Long Copy vs. Short Copy

I know I'm getting old because there I remember a a time when people I worked with actually cared about this argument.

But I haven't seen anyone in our industry try a #10 letter package to sell a conference in a decade.

And that's a shame.  Our industry was never big on direct mail testing to begin with.  Years ago the great Anver Sulieman suggested that we didn't test because our offers changed year to year. 

Anver was right in regards to the event content and maybe dates/venue being different from one year to the next.  But it's still basically the same event every year marketed to same audience.  So why not test?

Every client and former employer I've worked with since the early 90s seems to work the same way in developing event campaigns:

- create a short copy theme
- build the graphics around the theme
- sell the graphics as the sexy part
- fill in the rest of the copy without impeding the graphics

In other words, the copywriter is more often than not taking direction from the graphic designer when it should be the other way around.

Just once, I'd like the opportunity to challenge the need for any graphics.  Let me write a great long-form letter with personality and emotion.  I firmly believe it will outpull any self-mailer or brochure you can come up with.  If I don't beat your best brochure, you get the letter for free.

I've been making that offer for four years.  And nobody has taken me up on it.

But long copy packages still work.

Comments

[bob james]

There is in fact one organization that cares about "long vs. short" copy and has tested diverse copy lengths: Reed. And the winnner is long. In this case, engineers are the target audience. I asked the marketing director why he thought long works for him. He replied, "It's simple. Trade show in an envelope."