A Long Sales Page Is A Good Funnel For Suckers

Mark, they are the #1 converting style pages on the Internet. You may not like how they are used, but there is zero denying they work... better than anything out there.

Many companies won't try them because they're worried how they will look, but at the end of the day, if you're in it to make money and can deal with a brand ego hit on "how it looks", a long sales letter page will outperform always. It's a fact, not an opinion.

FYI, not all info products are crap. I used to think that way too. The one you referenced is the real deal.

where's your evidence Jim?

My evidence is that the majority of commerce on the web isn't done with a nonsense one page website.

Why doesn't a single web 2.0 company use a long sales single page site to get me to sign up if they work so well? It's not because they will look bad, it's because they use what works the best (for non suckers).

"FYI, not all info products are crap."

I know, just 99.9% of them ;)

Evidence? It's from listening in the back rooms of people I know who make a million bucks in a day using them. They aren't going to talk about that publicly.

You want facts, go to the library and get a book :) Believe me or not. I've been doing this since 1995, I've seen it all. I used to share your sentiment by the way, so I get what you're saying.

I do agree with you that not everyone can use this format, it really works well for only certain stuff like info products and other stuff. But I disagree that they aren't the best converting things out there that exist online today.

"I know, just 99.9% of them ;)"

I used to think that. The number isn't that high though. The problem is the crap gets mixed in with the real good stuff. Very hard to tell which is which.

"But I disagree that they aren't the best converting things out there that exist online today."

someone should let silicon valley in on the secret then ;)

Mark I wasn't sure but do you not like long sales pages? Ha

I have a web design client that created a sales page that is a mile and half long and swears by them. His first update to his page took a year and became even longer.

I can't stand long pages like that but he does make his living at it and knows his stuff.

I just think if he took that content and spread it out over about a dozen pages he would have a better seo-ed site with more pages to index.

I believe it was him that introduced me to your blog so he will likely see this comment. :)

I wonder why we only ever see long sales pages for digital products (membership sites or ebooks)

Why aren't companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon using them to convince me to buy tangible products?

Hey Mark,

Passionate article mate!

I don't have enough data nor do I know the inside goings on of other companies well enough to explain why they don't use long form sales page to sell, but I can have a pretty good guess why.

Once a company gets large enough or if their business model suits, they rely on branding to create the public perception and necessary pre-frame for the sale. Without the pre-frame, it's hard to persuade people to buy.

If Apple had no reputation, no word of mouth buzz, no street cred and no advertising/PR budget to buy all of these things (i.e. no pre-frame), they would do better using a long form sales page to sell the iPod. Heck, they might do better still with a long form sales page, but I doubt they bother to test it - they just wouldn't get it past the branding team.

The same goes for any large company - branding is more important than direct marketing, whether that's a good thing is up for debate and if you do it right you can brand well using direct marketing, but I won't go there now...

You have to remember that most people do not read the long form sales page, they scan it or read chunks - it's like a massive brochure with sign-posts to find what you want.

To say people are being fooled into buying because of the words on the page is true - but that's what all forms of advertising does, you can't apply that argument just to long form sales copy. (Swap "fooled" for "persuaded" for a change of flavor.)

If you sell products in our current world today using any form of marketing you have to accept that you are effectively convincing people to buy something they don't need. The long form sales page happens to be one of the best ways to go about doing this for certain types of products and services, at this time.

The long form sales page will not work for everything. I would never recommend it for twitter or myspace or facebook or google services, they rely entirely on word of mouth to sell a free service. It's very different. That would be like saying why don't I use a long form sales page to convince people to enter and read my blog. Obviously the marketing format has to match the medium.

If I am going to sell an information product for money then in most cases the long form sales page works well. Does it "fool" people into buying who wouldn't otherwise - of course it does, but if you believe in your product you want to get it into as many hands as you can. If the person turns out not to want the product, that's what a refund policy is for.

If you get things right, a long form sales page simply helps get good products into the hands of more people, who hopefully go on to use and benefit from it (sadly most don't take action, but the creator of the product can't take responsibility for people not actually using what they buy).

