Why your information products don't sell...

Most folks try to sell them with the "interminably long sales letter" web page.

I went to evaluate someone's site today and ran into a huge long sales letter (and remember, what we're looking for is actually at the bottom of the letter.) Since I was asked for advice, I started reading.. .and reading... and my eyes crossed.. .and reading...

Then I gave up.

I put the text into a clip file and pasted it into Microsoft Word and said "just how long is this thing" The answer was 7,000 words.

Now, you read printed material a lot more quickly than you do material presented on a computer. I've been doing some speed reading courses lately and clock myself -- even if I was reading at my paper-only reading speed (600 words per minute) it would take me 10 minutes to get through the document. Most folks read at half that speed, so Joe Average has to sit and slog through a sales letter for 20 minutes.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I get bored with commercials after about 30 seconds.

I know folks swear by that long sales letter, but I honestly think it only works on the pool of people who are trained to expect good value from sites that offer long sales letters.

IMHO, of course.