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I don’t often post articles or blog entries from others, but this topic of long copy vs.short copy never goes away. Veteran Copywriter and Consultant Bob Bly offers his response on the issue.

Recently JN, one of my readers, sent me an e-mail very similar in sentiment to dozens of other e-mails I have received over the years.

“Why do marketers like ETR and AWAI send me 16-page DM packages when the copywriter could have said the same thing in 1 to 2 pages?” JN writes.

“The prospect might even buy out of gratitude for not having to wade through those 16 pages and breathe a sigh of relief instead of snarl a nasty expletive.”

But JN is not through lambasting long-copy direct marketing yet. Her e-mail continues:

“My brother-in-law makes a hobby of going through those 16-page packages just for fun, red-penciling errors before he tosses them. He would never, under pain of death, buy from a DM
package.”

And it’s not just JN’s brother-in-law who thinks direct marketing copywriters are fools.

“My sister just drops those 16-page mailings in the recycling without even bothering to open them,” JN reports.

“Many of the people I know feel the same way. So why do copywriters persist in creating these massive multi-page mailings? Because they are paid by the page? Or because the client wants his pound of flesh from his writers?”

Finally, JN turns to the Internet as the harbinger of doom for long copy, asking, “Isn’t the Internet killing off traditional direct response copywriting?“

The answer to JN’s question is fairly simple….

The marketers she complains about use long copy not because they love writing it ... or paying their copywriters a fortune to write it for them … or because they enjoy spending more money on
printing and postage.

They use long copy for only one reason: it works.

Now, does long copy always out-pull short copy?

Of course not.

But long copy often out-pulls short copy when:

• You are marketing information products or other products that are sold by telling stories or conveying ideas.

• You are generating a direct sale … via mail order … rather than just generating a lead or inquiry.

• The reader is unfamiliar with your product and its benefits.

• You are demanding payment with order. The prospect has to pay up front with a check or credit card. He cannot order the product on credit and get an invoice he can choose to pay – or not pay – later.

• The product is complex and therefore requires a lot of explanation.

• The product is something people want rather than something they need – it is a discretionary purchase.

• The product is expensive, representing an expenditure the prospect is likely to consider carefully before ordering.

As for JN’s theory that the Internet is making traditional long-copy direct marketing obsolete, it’s quite the opposite: a product that requires long copy to sell offline usually requires long copy to sell online as well.

For instance, take a look at my Web site www.myveryfirstebook.com.

So … what does this long copy vs. short copy debate have to do with “the worst way to make marketing decisions”?

Simply that it illustrates that the worst way to make marketing decisions – which is what JN and her family are doing — is through subjective judgment.

Copywriter Peter Beutchel advises marketers: “Don’t let personal preferences get in the way.”

What’s important is not what you think, like, believe, or prefer … it’s what your prospects think, like, believe, and prefer.

The poor general advertisers! They are largely stuck having to make subjective judgments about marketing campaigns.

Reason: most general advertisers cannot precisely measure the ROMD (return on marketing dollars) for their ads and commercials.

But direct marketers don’t have to rely solely on subjective judgment. We don’t have to let our personal likes and dislikes cloud our judgment, like JN’s brother-in-law.

That’s because direct marketers can put almost any proposition – e.g., headline “A” vs. headline “B,” or long copy vs. short copy – to a direct test with an A/B split.

So, JN, it doesn’t matter what your sister or brother-in-law do … or that they don’t like long copy.

What matters is that in a statistically valid split test, the long copy generated more orders than the short copy.

I close with this quote from advertising legend Claude Hopkins: “Advertising arguments should only be settled by testing, not arguments around a conference table.”

(This article appears courtesy of Bob Bly’s Direct Response Letter,”  www.bly.com.)

David Coyne
www.b2bcopywriter.net

Marketing communications is an area that’s rapidly affected by advances in technology — not only in the way companies create marketing material but also how they distribute it. 

Like email did in the late 1990s, social media has exploded in popularity among marketers. Online video grows by leaps and bounds. And mobile marketing is escalating so quickly that companies are scrambling to ensure their marcom is mobile friendly.

 Marketing communications can be sliced into two segments:

• Pull marketing (also called inbound marketing). Potential customers find your product or service at their choosing. Communication channels for this type of marketing include: search engines, online forums, blogs and social media.

• Push marketing (outbound marketing). You directly contact potential customers at the time of your choosing to promote  — or push — your product or service to their attention. Communication channels include:  email bulletins, sales letters and catalogs.

But how do you know which of these marketing channels to focus on?  There are a variety of factors that influence this decision, including demographics, firmographics, purchase history and customer lifecycle. All of these aspects will come into play at some point, depending on the markets you serve. But one dynamic that doesn’t get as much attention as it should is the lifecycle of your company?

In the startup stage, getting customers is an urgent activity. You can’t pay your bills and your employees for long without sufficient customers. Because of its expediency, push marketing is often a focal point at this stage because you may not be able to get enough customers with pull marketing to sustain your business in the short term.

