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Hi Mel,

Thanks for chiming in here with a different point of view!

I've enjoyed the posts you've made on this board, but I'm going to respectfully disagree with what you say below.

The fact is that there are case studies in almost every industry under the sun where the "long sales letter" approach has worked very well. In fact, Jeff Paul was recently selling $6,000 sets of golf clubs by sending a 24 page sales letter to golfers -- most of whom don't even know what a "sales letter" is, let alone having been "trained" on them!

I think Michael made a good point that it's really not about the length itself. It's about saying all that you need to say to close the sale and keep your readers' interest, no matter how many pages that takes.

Best,

Jesse

> This is, btw, what the big research firms
> have been saying for about 3 years (I have
> the magazines that talk about this) -- break
> up copy because people read the web
> differently than they read print. If you
> look at major news sites and compare print
> and web editions, you'll notice that the
> text is broken up differently and often a
> bit shorter or spread between pages.

> Here's where I'm going to be controversial
> -- that page ONLY works on a select
> audience. It works on the people who have
> been "trained" that this is is a
> wonderful and proper presentation.

> Don't know if you remember it, but months
> ago on Lesley's board, someone asked for a
> review of a site to help increase sales and
> traffic. It was a long (6-10 screens full)
> sales letter ALA Marlon Sanders. The
> marketing experts on the board loved it and
> said to tweak only a few things. I said it
> was WAY too long and visually uninteresting
> and needed to be several pages with the main
> points up front -- and coworkers in this
> designer's office (who had no contact with
> the Business Gurus and their marketing
> material) echoed my comments.

> So -- if you're selling to the market that
> has been trained to expect this, short will
> be suspicious and long and filled with
> examples will be boring. If you're selling
> to others (like my grown children or my
> husband or a lot of other people), they
> expect ads to be short and sweet and want
> the material spread over pages and condensed
> and value (instead of long teasers) given.
> (and they want to know page counts on books,
> too.)

> So -- my point is -- when deciding whether
> it's good or bad, know what your audience
> expects and trusts. But don't assume that
> the same copy will work on everyone. Put a
> Marlon Sanders ad in front of a buncha
> coding geeks and his sales will tank.