How Long Should Your Sales Copy Be?

Here’s a great article by Bob Bly, reprinted from a daily email newsletter I look forward to every day called Early To Rise.  If you haven’t checked it out  before, I highly encourage you to.

Today’s article talks about the great debate between short copy and long copy sales letters.  I’ll post a few thoughts about how it relates to running a lawn care or landscaping business at the end.

How Long Should Your Sales Copy Be?, Part 1

By Bob Bly

Since time immemorial - or at least for the quarter century I’ve been in direct marketing - people have vigorously debated the merits of long vs. short sales copy.

I don’t pretend that I can settle the debate once and for all, but I’ve found that there are two major factors determining whether long or short copy will work best for a particular sales promotion: emotion and involvement.

Emotion refers to the degree to which the purchase is emotional. Buying a diamond engagement ring is highly emotional; buying paper clips is not.

Involvement refers to the amount of time, effort, and consideration that goes into the purchase. As with most large purchases, a lot of time, effort, and consideration goes into the selection and purchase of a diamond engagement ring. But most of us grab the first box of paper clips on the shelf of the stationery store, without giving it a second thought.

To use these two criteria to get a rough guideline for determining copy length, rate them as high or low.

For instance, the purchase of a diamond engagement ring is highly emotional and it’s something your customer is going to give a lot of thought to. So you’d need a lot of copy to do a good job of selling it. On the other hand, paper clips are more of an impulse purchase. When you need them, you go to the store and pick up a box. No emotion and very little thought goes into this purchase - and a long, passionate sales letter probably wouldn’t sell more of them.

[Ed. Note: Master copywriter and best-selling author Bob Bly is the editor of ETR’s Direct Marketing Masters Edition a program to help you start your own successful direct-mail business. Sign up for Bob’s e-zine, The Direct Response Letter and get more than $100 in free bonuses.]

So, which one should you employ?  Well, if you consider Bob’s advice about the amount of emotion involved in a purchase, I’d suggest there is definitely some emotion involved in purchasing your service.  However, depending on the service you’re trying to sell, the amount of emotion will vary.

If you’re selling a lawn care maintenance plan, the amount of emotion is probably a medium level because the price isn’t too unreasonable.  On the other hand, if you’re selling a large scale landscaping project, there’s more emotion involved because of the typically higher price tag.

So before you go off and put together your next advertisement, give some thought to the amount of emotion that goes into your customer’s buying decision and adjust the length of your sales copy accordingly. 

Bookmark Me!