Do people abuse the power of the long form sales page to sell crap? - Sure, of course, that's human nature, but to label every product that uses a long form sales page as looking to take money from gullible people is not fair in my opinion.

I sold my blogging course using a long form sales page and I believe in my product and I don't think my customers were gullible to buy from me. What I offered was good value and if anyone didn't agree after purchasing, I provided a refund. It's just not accurate to apply such a generalization to every person who buys from, or sells with, a long form sales page.

Nor is it accurate to assume a long form sales page is always the best...it's not. The market will tell you the answer through testing.

Anyway, that's my take and I know a lot of people don't agree with me, the hate for the long form sales page is strong. I can accept that and I will continue to assess the effectiveness of the long form sales page in my business and if things change, I will change my methods, and no doubt explain why on my blog for others to learn from what I do. If that damages my reputation, so be it, I will react and change as my own needs and desires change.

On another note, I hope we can meet someday soon too Mark - I'm coming to North America from May onwards for six months, so maybe we will bump into each other at an event some time.

Time for bed!

Yaro

Yaro, I'd love to meet up. Going to Blog World in Sept. perhaps?

Long sales pages get a bad rap because a lot of marketers just put no effort into at least making it look graphically pleasing. In this regard, I agree with you Mark however - there's nothing wrong with a nice looking long sales page.

@yaro - thanks for the lengthly response however I think you are making it look worse for long sales pages and yourself:

"To say people are being fooled into buying because of the words on the page is true - but that's what all forms of advertising does"

True? You and friends are openly admitting that you fool people to buy your products?

How do you sleep at night?

When the advertising fools people it's called fraud (eg promising one thing and delivering another).

Most advertising doesn't fool people.

Most advertising informs people.

Certainly some less than ethical people try to push the limits of decency and persuasiveness but as a whole I don't see advertisers trying to fool me (except for long one page sales sites).

@all - thanks for the comments ;)

I hate them. If the page starts opening up and I see it's one of them, I automatically close it out. It looks like amateur hour/late night infomercial type of marketing. And I'm sure they do work just as I'm sure most fall for the late night informercial type stuff. Most of what I've seen on those pages is straight garbage.

Mark,

I know I am never going to get rich this way but taking the stand point you are with being honest is the only way for me. I can't sleep at night if I think I am tricking people into to something. Ever here of the saying that nice guys finish last, well we do, and if your in a group filled with nice looking women and your in last place I don't think the view you have is all that bad right :)

All I can do as a web publisher is try and find a method that works for me to hit my goals. I am never going to be a John Chow or a Darren from Problogger (even though Darren will be a trainer of mine very soon as I will be blogging for B5 in the up coming weeks)all I want is to make a good living, feed my son, pay my bills and have enough left over to treat my girlfriend to what ever I feel like. I don't think that is to much to ask, do you?

"I know I am never going to get rich this way but taking the stand point you are with being honest is the only way for me."

That's actually nonsense. You can make all kinds of money being upfront and honest about a product you're promoting. Just find a good product and it practically sells itself.

@colin - I agree with trust, look around, there are plenty examples of people that are making an honest living online. The list would be too long to put in this post.

"all I want is to make a good living, feed my son, pay my bills and have enough left over to treat my girlfriend to what ever I feel like. I don't think that is to much to ask, do you?"

I feel you 100%, however that's what (almost) everyone else wants ;) That's why the competition is so high, it's not easy, you just need to work smarter than the others and keep at it.

Mark, so glad you posted this. I can't stand those pages. I don't care if it was the best product in the world and I desperately need it, when I see the long sales page I instantly click off and think "SPAM". They just lost a sale. I just refuse to purchase anything from a page like that. They have to be losing a lot of sales to people like me. Maybe people think they work best because they have never tried a different format.

Long sales Page?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


Just the facts, Ma'am

I don't know. I never linked to or sold anything via long sale page. They just turn me off. A good product does not need a mile long page - just my two cents.

"To say people are being fooled into buying because of the words on the page is true - but that's what all forms of advertising does"

When I say this I mean at a very deep level. We don't need anymore more than food, shelter and the love of people around us.

