Money Making Tips for Copywriters: Long or Short Sales Copy?

Anyone who debates whether long copy is better than short copy doesn’t understand the sales process that well...or copywriting at all for that matter. Length isn’t what matters when it comes to writing good copy, what matters is whether or not the reading of the copy ends in a sale. This has absolutely nothing to do with how long the copy is, it has to do with how the copy is structured. If you want to sell products, you need a strategy from start to finish.

Otherwise, the customer is going to either get lost, bored or confused and walk away. The strategy which you use to sell your product will determine the structure of your sales copy, and as long as you focus on this, you need not worry about length. I mean who sits down and says: “I’m going to write a 200 page book.” or “I’m going to shoot a movie that’s 90 minutes long.” No one but a fool, that’s who. Instead, they come up with a storyline or an idea and they create the movie, the book or the song according to that.

In other words, they follow a strategy from start to finish, and the length is born out of the structure created by that strategy. So let’s look at a good selling strategy which will provide the structure for all of your sales writing...
An Example of Well Structured Sales Copy

To give you an example of what I’m talking about here, let me share the structure which I use to create sales pieces:

1. Attention: If you want them to read, you must have their attention first. The best way to get your customer’s attention is with a trance breaking method or a statement which drills down to an end result benefit.

2. Problem: Talking about the problem shows the customer that you understand why they’re searching for a solution and it helps you build rapport. Think about it, talking about problems is how people connect with one another...why do you think that people spend most of their conversations complaining and gossiping?

3. Solution: Here, you talk about the solution, but you don’t pitch the product until you’ve sold the customer on the method which the product will use to solve their problem. This way, you sell them on the product before you present it, which keeps them from getting the impression of “being sold to.”

4. Proof: Here you overcome objections and provide the logical justification for why your customer should purchase your product. People buy products to fulfil emotional needs, but they need logical justifications to “give themselves permission” to buy. As the saying goes: “There are two reasons people buy a product, the real reason and the reason they tell you that they bought it.”

5. Offer: Here, you talk about your bonuses, the discount that you’re offering and the “sweeteners” you’re using to make the deal irresistible. In other words, the offer is more than just the product, it’s what you’re offering to them as an incentive for buying your product.

6. Action: If you’ve done your job well up to this point, writing your call to action ought to be easy. A good call to action does three things: tells the customer exactly what you want them to do, reminds them why they need to do it and tells them what is going to happen as soon as they do.

Conclusion

As you can see, the above structure is based on a strategy to get the customers attention, connect with them, present a solution, give them logical justification to purchase and make them an offer that they can’t refuse. If this is done right, they’ll be ready to take action and the sale will be made. So don’t sweat the length of your sales letter. Instead, have a plan from start to finish which is directed towards achieving the only goal that matters in copywriting: making the sale.