A Woman’s Skirt

Phooey.

That’s what I say to the argument amongst copywriters about the effectiveness of long copy versus short copy.

Anyone who participates in this quarrel is simply ignorant of the true money-making craft of copywriting.

In truth, if it takes ten pages to sell your product, use ten pages.  Certainly no more than that, but if it truly takes ten pages to create the appropriate buying environment, get the reader red-hot with desire, and tell him exactly how to order, then use ten pages.

It is an amateur’s argument that the length of the advertisement is relevant.

It isn’t.

The fact is, people sit through hours of television because they find the shows interesting.

Mary can watch all three hours of The Titanic (over and over) because she finds the romantic story (and Leonard DiCaprio’s body), interesting.

An hour and a half is seeped from your day because you stopped to have an interesting conversation with a unique individual you just met.  You didn’t intend it.  But you couldn’t help it.  It was just that interesting.

And that’s the million dollar word: Interesting.

Your copy must be intensely interesting to the reader.  If it is, they will read every word.

Statistically, we know if someone reads 25% of your ad, they’ll read the entire thing.  We humans don’t like to quit something we start.  And the influence tactic called the Invested Time Principle is leveraged to engineer the first 25% of our ad to quickly wrap the reader in a mesmerizing fantasy they won’t want to leave.

The Invested Time Principle states that we finish what we start because if we don’t, then everything we invested up until that point has been wasted.

As an example, if you were enjoying a book, would you stop half way through?

So if you can get the reader to start, they’ll probably finish.

Therefore, creating intense interest upfront, from the get-go of the ad, is imperative.

And the bad news is, if you’re not interesting, you’re boring.  And boring is a death sentence. One thing you and I have in common is we’re both on the lists of many marketers, sales folk, and industry leaders… and even most of them don’t understand what I’m telling you.

How many boring emails do you get every day?

Those three sentence emails from gurus are tiresome.  You’re expected to buy something just because they took the thirty seconds to slap the email together and hit send?

Listen…

You have an opportunity every day to give people a special moment in their life.

A moment that makes their heart beat a little quicker, to realize they can accomplish their dreams, have something they always wanted, pick them up when they need it, stand up for them when they can’t, and lead them to bluer waters and greener grass.

Yet many choose, instead, to be boring, short, and so straight to the point that even the point itself is overshadowed by the sneaky suspicion that the person who sent you that offer doesn’t really give a damn about you.

When we chose instead to be interesting and caring, to leverage our human heart instead of soul-less business monotony, prospects can’t help but make a connection with you.  It doesn’t mean they’ll buy right away, but when they do, it most likely will be with you.

(Of course, we can influence them to buy right away, right?)

And this will leave you with a major puzzle to put together when you’re preparing to write your marketing pieces (from emails to sales letters).

How long is long enough?

This leads to one of the best copywriting principles I’ve ever heard, and one I think you’ll remember for a long time.

“Copy is like a woman’s skirt.  It should be long enough to cover the essentials and short enough to keep it interesting.”

For one, make sure it’s obvious there’s a heart beat behind your words.  If your writings sound like the words of a corporate attorney, you’re out.

Use words like: I, you, me, your, we, us.

Two, it’s a complete illusion that you ever do anything to a “mass market”.  Ultimately, when the message arrives, it arrives to the inbox or mailbox or ear drum of one individual.  You’re never speaking to your market.  You’re never speaking to your “list”.  You’re speaking to one person at a time, but your marketing pieces sound like they’re going to “everybody”.

Stop.

You are speaking to one person.

Turn a message like this, “Hey guys, just wanted to let you all know we’re having a…”, into a message like this, “Hey John, you asked, I’m delivering.  Next Monday will be our first ever How To Be A Trillionaire tele-seminar and I’ve got a ticket with your name on it!”

Here’s another huge mistake I see all the time:

You are focusing way too much on the product.

The “great product” is a relevant part of the equation.  It’s important for your product to do what you say, but, let’s face it… many products aren’t that spectacular.  They’re just not.  Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with the seller, but every product can’t be revolutionary.

Fortunately, it’s not the product that sells.  The number of pages, length of videos, quantity of those not-so-special special reports, etc… those things are not so relevant.

What’s the bid idea?

You can sell anything.

People will buy almost anything.

You can sell any product if you find the right sales-message concept.

The Pet Rock was, and I half-jokingly say “invented” by Gary Dahl, a marketer in California.  He recognized there’s a type of person who jokes that every plant they try to grow, dies, and while they might like animals, they don’t want the responsibility of owning an animal they have to feed, walk, clean up after, etc.

With that information in mind, Dahl created a gag gift called the Pet Rock, essentially, a round rock with two eyes glued to it and placed inside a cardboard carrier with straw at the bottom and breathing holes at the top.

It’s quite stupid, but ingenious.  The man became a millionaire by selling rocks.

What I want you to understand is: it’s concept that sells.

It was his concept behind the Pet Rock that caused a rational human to shell out money for a rock.

With the right concept, you can sell anything.

There is a graveyard where products go that could not be sold.

There are wonderful products in that graveyard.  Not all of them are crap.  Some are products every man and woman could use.  Products that could have an astounding impact on families and individuals around the globe.

Nevertheless, they weren’t sold because the right concept, the right “hook”, wasn’t used.

If you have a product you want to sell, search for that head-turning concept that grabs the reader by the head, heart, and wallet, and say everything essential to your sales message no matter long it takes, and keep it interesting.

You’ll have a fatter wallet sooner than you ever imagined.