We don't need cars, we don't need iPods, or pretty much every product sold online. Advertising is an industry designed to get us to buy stuff we don't need - our entire economy is (and don't get my started on the beauty industry).

If you change the word "need" to "want", then it's a different story.

In terms of wants, good advertising is both persuasive and informative, it elicits emotions designed to make us want to buy.

That's all forms of advertising - not just long form sales pages.

Anyway, I can see you have made your mind up about this and all people who use long form sales pages, so I won't continue down this track.

@yaro - you admit that people repeatably tell you they don't like them and you still promote them. Multiple people here including myself mention they dislike them, you also admit their purpose is to fool people to buy things but you still defend them.

it seems as if you've made up your mind as well ;)

any time I mention a page like that to someone who doesn't know much about internet marketing (like my wife or friends) they unanimously say they HATE those pages.

Even jim from above who is the only other (so far) that likes the pages say people take an "ego hit" for using them.

They are synonymous with sleazy practices and I think you are doing yourself and the industry a disservice by promoting them.

@all - thanks for the great comments ;)

I don't think long pages work at converting sales. A long page just doesn't hold the readers attention. The most important part of sales is the closing. If the reader clicks away before the close then its a waste of time. The one positive of the long sale page is SEO. Search engine spiders are said to search the top 1/3 of a page. If this is true then a long sales page is getting indexed better. If it is a 1 page web site then all advantage gained by a long page is lost based on the fact that google loves content. Everyone knows the most important part of SEO is back linking. Therefore I'm not promoting the long page for SEO just saying its serves a purpose.

Mark - I won't disagree some people don't like sales page - I personally find them annoying too when I'm not interested in the product itself (I'm not the target market). When I do want the product I like to scan them, not read them from start to finish. I find the good ones almost an art form in terms of a sales process, and yes, the bad ones are very off-putting.

But please don't use your few comments on a blog post like this and what a few people you have asked in person as justification for your argument. If we all made decisions like that we would be in trouble. Test, find out for yourself or if you are morally against them, which I think you are Mark, then don't.

Keep an open mind, don't make assumptions based on anything anyone else says or does (that includes me, Mark or any person making a comment here or on any website) and above all else, do not attach your ego to an opinion or you are going to suffer.

"But please don't use your few comments on a blog post like this and what a few people you have asked in person as justification for your argument."

My evidence is that 99% of commerce done on the internet isn't done with a long sales page and 99% of the people i ask about those pages say they hate them.

Even if I am the "target market" I don't want to buy something from a faceless one page sales page with no contact info and usually false claims and just send my money off into space. I would recommend others avoid them also.

This is an age old debate, but as far as I can tell is this one settled already.

If you do a lot with landing pages, I would recommend to get the Landing Page Handbook by MarketingSherpa. The sucker costs $500, but as I send, I only recommend it to folks who do a lot with landing pages, because it takes a bit to recoup the $500 investment (which it does, if you do a lot :) )

One section talks about landing page size. Long or short? The short answer is that both work and don't work. It depends on the product you are selling and the audience for the product. Rule of thumb, the more expensive a product is, the more longer the sales copy. Also very technical products that are targeted towards geeks work often better with longer sales copy (and technical specs and highlights). A test of two versions is always a good idea, especially of you are unsure (and who is sure all the time anyway?).

The problem I have with the long sales pages for Internet marketing related products is not their length, but their lack of information. Length could have been good and needed in some instances, but if the long page does not answer your questions that needed to be answered before you buy, then your page does not convert, period. It does not matter in this case, if the copy was long or short.


I have checked a few pages to find out more about the product and how it actually works. I also had some specific questions that I needed to get answered. Most of those sales pages lack specifics and are artificially blown up in size. That is bad in every case, because one of the most important rules of a sales page is to only add sales copy that is needed and cut out "fluff" as much as possible.

I've always found Long Sales pages a big turn off when I come across them. That's why I've never used them. I guess I'm making a mistake though. They do work, and just becasue I don't ever fall for them it doesn't mean other people wont.

Ah, yes. The ol' long copy vs short copy chestnut.

