That’s Bill Myers’ Tip of the Week. He writes, “… if a customer is going to make a purchase, they decide to do so early on in the sales presentation. After that, they are just looking for reasons not to buy.”
And yet… tests show that looong Web page sales letters are effective. My gut instinct is to side with Bill on this one. Trouble is, that’s my gut. It may not be my customer’s. Read his article here. Waddya think?
I both agree and disagree with this one. I’ve posted my own comments suggesting rather than, “Say less, sell more,” it should be, “The less you sell, the more you sell.” For what it’s worth, my comments are at:
http://writelife.typepad.com/blog/2004/05/the_less_you_se.html
The problem with rules of thumb about copy length is that the purchase decision process is very complex. You have to know if the customer is a consumer or industrial B-to-B buyer, whether the product is expensive or inexpensive, whether the product is innovative or a replacement, etc.
Even the marketers selling inexpensive products with very long Web pages don’t know exactly how long to make the pages because they provide links throughout the page to their shopping cart.
Especially online, copy can kill. Unless it’s intellectual capital or a knowledge piece, any long page of text is a deterrent to a potential customer — especially sales text.
I always try to get to the point quickly and let the quality drive the site… not quantity. Answer questions and promote content conspicuously but not obtrusively and let the customer get to their destination… hopefully the shopping cart.