If you have been to any copywriting forum, one of the hot topics that keeps popping up is, Whether to have a long or short salesletter?.

Ever heard of the $7 script? I believe this product stirred up the idea of short copies among common people (not specifically copywriters). The general argument is, if your product is small, package is small, market is small, then your salesletter should be small aswell.

It does save you a lot of work. And it can easily convince someone lazy enough to not write a large salesletter. Why bug the end-user with a long read, and fill him with boredom?

“Visitors stay away from long pages”, the supporters of “short copy” say. But, we have another contender…

Whoa! That’s a nice statement. But personally, I’ve seen more great copywriters swearing by long sales copies than the short one. And I do agree with it to some extent.

Imagine, if you’re planning on buying something. You research the hell out of the internet. You spend days researching, when you know that you only need “1 hour” to actually check if the product is right by purchasing it, and returning it if it’s not. Most of the products online come with a guarantee.

So, we end put spending hours into research. We spend so much energy, so much time, turning over all rocks, small or big, just to find that tiny extra bit of information about that product. But, if your sales letter already includes considerable detail, the end user will surely read them. For he wants all information he can get. Only the source changes a bit.

But I’m sure you will get my point. My long introduction did have a reason. I mentioned some important points about how people scrape the internet to find what they want.

So, what is it that I’m holding back? What is the secret this whole post is all about? Nervous, excited, or even angry?

Well, whatever your feeling, BEHOLD………………

Now that’s a great statement, heh? In a salesletter, your job is to give people as much information as they want. People do occasionally research other’s opinion about a product. But more than that, they have other major questions. And they are like, “What is the course exactly about?”, “How much material is in there?”, “What am I expected to do, keeping aside all the hype?”. All good salesletter tackle the prospect’s natural objections. And your salesletter too should answer any unanswered question the prospect has in mind.

And before the copywriter realizes, his copy is all very long. He has all the required information down. Now, his job is to make it more concise. Can you explain something in one line instead of a paragraph? And stuffs like that. That’s how a copy takes shape.

Provided your information is complete, useful from the buyer’s point of view and concise, then whatever may be your salesletter’s word count, it is neither short, nor large. It is only as long as it needs to be.

And I leave you now own your own to think about this. Give it a thought. Either agree, or don’t agree. If you do agree, then you’ll no longer find those “Long vs Short Copy” posts annoying. Rather, you’ll take a back seat and give a smile whenever any side makes an argument.Similar Posts:

• Copywriters – Your Unfinished Sales Letter Is Worth More Than The Finished One
• If You Master Headlines – The Rest Of The Sales Letter Is Child’s Play
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• Headlines – The Most Important Weapon Of A Copywriter

Headlines have the job of providing the end user with as much information as possible, with fewest possible words, and in a manner that electrifies the heck out of him.

So, what has that to do with the REST of the sales letter? Conduct a small experiment on my behalf. Yes, it’s a small one, but don’t blame me if it takes a long time.

Take two aspiring copywriters. Let’s call them A and B.

Ask A to write an entire sales letter. Let him spend an enormous time on headlines alone, since it’s such an important factor.

Ask B to forget about headlines. Just ask him to write a sales letter, and tell him that you’ll manage the headline part.

Let days pass, months pass. Who ends up being a better copywriter? Guess…. The answer is A.

Don’t worry. I have an explanation to give too. You see, when someone writes headlines, he has a task of conveying more with less words. And at the same time, keep it interesting, or better, electrifying. He learns using words economically. Most of the people on Earth hardly use anything economically.

And this economic use of words, which is an art in itself, also manifests in the sales letter. His sales letter improves, because it also carries the same electrifying experience. No excessive words are used. Each word in the sales letter earns its right to be there. Calude Hopkins told in his Scientific Advertising that each word has to earn it’s right to be there in Direct Mail.

And what you end up with is a highly refined sales letter by a highly refined copywriter. And mind you, every sales letter does take a lot of revisions to get right. That’s true with any form of writing. Always look at an existing text and ask yourself, “Can I do it with fewer words?”.