As a controversial topic, this one never fails to please. If your purpose is to generate controversy and buzz, you seem to have hit the mark.

For the right product/service (typically information-based products, seminars, intangible products, complex products etc.), long copy unequivocally outperforms short copy.

I have conducted many split tests of long copy vs short (where the short copy is the "edited highlights" of the long), and long copy has *always* significantly outperformed short.

So from a marketer's point of view, for certain product and service categories, long copy works better.

So some people don't like long copy. Tough. Don't buy.

The people that complain about long copy belong mostly to the whiner demographic who would never purchase anyway.

What marketer in their right mind would cater to the whims of whining non-customers at the expense of satisfied customers?

If you believe in your underlying product or service, you deliver value, and you offer appropriate guarantees, then the goal of a marketer should be to get their product into the hands of as many customers as possible.

The long copy vs short copy debate is a red herring. What you really seem to be speaking out against (and I agree) is that there are a lot of crappy products out there that also happen to be using long copy sales letters.

The thing is, they would still be crappy products if they had short sales letters.

Even on the banner ads on your blog, you are advertising opportunities to "Make $5000/week with the Reverse Funnel System" (ooh, sounds high-tech!) or "Make $250,000 per year with the Revolutionary Turnkey Sales Engine Carbon Copy Pro" (sign me up!). Both of these ads link to websites that use... long sales copy!

So it appears that are endorsing the sucker-fooling long copymeisters after all.

Nice controversial post though. ;)

yes I advertisers that use long sales pages pay for advertisemtents here.

to me it would be silly to deny them, but I'm open to suggestions. it would be like the execs of nbs not allowing pepsi ads because they prefer coke.

thanks carsten will and funked for the comments.

"The people that complain about long copy belong mostly to the whiner demographic who would never purchase anyway. "

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I think also, yeah, it's probably not really the long sales letter pages that really bother you, it's the crappy products.

I might just add my 2c worth...

I've been doing this kind of stuff for about 18 months now, so compared to most of you, I probably don't know much.

But another thing I've noticed, is that the effectiveness of a long sales letter also has a lot to do with the way in which it is written. When I came across my first sales letter, I didn't even realize that it was a sales letter, and I had to pull out my strongest sense of resistance NOT to buy. And I bet a lot of other people would have just clicked on the buy now button. That was a good example of a good and effective sales letter (it was damn long too!).

But then there are some other long copy sales pages that I've seen, that are really crap. They might have a good product, but yet, when you read the copy, it totally turns you off.

So, my point is that both long and short copy can work, but what seems to be one of the more important things, is how the copy is written.

Summary:

Long Sales Page + Crap Copy + Good/Bad Product = Crap Sales
Long Sales Page + Good Copy + Good/Bad Product = Good Sales

Short Sales Page + Crap Copy + Good/Bad Product = Crap Sales
Short Sales Page + Good Copy + Good/Bad Product = Good Sales (but only if you're someone like Apple or Coke with an existing and VERY well known brand)

(Note how the sales results do not seem to be effected by the quality of the product.)

Told you it was only about 2c worth!

You are 100% wrong on this

oh, something else. Statistics show that women respond better to long sales copy than men. However, women only start reading all this stuff, if the landing page promises at the first glance that it is the right place to be. Crammed sales pages with small typeface are always bad. They are not only hard to read, but look like a lot of work to go over.

If you have a lot of text and design the page for easier reading, then you end up with a larger page naturally.

Most long landing pages have less text than a good and comprehensive blog post.

Gideon, Quality of a product does matter overall. If your product sucks, people will bitch and rant about it all over the place. If you are not living on another planet, you will probably come across those "nice reviews" in your niche and recognize it when you end up at the products landing page by accident and bail out as quickly as you can. It also makes it harder to sell through other channels in addition to your landing page, which is hopefully not the only way how you promote your product :)

I must say I dislike them. I have blogged about it, and discussed it with Yaro in the past.

I think that a simple website with information about the author, content split up into different pages and some nice navigation would be much better.

On the other hand, I am inclined to believe they do work very well for certain products. It is not ideal and I would not buy from one.