51 helpful DM ideas

 

Helpful Idea 3

Try running longer copy.

Here is your third helpful idea. It is one I have preached about for year after year – and which never fails to excite argument. Some people just can’t believe it.

Let me start with this quote:

"No creative writer has ever been able to approach the effectiveness of the boardwalk huckster who often sold 50-75% of his entire audience."    
Al Eicoff, "Broadcast Direct Marketing"

That quotation underlines what I suggested in my last suggestion: try to emulate a good salesman.

Al Eicoff was responsible for more TV and radio commercials than anyone I know of. The early ones did exactly what Al’s statement implies. He filmed successful hucksters from the boardwalks, edited the result, then ran it as a commercial.

Some of those commercials were 30 minutes long. And they made millions.

Does a 30 minute commercial sound a bit much to you? Then I suggest you turn on your TV any time in the early morning anywhere in the world. You’ll see lots of 30 minute or even 60 minute commercials.

You just don’t think of them as commercials because they seem like ordinary programmes. They keep running because they make money. Lots of it...

So my next point, number 3, is simple: try running longer copy. Much longer. Because it tends to work better in any medium.

Here are the results of some tests run by a colleague of mine:

Copy Length (words)

Response Rate

  
1,064 17.08%  
1,999 19.09%  
2,763 24.24%  
   

 

 

 

 

 

Now, if an extra profit of 41.9% doesn’t interest you, please stop reading now. You are making far too much money.

But if it does, let me simply say that I have never seen short copy making the same proposition prove as profitable as long. (I have, though, seen it get fewer immediate replies – but far more eventual sales).

The funny thing is, though, that the people I find to be most surprised by, and even disbelieving in the success of long copy are salespeople. They never seem to relate what they do to what happens in another medium – yet they should.

No good salesperson would dream of trying to be brief. They keep going till the prospect either buys or throws them out. That’s what your copy should do.

This does not mean you should strive officiously to drone on and on.

Dull long copy will flop just as depressingly as dull short copy. And although I find e-mails of 3, 4 or even 7 pages seem to work, I think it’s always a good idea to get people to click through to a website … where you can run really long copy.

 

Why more words tend to mean more sales

One reason why long copy generally does so well was well put by one of the greatest every copywriters, John Caples.

In a Wall Street interview he said:

"Give people every reason to do what you want. Otherwise, it is rather like a salesman who sees you today and only gives you one reason to buy the product; then another reason to buy tomorrow - and so on."

Another is that repetition sells. Some years ago Gallup did research into what successful advertisements had in common.

Ads that repeated the proposition three times were, on average, most successful. Your letters or emails are just advertisements that seek response. They work in the same way.

This doesn't mean you say exactly the same thing three times. It means you find slightly different ways of saying it - but you do repeat, so as to lodge your proposition in people's minds.

If you look at even a fairly brief message - a Churchill Insurance commercial, for instance - you'll see the savings proposition is repeated at least three times.


The trick, of course, is being able to write long interesting copy. That is another story.

But my colleagues and I make our living by getting people better results, and I can’t recall us ever running shorter copy to do so.

So next time you’re looking for better results, try longer copy. Try giving every reason why people should do what you want. Deal with every reason why they might not do so. Logically, it’s bound to make more sales.

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