Sell Like Crazy

Really? Let me tell you this….

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Only Marketing Morons Believe That
No One Reads Long-Form Copy
You might think that no one in today’s day and age reads long-form copy.
But the truth is, when it comes to making sales, long-form copy will beat
short-form copy every single time. I’ve spent $30 million dollars on
generating traffic and running thousands of scientific split tests, and I can
tell you without a shadow of doubt that long-form copy works.
With one caveat: The copy must be entertaining and engaging. You can’t
simply write long copy and think that it’s going to make your prospect buy.
With that said, when your copy is entertaining, people won’t care how long
it is.
You might still be saying, ‘But who reads all that text?’
The buyers are the ones who read it. They are the ones who have all the
burning questions, the ones who are looking for answers. The people who
aren’t going to read your copy aren’t going to buy in any case. So would
you rather gear your copy towards those who are never going to buy, or
would you rather convert more of the people who are deep in research
mode, genuinely interested in buying, and looking to be pushed over the
edge? The answer should be very, very simple.
The approach used by Merrill Lynch was brilliantly effective for several
reasons: it created goodwill in their marketplace by giving something of
value away for free before ever asking for anything. Over the years, this
approach has been reskinned and renamed many times, from permission-
based marketing to content marketing. However, it’s not the name or the
specific tactics that you should be concerned with, rather the overarching
strategy that makes it so effective.
You see, it appeals to the exact segment of the market you want because
your message rises above the noise that’s created by loudness, hype, and the

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general lameness of your competition. If all your marketing consists of you
screaming, ‘Buy my stuff!’ then you’re only appealing to a fraction of your
potential buyers and you’re missing out on a huge percentage of the total
number of potential buyers in your market.
This is a great reminder that the job of an ad is not to sell but to create
intrigue and get the prospect to raise their hand and say, ‘I’m interested’.