OK, dang 420 character wall limits on Facebook. Seriously. I am all about chunking down but 420 characters? Can you tell that I am not an in the box kind of guy? Just another reminder that you need to have a Blog if you have a Business or want to make money. Or to explain anything in detail which brings me to one of my points. 🙂
Anyway, I was reading a Post over at a Women’s Entrepreneur site last night by an “Expert” Marketer/Web Designer. And no, I am not going to link to a bad article or their website. Whoops, kind of gave it away a bit huh?
Now I am sure she, the Authoress, is a nice lady and all but… Oh heck, I don’t actually know that, she could be a Harpy, but let’s give her the benefit of the doubt anyway and say she is a really super duper nice lady and she probably is. Regardless of her demeanor however, I have to point out that she is just plain wrong about some things in her article.
So, good guy that I am, I tried to post a comment addressing the error several times yesterday and today. No joy, apparently they do not like dissent in their comments that is factual. Another rule, make sure you have smart people on your team and especially as gate keepers for you Blogs and Social Media. Stupid mistakes can cost you big time there.
But to be fair, it could be some intern that does not know squat about Blogs and marketing that they have as the gate keeper (see above) that could be costing them thousands of dollars every day by not managing their Blog correctly. Again, having smart people on your team pays way more than they they cost.
Dissenting Comments On Your Blog Are Good For Business
Which brings up another point. Dissenting comments are great as long as they are business like and well thought out. In fact they are good to have on your site! They can help make you money. It allows you to to point out your case or, correct yourself if someone brings you new info and it gets people involved. Either way it is a win. So, do not be afraid to post dissenting comments on your Blog. Well, they never posted my comments.
But the Silver lining is that I can give you a couple of Profit Consultant tips from good old Easy Anderson here on my Blog. That, I do control. Yea for me and it should be Yea for you too.
Well first off back to the Authoress, she said basically that Long Copy or rather Lengthy Text does not work as well as Short Copy on Websites because the Web is different than printed text. Oh really??? Hmm…. Alarm bells went off right then and I started laughing.
Two things went through my mind. Wow cool, another competitor who’s clients that if they listen to her, are going to have their butts kicked by my clients. Cool, cool, cool !
Then I thought, awe darn it. There are going to be a lot of people, well OK, a few anyway, that may read that aritcle and believe and implement what she is saying and hurt their business and it is bad Karma for me not to point it out to at least them and perhaps her. That I do believe. Pointing out and trying to fix things that you know are wrong are one of the things that make America great as a habit. In most other countries, it is frowned upon to point out errors or to even make mistakes at all. Which is one of the reasons why most everyone wants to still come to the US. Back to making mistakes.
Lord knows I have been ignorant about things in my past as well. Heck we all are for that matter until we learn otherwise. I know I learn something new every day but, if you are going to be in business and especially Marketing and offering advice, bone up on the basics and learn from the people that have been doing this for a while.
Anyway back to Long Copy, here is the scoop.
Long copy when done right can outsell short copy by over 1,000 %. That is not a typo! Now do you still have to have catchy headlines and bullet points that grab attention? Absolutely.
Just think about any subject that you are interested in for a few seconds. If it is interesting, do you want to read once sentence about it or more information that explains what you are interested in and read details? My point exactly!
If you get a chance, go buy the book, Ogilvy On Advertising by David Ogilvy. Great book on marketing and the other book you should get is, Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins, which if you go to my contact page above and request it by typing in Scientific, I will send you a complete copy of it in PDF for FREE. But you have to make the effort.
Both go into factual evidence why Long Copy works.
And while I do pride myself on my marketing skills, Go friend Drayton Bird who is on my friends list on Facebook and read his content and you will learn a lot about Long Copy and Marketing in general.
I like him because he is way more irreverent than I and makes fun of Ignorant people in Adverting and Marketing and does it with a rye sense of humor. Plus, he is a much better speller and better a grammar and punctuation too or is that as well?
He is truly one of the worlds best Direct Marketers for sure and which reminds me I owe him an email on the Twitter and Social Media experiment. (it has been one crazy month but I digress) You can follow the experiment on Twitter Here and over at www.CommonSenseMarketing.org. Drayton has some serious marketing chops and is one very sharp guy.
So, out of curiosity, I went and looked at the authoresses site and low and behold true to her word, I do not see any long copy at all but,…. I do see Flash. Arghh….
Here is a Flash on Flash for you. You should avoid Flash like the plague on your Website. I have been saying this for a couple of years now but, put in on your site now at your own peril. Especially now.
Steven Jobs of Apple has said they will not support Flash on any of their systems.
There are a couple of reasons why. One, it royally sucks for SEO or Search Engine Optimization purposes. Two, it is not all that elegant from a programming stand point, Three, several million iPad users won’t be able to view your site, nor will 50 million iPhones as a general rule and all new Apple systems will have to find outside resources to use it. How is that for a bunch of reasons? 🙂
It is kind of like Bell bottoms except Flash will not make a comeback or cost you business.
Anyway, hopefully you have learned something here. And just to give you some Short Copy in an appropriate manner. Long Copy is good, and Flash is bad.
OK, it is almost 1:00 AM and I had better put this post and myself in Bed misspellings and all. My old editor starts back next week thank God. Those of you who care greatly about spelling and grammar and such will be tortured less. 🙂
Have a Profitable Day!
Cheers,
Andrew “Easy” Anderson