Most marketers and copywriters preach about appealing to the consumers’ emotions but there are quite a lot of people out there who also justify their buying decisions logically. As you said, there are no rules. Sales pages will naturally be as long as it takes you to build your case. So long as marketers aren’t underestimating the consumer’s intelligence then it’s all good.

Here are five reasons long sales pages generate sales: http://done4yousalesletters.com/should-a-sales-letter-be-long-or-short/ I hope your readers find it useful.

Just stopping by to add some value to what is already an excellent post. I find that many people are confused by the differences between the website homepage, sales pages and landing pages.

Your post has some really good insight and analysis on sales pages that I haven’t seen elsewhere, but I feel it will get website owners motivated to create quality sales pages.

I wrote a blog post myself that simplifies what the concept of sales page is and their options for mass producing effective sales pages here:
http://www.bestseopluginforwordpress.com/what-is-a-sales-page/

Hopefully you will enjoy the post as well and keep up the spectacular writing!

Selling is all about keeping your target in mind. If it’s something that warrants a long page, and you have a lot of supporting evidence, then go for it!

Great write up Yaro, I think your message couldn’t be any more on point. And I read the whole thing!

I’m selling things that cost $4000+ how can you get people to make a decision to sign up so soon?

I mean if it is a freebie or a very simple product then yeah a short page would make sense.

But if you are buying something expensive or requires more logical fact finding (i.e. selling to engineers or a more logic-based audience) you not going to sign up straight away are you? unless you are well branded.

selling to engineers is different selling to teenagers

I see people have ‘preferences’ but that’s just emotional, a more scientific way of looking at this properly is testing for your market.

There isn’t much of one, since they went to the site on their own. They have shown some interest.

Reason = Not ‘enough’ information to get the potential buyer through their resistance zone… the bottom line is if they aren’t a market then no amount of words will “sell” them but if they are then insufficient information is a fatal error… having said that I haven’t seen very many good long copy letters since Gary Halbert passed away… most of the copy nowadays… even from the “famous” ones are poor imitations… copying the words and style nut not understanding the subject… funnily enough as we swing back to the 50′s style branding and image importance the impact of social media recommendations will make it moot anyway…

also slong sales page does turn people off(including me) but that does not mean the product sucks.as alreay mentioned by many people above that they look at the price and then decide to read it is a great idea for people like us who already know that these sales page are only trying to convince us and people like is who get turned off should look at price and then look at key points which are many times present in the form of bullets

its not that i love these pages… its just that it can contain valuable product effecient or inefficient is secondary thing.

so let me tell you something great
there are 2 types of people
one like us who are quite experienced and get turned off
and second are reletively newbies who are too much influenced by them

newbies tend to search such things more(specially in im niche)
and do buy things and they would never know anything like long sales page(although they are browsing it)
and so we see very little people in this blog who like them

finally good are bad doesnt matter what really matters is the product…the only thing you should interpret from the long sales page is that there is chance that they are bad

The majority wins.

That’s the bottom line, right there.

And of the ones who don’t mind long sales pages, they will still read the shorter version, which, most people want.

Because of this, there is no reason to “test,” and, in most cases, it does not matter which market you are in.

In addition to that, I would bet my last dollar that just about all who do read a long sales pages, skim read it; they will read sections of it.

So, why write all that fluff out?

So youcan cover all the bases?

That can be done with a short page too.

“Why Long Sales Pages Work.”

How ’bout we say: “In Most Cases, Long Sales Pages Are Not Necessary”?

I listen to the shoppers, and they have the final say over long or short copy.

Like the other poster said, many of your visitors’ attention span is low, especially on the Net.

The only exceptions would be: The price is much, MUCH higher, and, there are also free tips and pictures.

But, we don’t see too many of those types of long sales pages, now do we?

Secondly, long sales letters are something I don’t like and hence find it very difficult to craft one myself. However, I know they work very well depending on where you are applying it on.

But I am definitely not sure if the work for selling online here in India. They are directly compared to websites that are selling something shady.

Since I come the “video gaming” niche and am currently working on selling a “video gaming online course”, this is a question that is currently going on in my head. I might use video instead of a long sales page. Still working on it…

whenever i land on such a page … the first thing i do ( before even reading the title of the page ) is click on the little x in the top right corner .

i simply don’t believe in such things .

i’m like that in everything else as well . tv commercial , printed ad or anything else of the sorts .

bottom line is , in my oppinion , that when you need such a page … you’re trying to sell nothing .

show me what it can do . simple and to the point . don’t drag me through endless repetitions of the same text .

I don’t think the whole thing is about how much we hate them. It’s more about how much we trust them (or not). They do have the appearance of a scam – in many of the cases – and overdub the benefits of the product offered.

Nevertheless, they are a powerful resource of marketing, that when used correctly, they may increase the sales rate hugely.

I have a web design client that just loves long sales pages and created his sales page to out do most, I think.

His ebook sells for just under $100.00 and he makes sales every single day, most days multiple sales.

He knows the long sales page works and he believes it’s because he has something covered in his sales page for everyone.

I think I will send him Skellie’s link. That should get him started.

He also writes articles that are as lengthy as his sales page. I did manage to persuade him to cut them into three parts before publishing. Once he realized this would give him more links back to his sales page he was convinced.

Personally I am a slow reader and have to read things a couple of times to get it into my head that longer the text the more my head hurts.

When I visit a site that has a mile long sales page I do a couple of things. First I just have to know the price of what I am interested in, so I hunt down the price. If I feel the price is within my price range I will start scanning the page for benefits and of course features that will convince me even more.

So I very seldom ever read a lengthy page, just scan it for important points. I get enough info to make a decision to purchase or I pass.