About midnight, just before my second round of either sleep or work I check my emails to see what is new. Like you I check to see what I can delete first (guess why the open rates have shrunk to, on average, about 10% to 12%).
So late at night I check out different seminars and courses that offer “proven” ways to learn about how to better serve clients which I always figured would improve my business and generate more leads.
I find that all the courses like all the weight loss products, ED products and skin care products have the same marketing formula to get you to buy their uniquely and overwhelmingly exciting product that took John Smith from making $2,000 a month to making $50,000 per month…all in less than six months. Now while this may not be believable, they sure made a great case for it being true and the more you read, the more you might start to believe that this life changing product could happen to you as well.
As I reviewed the formulas I noted that they all had a professional or doctorial type of spokesman, played a 25 or 35 minute video, used lots of testimonials and repeated themselves about the benefits of the product probably 10 or 15 times before they would even give you a hint of what they were selling. These people knew what they were doing. They hit all the high notes on any great copywriter’s check list
The headline was always enticing. Example: “Warning. Don’t Ever Eat These Products If You Want To Lose Weight.” Of course if you scrolled to the end of the transcript or listened to 35 minutes of conversation along with charts and graphs, you would find that the company is selling a magic pill filled with herbs and spices from the deepest parts of the Peruvian jungle, or from the waters off of Christmas Island or harvested from the bark of VERY special trees in the rain forest 100 feet in the air.”
Obviously, the more exotic the location, the more the reader would supposedly think of the product as being “rare.” The writer no doubt discovered that “rare” was a desired benefit or at least that is what facebook analytics told him/her and the rest of the team.
For you, the bowling proprietor, entertainment operator, or FEC owner, please note that these long copy articles or long broadcasts do sell. In fact, they sell well. So don’t be afraid of writing “long copy.” Please.
Years ago, the most highly paid copywriters wrote for the National Enquirer, one of the most highly circulated newspapers in the country. The longest advertisements in that paper were for weight loss and consisted of an entire page of “copy.”
Today, you might think that “nobody reads that much because it’s just too long and nobody has that kind of time.” Is this an example of YOU deciding that nobody reads that long copy because YOU don’t? You may be right…or not.
And that is too often a mistake we make; transferring our biases, attitudes and feelings as the “truth” to what our customers do.
Instead, learn from these other successful marketers. One of the biggest hits we ever had was to write a two page Christmas/Holiday party letter to key HR prospects at companies.
The results? Readership was high, incoming phone calls were greater and we converted more of these people to buyers. My client in this case, at first, resisted but had enough trust in me to let me go ahead with it. In the end, we were both gratified with the results
The moral of the story is two fold
One, just because you don’t like it or do like it, doesn’t mean your customers will agree with you. Try a small scale test first with maybe 100 or so people in each group trying long copy sales letters, flyers, and emails vs. short copy versions. That is really the only way to find out.
Secondly, it has been proven time after time that when writing copy; remember the age old axiom “SHORT COPY TELLS AND LONG COPY SELLS so don’t be afraid of writing long copy. Need help to do this? Give me a buzz 516 359 4874. I’ll be happy to talk with you.
Just sayin’
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