Seriously? Marketers are STILL asking if short copy is better than long copy. Their reasoning is, “People are too overloaded and don't have time to read long copy.” But imagine if you received a 100 page sales letter with the headline: Everything Known About YOU and it had YOUR NAME in the headline. No matter how pressed for time you might be, would you miss a single word of it?
What if you're thinking about buying a product but you're not sure? Do you want to have more information on which to base your decision, or less?Certainly you don't want less information. No one is going to say, “Gee, I just can't decide. Fortunately this information doesn't answer half my questions, so that helps.”
Here's a single statistic that might lend us a clue in the seemingly endless short copy / long copy debate:
“Up to 50% of potential sales are lost due to inadequate information.”
- IDC, a global research company.
Up to 50% lost because of copy that doesn't tell the whole story! When you use short copy you will lose sales because you haven't told the prospect everything they want to know in order to make a decision. Remember, 79% of prospects won't read every word, while 16% will. Those 16% are your target group, the ones most likely to buy. Some of those 79% will buy as well because they don't need all of the info.
But here's the thing: Having all of the information available very likely sold those buyers in the 79% group as well, because they were able to skim the copy and find the answers to their questions that allowed them to make a buying decision. Had those pieces been missing, they likely would not have purchased either.
Next time you're wondering if you should only tell your prospects half the story, stop and remember: Up to half of all potential sales are lost because the seller didn't give enough information to the prospect.
Need we say more?