Do Sales Letters Really Work?
By Anna Johnson on October 8th, 2008The issue of using sales letters on websites… and how long or short they should be… is one that seems to attract earnest debate.
My guess is that many newcomers to the Internet marketing niche, as well as various other niches on the web, are unfamiliar with the use sales letters on websites and wonder why many marketers use them. Especially when most brand name websites are designed and structured in an entirely different way.
I know that I was unaccustomed to long sales letters when I first learned about ‘Internet marketing’ in 2004. And this was AFTER my husband and I had previously built and sold an Internet business. I wondered why all these people selling information products used websites that often had no logos, no navigation, no ‘About’ or ‘Contact’ links, few graphics, and nothing but a long sales letter with a price hidden within the copy and an ‘Order’ button at the bottom.
And why were they all so long?
But when I bought my first Internet marketing info. product (after reading the sales letter) and then started learning about Internet/niche marketing in earnest, it all started to click.
Sales letters work.
Not in all contexts. Not for selling all products. But certainly for selling products that:
- Are intangible – can’t be touched or ‘seen’ to be understood or appreciated
- People don’t know they want or don’t think they need – where considerable persuasion is needed
- Have an intangible benefit – where the result is more psychological than physical
- Carry a high price
I like to think of it this way. If you’re selling a product on the web that would ideally be sold by a real-life salesperson… i.e. someone would explain the benefits, features, etc then use a sales letter. Or, with the advent of online video, a sales letter with some video elements (we’ll discuss video in a later article).
If, on the other hand, you’re selling a product that wouldn’t need to be sold by a salesperson (and, in fact, having a salesperson would hinder the sale) then a salesletter is probably not a good idea. A simple product graphic, some copy and the price may be sufficient.
At the end of the day, marketers big and small – from big direct response marketing companies such as Agora Publishing, Boardrooms and Weiss Research to small companies like ours – use sales letter style websites because they make money.
As for whether many of these sales letters are too long… and whether anyone actually reads them… let’s discuss that tomorrow…
October 8th, 2008 at 7:09 am
hi,
I cannot speak for other people but for me the long news letter sucks.For one reason as you said they hide the price at the bottom of the page and then sometimes you do not know the price until you click on the \\"Buy me\\" button.
For another I know what I want and i do not need to read three or twenty pages of the sellers hype to buy it. They can list the benefits of teh product and to me and I can decide I can a few paragraphs. Lets face it, they are not reinventing the wheel or have some earth shattering deal or project to tell me about. AS I tell people we used the \\"KISS\\" method in South East Asia many mango seasons agond it worked well and it works well with sales pages. \\"Kiss\\" means to \\"Keep it simple stupid\\" and that is they need to do. If I want to rdad a novel i will go find and it will be far more interesting then any sales page.
My suggestions are as follows:
1. 2 paragraphs of what the item is and how i can benefit from it
2. List the selling price prominetly with in that two paragraphs
3. At the very most and in extreme situtations(and i cant think of many) go for one page but still keep the price prominet at the top someplace.
Now you may ask why is the price so important to me? Simple. I know how much money I have to spend and it irritates me to read between 2 and 20 pages of sale hype to find out I cannot afford it after all. Usually in those cases I unsubscribe from the seller list as no doubt someone will be selling the same thing the same day or the next .
If I find something that I think will work for me I go the bottom immediately anyway. As I said I know what I want, I know what I can afford to pay for it, and I know what I want it to do so why waste my time to read all the garbage inbetween? If it takes 2-20+ pages to convince me that what you have is so great then maybe the seller is hiding something with all he is spouting. ?
One other thing I do not like while I am on this soap box is the mandatory OTO you get sent to most of the time. I think they should ask you if you want to see more products and if so you send them to the page. But to force everyone to go to the OTO page seems not right. If they have something else to sell send another sales page but dont force us into looking and maybe buying \\"because they have their wallet out already\\".
Now to finish up. I know they claim long sales pages are good sellers and the OTO is good because you have your credit card in hand but they do not seem to take in the common courtesy that maybe we dont want to read many pages and we dont want to buy anything else at the time. Psychology this and psycholgy that and where is the commkon sense and courtesy?
ok, thats it for now and as i said this is my opinion and they are like that body part we all have..
gregg
So keep the sales letter short and to the point, list the price and put the \\"buy\\" button and that is it. Just KISS it!!