How do you market? What do you use to share information with your audience?
When I first sat down to decide what kind of copywriting I wanted to do, the options were staggering. The lists seemed endless. Did I want to create
- Direct mail sales letters?
- Social media copy?
- White papers?
- Brochures?
The answer to all of these questions was yes, of course, I wanted to be able to perform a wide range of services for my clients who wanted them.
But the more I wrote in the different categories, one in particular attracted me.
Long-form copy
I read books by the greats:
Bob Bly (The Copywriter?s Handbook,)
Richard S Hodgson (The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters of All Time,)
and Dan Kennedy (The Ultimate Sales Letter,)
which were all full of glorious multi-page letters designed to sell.
As much as I enjoyed crafting pages of persuasive copy, I wondered if longer was indeed better in a world constrained by 140-character limits.
Julia McCoy of Express Writers poses an argument for long-form copy, noting that:
Long-form content is more valuable, more exciting, and more relevant to readers than shorter-form content. It?s also less common.
While it might sound insane to start creating long-form content while we?re living in a world of increasingly short attention spans, swimming upstream is sometimes the only way to the goal.
I was especially excited to see this article showing how Eve Mattress Company had used storytelling to capture their audience and raise brand awareness from 1% to 12% in a month.
Long-form copy is not a dinosaur from the days before smart phones. It is alive and well, and here to stay.
What?s the Point of All These Pages?
Now your question may be, ?Why is it important to include long-form copy in my marketing plan??
In a word: conversions.
With interesting, relevant information, you can capture the attention of Google search engines and move your website to the top of the results page. John Lincoln said it best in his article, stating that
Back in 2012, serpIQ conducted a study involving more than 20,000 keywords. The results showed that the average content length of each of the top 10 results was more than 2,000 words. The average number of words for the content in the #1 spot was 2,416. For the #10 spot, the average number of words was 2,032.
That evidence is fairly conclusive. If you want your articles to rank well, consider using long-form content.
Your prospects will spend more time on each page, and tend to share these pages more than their shorter counterparts.
According to Medium, a post that requires seven minutes to read captures the most attention.
At an average reading speed of 250 words per minutes, that?s 1400 words.
Expanding on your message gives the reader a clearer picture of who you are and what you are offering.
You can solve the problem or answer the questions that drove them to the Google search in the first place.
When you solve problems, you get conversions.
It?s Not Just About Websites
The greats in marketing were masters at long sales letters. The messages they crafted increased sales for their clients many hundredfold.
Just one example is the Wall Street Journal marketing letter. You can read all about it here.
Eve Mattress put up intriguing stories on posters in the London subway.
Where is your target audience? What can you use to capture their attention and get them reading about who you are and how you can help them?
How to put long-form copy to work for you
What is the best way to use lengthy copy in your marketing?
- Find your difference, then tell your story in a clear, organized manner. Begin with a clear outline and make sure your narrative flows throughout your piece. Be sure to pinpoint benefits you offer to the reader and include calls to action that are concise and impossible to ignore.
- Create a captivating narrative that isn?t salesy or boring. As advertising great David Ogilvy said, ??You cannot bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them in buying it.? The more interesting your story, the more prospects you can convert into customers.
- Add relevant images that bring your story to life. Here is where the short attention span of today?s readers comes into play. By breaking up long sections of copy with relevant, interesting images, you can draw the reader into the story and keep them reading.
- Present your story in a variety of ways to reach a wider audience. Mix up your presentation methods. You can distribute your copy through your website pages, in direct mail letters or even on posters like Eve Mattress.
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Storytelling is an art. Using storytelling as a fresh, new avenue of marketing will get you noticed.
In 2019, immersive storytelling and location-based experiences will draw customers to brands like never before. As people crave the experiential, the brands that understand how to deliver them narratively will see explosive engagement. ? John Bucher, mythologist/narrative strategist, Telling A Better Story
Need help writing your story? Contact us today!