I just finished reading Bill Tancer’s book Click: What We Do Online and Why it Matters. If you’re interested in web trends, search engine marketing, or you’re just curious about how people use the internet, it’s well worth a read.
Bill Tancer is the General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise. I had an account with Hitwise during my time as Online Group Senior Editor at Future Publishing, and I have to say it’s a great online intelligence service. Here in the UK they track traffic details of 8 million internet users (in the US it’s 10 million). That’s a big sample base.
Bill’s book Click shares many insights into online behaviour that he has gleaned from this valuable data. Highlights for me include:
- The mystery of why teenage girls start searching for Prom dresses in January, way before the Prom season in May.
- His insights into the celebrity worship syndrome that has driven so much traffic to the likes of PerezHilton and TMZ (I saw this phenomenon first hand when I worked on developing the MusicToob site).
- The single statistic that ‘How to…’ queries account for 3% of all search queries in the US.
- His insights into social media and the so-called ‘super connectors’ that can push aspiring music artists over the tipping point.
You can buy Click for a good price at Amazon and no doubt many other excellent places.
Have you read Click? Share your views in the comments below.
Giles Colborne’s post Why I Hate Instructions reminded me of a classic example of bad design I recently found at a restaraunt in Devon.
In this instance the instructions were necessary. This was because the mechanism for locking a bathroom door was totally unintuitive and unlike anything I’d seen before.
This should be a warning signal to a designer. If your door handle needs a note explaining how to use it, you know there’s got to be something wrong with the design.
This bathroom door handle needed a mesage to explain how to use it. The designer had managed to make locking a door something that required explanation.
While researching good examples of sales copy for my training session on Digital Publishing Strategy for the APA this week, I’ve re-encountered the debate about long copy in digital media.
Most usability studies suggest that short copy is best for web writing, due to information overload and the scanning behaviour of users online. However, it’s clear that there are still valid reasons for considering long copy for your marketing messages, and some marketers feel that this approach is best for online marketing success.
Long copy goes back decades, where it has traditionally been used in direct marketing and print advertising. In the early days of the web it was responsible for some monstrous sales pages, centred text splattered with yellow highlights, bright red links and aggressive calls to action. Nowadays long copy pages look much better, but the techniques haven’t changed.
The advantage of long copy is that you can showcase a single product in more detail by providing in-depth information on the following:
- Product benefits
- Differentiation
- Bonuses
- Elements of the offer
- Social proof
- Guarantees
This information provides credibility, offers reasons to buy and convinces the customer to make the purhcase.
So how effective is long copy online today? Back in 2004 Marketing Experiments did a study that showed that in an online test long copy outperformed short copy in terms of conversions. I’ve not seen any dedicated studies since then, but its continued use online suggests that long copy will never die. Marketing consultant Michel Fortin is a huge advocate, pointing out that all your pre-selling material is itself a form of long copy.
Naturally it’s all about using the right tools for the job. I agree with expert copywriter Brian Clark that testing different approaches is essential and the best advice is to go with whatever works.
In summary, I would still advise using short copy online as a general rule, but consider using long copy for the following:
- High priced products
- Luxury items
- Products with lots of features and benefits
- Unusual products
- Information products
- Unsought products (life insurance, investment products, etc)
Please let me know in the comments below about your own experience with long copy online.
