by Kyle Tully » Sat May 24, 2008 6:56 pm
Just as an aside, and I'd love to get your opinions on this, I think in a lot of cases your copy has to be stronger to pull off formatting a letter like this online.
Here's why...
While an "ordinary" looking salesletter might scare away a certain number of people, there's still a certain percentage who are trained to equate buying stuff to solving their problems.
Even if your letter isn't the greatest you can often win them over with 1 bullet... or even the hope that what you're selling will solve their problems. So you get a "safe" 1-5%+ response rate (give or take.)
Whereas if your letter looks like an article you really have to work to keep them reading. There isn't that "all I have to do is buy what they're selling and my problems will go away" feeling.
We don't tend to put a high value on an article, so if the prospect is bored (even for a second) they're much more likely to click away.
And if they really do think it's an article they're not going to scan to the bottom to see the offer at all -- so you miss out on the "oh what the hell, I'll give it a shot" crowd.
Thoughts?