It’s time for me to answer YOUR questions!
It’s Monday, which means it’s time for my weekly sojourn down to the mailbox, to see what you want to know!
Remember, to have YOUR most pressing question on marketing, business, selling, copywriting, life, whatever answered… Send it to me at [email protected] and I’ll add it to the queue.
Today’s question…
—
Roy,
Found your blog in a Google search. I’m a copywriter with a few one-off clients under his belt. My goal: to get a few clients who will pay me monthly.
Right now, I’m starting to watch your replay on the #1 reason why copywriters fail. Let’s see where it takes me.
However, I do have a question regarding your irresistible sales letter. How can I be sure if this works?
The reason I ask is because I have people saying that short, concise emails work because of how the human attention span works. I mean, we do have the attention span of a snow pea, right?
So how can I challenge them to a duel without them chickening out? I mean, I can’t be that intimidating (I’m only 5’6″ and 170 pounds for God sakes).
In other words, I want to give this irresistible sales letter a whirl. But I have that one objection that is that if I send it out, it’ll be read a little bit and thrown away.
Any advice you can give me on this would be awesome. Since you are a kick ass copywriter, I know you have a way to kill off an objection.
Thanks in advance.
Be awesome,
Adam
—
Adam, there are two really interesting questions in here…
— First, will my marketing approach work for you, and…
— Second, does long copy really still work?
I think BOTH open up some space for me to give a really interesting answer, and so let’s dive in.
First, let’s dive into whether or not my approach — the challenge — will work for you…
I’ll start by saying, “your mileage may vary!”
Like any and every piece of advice I ever give in these essays, that essay about how I got my first copywriting client (with my irresistible offer letter) was based on my experience. It worked for me. It worked great!
But, it may not work in exactly the same way for you.
I reached out to a client who I wanted to work with, who believed in and taught marketing testing, and offered to put together a piece of marketing for him to test against what he was currently using.
The client was predisposed.
I was full of vim and vigor for his subject matter.
And my offer — in this case — very specifically tied in with his teaching.
He would have been crazy to turn me down!
That letter was really about a match made in heaven.
If I were trying to land a client on a totally different subject matter, in a totally different industry… Well, I’d probably do things totally differently!
It’s not necessarily about the superficial details, or language used. You don’t necessarily have to challenge your prospective client to a “duel.” Then again, it’s playful and fun and that’s probably also part of why it worked — and why it might work for you.
Don’t get caught up in copying word for word. This is the really important takeaway.
What you need to do is ask yourself, “What worked about Roy’s letter? Why was it effective for the client he’s speaking to in that letter?”
What did I do there that created a perfect message to market match and spoke to my client in a way that told him I knew who he was and what he wanted?
This is what so many novice copywriters (and some pros!) get wrong. They focus so much on the techniques and tactics. Word choice. Writing style. All that junk.
What matters far more is getting to know your prospect on a deep level, and engaging with them by joining the conversation already going on inside their head.
THAT is the approach you should try to copy. And if you can do that, then yes, my approach will work great for you!
Second, does long copy still work?
This is an all-too-common question, asked by those who want to know but who were misinformed by those who don’t know.
Here’s my rule…
Your copy can never be too short or too long…
It can only be too boring or uninteresting…
Or, it can fail to give enough information to get a response.
That letter is a little over 1,000 words.
That’s SHORT copy for me, these days!
Most of these essays are about that long…
And most of my sales letters are 10X that long!
In fact, I have a sales letter that generated over $1 million dollars in sales last year, that was over 12,000 words long!
Here’s what I’ll ask you: if people don’t have a long enough attention span to read a lot of copy based on word count alone, how the heck would that happen?!
And if you’re thinking they were convinced early, that’s not quite right. Because I didn’t even mention the product (or that there was one!) until over 6,000 words in.
That breaks all the rules of classic direct response. But it worked like gangbusters.
Why? Because it was interesting and exciting to my perfect target audience. It spoke to the conversation already going on inside their head. It got them all riled up and agitated about a major problem they see on the horizon. Then, it offered a compelling solution.
Long copy absolutely still works.
The thing is, the longer it is, the more important it is that you remain laser-targeted on your prospect and what THEY want. It can’t be about you, unless you’re talking about how you can get them what they want. Even then, the focus is on them!
But here’s something you can do if you try to keep it short. You can give them too little info to make their decision. You can fail to justify the reason why they should respond immediately. You can not do enough to present the offer as overwhelmingly in their favor as possible.
The world’s best salespeople (in person and in media) NEVER try to cut themselves short. They always try to deliver their entire pitch, every time. As long as it needs to be to make the sale, but no longer. They lay out their entire case, and then…
They ask for action.
I’m going to ask you for action…
If you’re still waiting to get started, because of this doubt or objection or something else, it’s time to stop waiting.
It’s time to start doing.
The most successful people I know are predisposed to taking massive action.
I recommend you copy that behavior, starting with this.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr