Long vs. short copy once more

[bgbg]

I have already asked a question about the relative appearance and effectiveness of long vs. short copy (http://fourhourworkweek.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=3279&highlight=long+copy) . Back there I was told that long copy was more effective. For me, this is absolutely counter-intuitive, but who am I to argue with so many marketing experts.

BUT, here comes Tim with his resent blog (http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/08/12/google-website-optimizer-case-study) and proves once again that "less is more". This blog is a classic (IMO) example of 80/20 principle.

What am I missing, guys? When is long copy better than a short one?

[kamakiri]

You really are missing the whole point. Tim talks about choices. Long copy is about convincing the customer to buy. Long copy has at most one choice per fold, and that is usually a buy now at the top, a buy now at the bottom and a few buy for $xxx in the middle. Not really choices at all because you have only one option.

Just because you don't like or understand long copy doesn't make it somehow a bad medium. Don't use it.

You might really like this blog post: The Death of the Long Copy Sales Letter (http://www.copyblogger.com/the-death-of-the-long-copy-sales-letter/) (there is a free ebook there as well. A very good read)

[ikschel]

In some parts of the world people are very affected by the the law of Jante (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_Law)...

How do you guys look at it, when it comes to short and long copies... It seems like scams and "easy money making" to the average Scandinavian and are by default looked at with a great amount of doubts.

Anyone have good alternatives to the short/long copy that will work better in these parts of the world?

[DaveinHackensack]

Can you look at this empirically? Is there some equivalent of an Inc. 5000 list for small companies in Scandinavia? If so, you could see which very small (e.g. >10 employees) companies are successful and growing fast there, and then you can check out their websites and see what sort of marketing they use. Granted, very small companies aren't exactly equivalent to muses, but it's the closed analogue I can think of at the moment.

[ikschel]

We have something called gazelle companies... I have tried to look at some sites, and it looks like the companies are using several pages with brief information - like "Frontpage", "About us", "Products", "Contact"...

I found one who are using long (or short??) copy, but sliced into several sites (selling stress ebook and hypnosis sound file): stress (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=da&sl=da&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fstress.mind-set.dk%2F) (translated for your understanding).

He is also using a video on the first page. I think it is really nice work and fitted a lot into the Scandinavian mindset. The visual part is also very good - seems professional and sober.

There is a FAQ, Buy it here, Free light version, About the author and opinions from users.

Try to compare it to this american stress long copy: stress US (http://www.nostressebook.com/resources/nostress.php)

The more you try to convince people over here, the more skeptical they get. "If you want to sell me something don't be eager then". No doubt Scandinavians would prefer the first product.

The question is: will the Scandinavian version do better or worse than the traditional long copy on the US market?

(by the way I have noticed that the Scandinavian author emphasize that you always can get in touch: contact-site (http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=da&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fstress.mind-set.dk%2Fkontakt&sl=da&tl=en&history_state0=&swap=1). But of course this isn't a muse - he probably enjoy speaking to potential clients he can sell more products and courses to).

[DaveinHackensack]

Interesting. My first site is going to be up soon, and I'll post a link when it is. At that point, I think you'll find that I've taken more of the Scandinavian approach. How it works, we'll see.

[ikschel]

Im looking forward to that :)