Don’t waste time, and start today! You’ll soon become the copywriter every damn copywriter knows about. And if you need any recommendations on books to purchase to hone your skills, I had written a post a little while ago about it, which you can find below:

Copywriting Training – The Smart Way Of LearningSimilar Posts:

• Copywriters – Your Unfinished Sales Letter Is Worth More Than The Finished One
• Copywriting Training – The Smart Way Of Learning
• Headlines – The Most Important Weapon Of A Copywriter
• Long vs Short Salesletter – Both Of Them Are WRONG

If you are an aspiring copywriter, then you must know for sure, that the only way to master your skills is to write more copy. Increase your skills with each one you write, which would land you on more opportunities than you can begin to imagine. But this very journey of yours can be worth your weight in gold.

Keep reading, and the only thing you will ever regret is banging your (now bleeding) head against the wall for not thinking about it yourself.

Swipe files are simply sales letters that a copywriter keeps for further reference. It may be a successful sales letters which contains powerful psychological triggers that you might want to keep, and use in your own letters later.

Keeping a swipe file is an advice any copywriting trainer would give, and which all copywriters must do.

You, or any copywriter as a matter of fact, would have created several drafts. Several modifications. Several changes. Or sometimes, even removing a whole chunk of “hard work” from your letter just because it couldn’t make the cut.

And what do you do? Throw those drafts away. And keep your sales letter in front of you, proud of your accomplishment.

But the biggest smile is yet to come. And it comes when you see your sales letter bringing in $$$ for your clients. For you know they will give you more business, and you can sleep peacefully yet another night.

Why did I tell so much crap above? It was for this very part. Your successful sales letters are valuable assets not only for your clients, but other copywriters, who know that every sales letter has a success story of it’s own to say, from which they can learn.

But a finished sales letter hardly gives the picture of the process, the pain, the research you went through before producing the master piece.

What if you, saved all those drafts chronologically, and gave it to an aspiring copywriter?

And he will certainly learn more than what your finished sales letter would offer. Are you seeing the power of this already?

It’s like walking a person through the creation of the entire sales letter. That is gold.

Yes! That’s right. Even though people have access to your sales copy, but they don’t necessarily have access to your drafts. Heck, some copywriters throw them away, and themselves no longer have access to it.

What if you spiced up the drafts, adding your own “comments” about your mindset at that time. How valuable would that be?

I won’t say much. Think about it yourself. See the infinite possibilities. For only that will lead to success.

P.S.: If you still didn’t get it…. Create your own “Drafts” version of a successful sales letter you created for your own product, or others you have rights to reproduce. This would be a great product for any copywriter.Similar Posts:

• If You Master Headlines – The Rest Of The Sales Letter Is Child’s Play
• Product vs Sales Letter – Which One Has A Bigger Role?
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• Headlines – The Most Important Weapon Of A Copywriter

We should first understand the fact that without features, copywriters won’t have any benefits to put on his letter. As Seth Godin says, every remarkable product creator needs to be a marketing, understanding the need of his core market.

Product and Sales Letter go hand in hand, and are two sides of the same coin. You can live with just one of them, maybe you’ll end up making sales. (For those thinking how can you make a sale with just a sales letter and no product, think “scammers”)

But with their powers combined (now that’s like Captain Planet), they’re a monster. To convey my exact point, I will only need to tell you the difference between a feature and a benefit.

Features are stuff what something, say a piece software or knowledge can help you do
Benefits are all about how and in what ways you use them

The feature of social bookmarking site is that they allow users to store links on their servers, share them and make them public to the world. The benefit? You never lose a link. You get to share crazy stuff with your friends, and others do the same.

Is that all? Apparantely not. Marketers have found another benefit, which is the sole benefit for them. And that is, linkbuilding. Social bookmarking sites give links, and that’s the only thing they’re after. They don’t care about the “sharing” benefits that these services offer.

You see, the benefit marketers are after is not even advertised in those bookmarking services. Yet, there are thousands of website out there talking about this little “marketing” benefit.

Google has launched numerous services in the past months and years. Even though it still retains name primarily as a world class, unparalleled search engine. What do people use them for? To search information. That’s primarily what it’s used for.

But again, it can be used to spy on competition, estimate your potential rankings and wild stuff like that. Another community might be using it in some other special way.