This doesn’t mean you ignore implementing pull marketing during this phase, but you clearly have a need to acquire customers relatively quickly. SEO may take awhile before traffic increases. And direct selling is frowned upon in social media, as the emphasis in this arena is relationship building and customer engagement.

Here are three tips on startup stage marketing:

1. Don’t wait until after your company opens its door to start marketing. Make sure you have your website, marketing collateral and advertising finalized and ready to go so you can hit the ground running.
   
2. Ask yourself “Can I generate enough customers in the short term by using pull marketing alone?” If not, what push channels would be most appropriate for your target audience?
   
3. What methods have you implemented to measure the success of your marketing communications? If you can’t measure the response, how will you know if you’re getting the most out of your marketing dollars?
   

David Coyne
http://www.b2bcopywriter.net

The American Marketing Association produces its own TV show, with tips, news and current trends in the world of marketing. This six minute episode includes …

• 3 Keys to Engage with Social Media & Mobile Marketing

• The Power of Intuition

• Millennials Yearn for the Good Old Days

• Networking: Asking for Career Assistance

• Researchers: How to Become a Strategic Partner

Content marketing has been widely embraced by the B2B marketing communications sector. This free e-book was written by a vice-president of content marketing for a B2B company.  Some of this issues covered include …

• An explanation of what content marketing is — and why your company needs to care
• Fundamental tactics used by content marketers
• An explanation of why content marketing is so important in B2B
• 10 reasons why a content marketing program may not be working with suggestions on how to overcome each
• 5 reasons you shouldn’t be a content marketer
• How to measure content marketing
• A bunch of additional content marketing resources

Visit here http://bit.ly/ebookB2BContentMarketing

If you’re looking for a good time management system, I recommend the Pomodoro Technique.

I’ve been using it for about three months, and it inspired to me complete some projects
I had been putting off for months.  The Pomodoro Technique e-book is FREE. Give it a try.

As part of my copywriting schedule for the last two years, I write and edit four client newsletters each month and this abundant editing has certainly sharpened my skills as a proofreader.

My number 1 proofreading tip is …

“Proof text on hard copy — not on your screen”

However, I realize there are times when you don’t have convenient access to a printer. Due to time constraints, you may have no choice but to proof on a screen.

If this is the situation, here’s three screen proofing tips…

• Enlarge the size of the text, especially if it’s less than 14 points.

• Bold the text.

• Place the cursor in front of each word as you read it aloud. This helps slow down your eyes. To move to the next word, hold down the Ctrl key and tap the right arrow key (Word & pdf files) as you move through the sentences.

Please share your proofreading tips here …

“Marketing today is all about engagement.”

I see the above quote (or similar variation) a lot these days.  Certainly engaging customers is an essential, especially in B2B, with its ever-lengthening sales cycle. But no matter how long you engage customers, at the some point you want them to buy your product or service.  And it may be necessary to return to more traditional marketing communications to close the sale.

Not all customers have the same value to your company. High maintenance customers who complain a lot and buy little can be a real drain on profits and staff resources.

At this time, I still believe older marketing communications mediums do a better job of qualifying customers than social media.

Could print marketing communications make a comeback during the social media frenzy? As millions of companies rush to implement social media into their marcom strategies, this very fact may be a boon to companies who still use print marketing collateral. Social media’s popularity leaves established marketing channels less saturated. One noted copywriter mentioned recently in his e-newsletter that he was recently asked by a client to write a print magalog for the first time in 10 years.

What about all those potential customers you can’t reach through social media? Are you just going to ignore them? All the more reason to create an integrated marketing communications strategy to maximize exposure.

Here’s a profile of an innovative company that is successfully using its own customized print magazine as part of its marketing communications plan.

http://bit.ly/dcprintmarcom

David Coyne
http://www.b2bcopywriter.net
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A marketing tactic that is under utilized  — even non-existent with many companies — is winning back customers who have defected to competitors or simply become dormant.  The de facto marketing procedure for companies is to focus on new customer acquisition, with customer marketing relegated to a secondary role. Yet, research shows that current customers are your most reliable revenue source.

According to Accenture Research, the chance of selling to lapsed customers is 20% to 40% while successfully selling to a prospect is only 5% to 20%. Only half of all companies monitor customer defection rates. And most organizations believe 7% to 8% of customers defect on an annual basis — the actual rate is 20%.

Not all customers are worth winning back. Some are too demanding, don’t purchase enough products, or don’t pay their bills, among other things. Close scrutiny of customer history and determining lifetime customer value is important before you set up a customer win back program.  Customers who haven’t purchased anything in months are often a golden opportunity to re-engage.

In terms of marketing communications, what type of material should you have for a customer win back initiative? A good start for a win back program is a customer survey.  By asking the right questions, you can also find out what marketing channels customers’ prefer as a contact method — email, direct mail, phone, etc. This information allows you to find tune the delivery of your marketing communications.

Here’s more info on creating customer surveys:

http://tinyurl.com/2472w7b
http://tinyurl.com/23qkxa4
http://tinyurl.com/29b69vt