First of all, you gotta read the copy... it's absolutely mind-blowing (and very well done)!  Click here.

Second, why did long copy work so well here?

• My first assumption is that although among those "in the know," Ewan Chia's name is a household word, that group is in fact very small.  Among Ewan's target market, he was largely unknown.  Thus, need for familiarization.
• Second assumption: People know what "being an affiliate" is, but not the very specific (and different) meaning of being a "super affiliate" trained by Ewan.  Thus, need for education.
• Third: Everyone, almost, wants the end result the training promises to provide - push-button cash avalanches at a moment's notice - but, most people aren't instantly aware that become an Ewan-trained "super affiliate" will give them the ability to do that.

Thus, need to tie the existing desire into the product.

That makes for three dimensions, or axes, that require long copy: familiarization, education, and building of desire.  And that's why it worked.

Well, hey.  How does your experience compare to what I have just shared with you?  When does long copy work for you (as in, causing you to buy something or causing your customers to buy something?)

And what about short copy?

This is such an important topic that I really want to hear from other voices.  What's on your mind?

David Garfinkel
Publisher, World Copywriting Newsletter

Comments

[Traian Sava]

David, this is a great article and I thank you for it. Let me ask you a question.

You talk about the "need" for long copy. How about the need for short copy?

Or to put it this way: Do you think that "giving too many reasons why the prospect should buy" can damage the effectiveness of a letter, when the prospect is already very familiar with the product and the concept, and has a high-intensity desire?

Thank you

Traian

[David Garfinkel]

Traian, it's definitely a risk. In person-to-person sales we have an expression, "buying it back." That's shorthand for the phenomenon when a customer has bought and the salesperson won't shut up and let the customer complete the purchase... and the customer changes their mind.

One of the reasons to keep copy longer than you might think is necessary is that you're not getting verbal and non-verbal feedback from the customer, and so you don't know if you've hit on the points that will make this *particular* customer want to buy.

There is such a bias against long copy that I'm not sure we need to add any more voices to choir. What ultimately determines how long copy should be is experience... and testing.

[Lame Copy]

The copy you linked to is poorly written hype.

[David Garfinkel]

Thanks for your opinion, "Lame Copy."

It's great to hear from someone like you. You represent the millions of people in business who clearly know good copy when they see it, but unfortunately are responsible for approving (or writing) advertising that doesn't get any customers for businesses.

Isn't that the all-time irony of ironies? "Good taste" leads to financial waste. Who would've thought... ?

Now, let's look at your expert evaluation:

1)"poorly written"

Hmmm... I *wonder* what you mean by that.

Let's examine a few possibilities.

It wasn't written by a poor person, so clearly that's not what you meant.

The grammar and the syntax were OK, so that's not what you meant either.

Wait a minute... hold on... it's coming to me psychically. Yes... yes... now I get it:

YOU DIDN'T LIKE IT!

So you say it's "poorly written."

Only a true expert can say so much with so few words.

2) hype

Do you know what "hype" is?

There are a lot of definitions, but in writing copy, I consider hype "overblown promises" and "unsubstantiated claims."

I am mentoring the copywriter and while I always encourage my mentees to paint as attractive a picture as possible, I also insist that they prove every claim.

Did your expert eye find a statement we didn't back up with facts and other proof?

Did we miss something?

Or are you just saying that you didn't like the *scale of possibilities* this offer represented?

Like, maybe, the thinking was too BIG for you?

Always curious what experts like you mean when you flatly dismiss a 53-page sales letter with a nine-word summary judgment.

Do tell.