Did Google think about all this when it launched? No! It’s like what 37Signals said. Give people a simple tool, and be amazed at their creativity at using it. It will save you hundreds of man hours, because people may not require a complex feature to be added in order to reap a specific benefit.

Out of the numerous reasons people use search engines, do you think Google or any other company thought it could/would be used like that? It’s only certain people at first who found new benefits of using it (the innovators and early adopters), and spread it across the rest of the bulk.

To build a remarkable product, you often need to work backwards. Find the benefits for which the target market crave for, and then implement a feature that helps reap the benefit in an efficient manner.

Product creators are the one who create, Copywriters persuade and spread. Copywriters represent the product in the most efficient manner.

Earlier, in the world of direct marketing, product creators may have not known of certain benefits their product offers. Which of course, was the job of the copywriter to find through extensive research, and put it forward. But things have started changing. It’s now often necessary to write a compelling sales letter and then create something that fulfills them.

It’s time to be remarkable, as Seth Godin says.

If you want to make remarkable stuff that spread, then I could not recommend these books enough. It by none other than Seth Godin. At least get “The Purple Cow”. It will change the way you think.

Similar Posts:

• Copywriters – Your Unfinished Sales Letter Is Worth More Than The Finished One
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• A Vague Advice For Marketing Ingenuity

If somehow, all the shops stopped having their logo and name boards, could you still easily identify them? You’ll have to look closely into each shop to find out what it really is. But it’s the name of the shop written outside that catches the attention of anyone interested.

Headlines are best learnt by reading them a lot. Make a note of all headlines that caught your attention. Ask yourself why. It could be a newspaper or a magazine headline. The headline that caught your attention won’t necessarily catch the attention of the guy next to you.

It depends on your interests. And the writers who wrote the headline knew your interests, and design the headline to attract such targeted people.

Visit a social networking website. You’ll find headlines all over. But some articles capture the eyes of the masses. What’s so good about them? Analyze them, restructure them, and maybe use them for your own purposes!

Hope you liked that quick tip…Similar Posts:

• If You Master Headlines – The Rest Of The Sales Letter Is Child’s Play
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A Word Of Warning About Copywriting…

Copywriting is also an art. It’s not something you would learn overnight. Actually, you never finish learning it. For example, I’m also a programmer, and most professional programmers claim they get to learn new stuff every now and then. The same thing happens in chess.

But… The Wrong Choice Can Be Disastrous

Many aspiring copywriters think that they can manage learning copywriting by reading online blogs and articles. You’re right. You can, IF AND ONLY IF you know copywriting already. Such articles post small nuggets of wisdom here and there, but they don’t teach copywriting right from the beginning.

If you’re serious about copywriting, get a book. I have a list of copywiriting books recommended by copywiritng geniuses, internet marketers, WarriorForum members etc… Don’t buy every single book. Buy one, read and understand it, and then go to the next. Each copywriting book author has his own style, so you get to learn new stuff from each of them. And by the way, you can click the book titles to see a detailed description of it, and if you want, buy it.

Copywriting Books – Some Of The Best Ones

• The Copywriter’s Handbook, Third Edition – By Robert W. Bly: I’ve seen this book recommended as the first an aspiring copywriter should buy.
• Scientific Advertising – By Claude Hopkins: A Great Classic
• The Robert Collier Letter Book – By Robert Collier
• How To Write A Good Advertisement – By Victor Schwab
• Tested Advertising Methods – By John Caples

Is That All….?

Unfortunately, no. But I didn’t want to overwhelm you with an endless list of copywriting books. As I said above, The Copywriter’s Handbook should be your first choice. You can read the rest of them once you finish at least on book. Remember, nothing is more important that learning and completely understanding the basics of copywriting. And you can do that only if you sit and read ONE book from start to finish.

Have a nice copywriting journey!Similar Posts:

• If You Master Headlines – The Rest Of The Sales Letter Is Child’s Play
• Copywriters – Your Unfinished Sales Letter Is Worth More Than The Finished One
• Long vs Short Salesletter – Both Of Them Are WRONG
• Product vs Sales Letter – Which One Has A Bigger Role?
• Headlines – The Most Important Weapon Of A Copywriter