I don’t write long copy because I like long copy.
I write long copy… because that’s what works.
You start at the beginning of your sales message… cover the points your prospect needs to hear in order to make a decision… urge him toward the right decision (buy your stuff)… and close with panache.
When you can do that in a few terse sentences, or in a single brief whiz-bang video, let me know. I’ll be right on your heels with my next pitch.
After almost three decades in the front-line trenches of business — slogging through the fog and chaos of multiple technological upheavals — I’m not holding my breath, though.
Still, the nature of business requires flexibility.
And, curiously, this is NOT an age-related thing.
At both seminars, I encountered wizened old farts who were cleaning up online, totally hip to every cutting-edge burp and tweak of the Technology Beast… and I met bright young business would-be-wizards who couldn’t ossify and wall themselves up in a cave fast enough.
And vice versa, of course.
The guys, young and old, who were making it work were flexible jaguars, alert and eager to learn. The ones wandering off into the desert — young and old — were dogmatic dinosaurs, unable to change even when the case for change couldn’t be more obvious.
Two quick examples: (1) I met several too-young-to-be-considering-suicide online biz owners who were, indeed, considering some form of suicide… because the Google Slap of last summer ruined their only business plan. Without the easy traffic of unchallenged Adwords, they became depressed and sleepy and unable to adjust.
Get a grip.
(2) I also recently critiqued a direct mail letter that looked like it’d been written in the early 1970’s, fossilized, and put somewhere safe from every single change that’s happened to advertising since Jobs and Woz wandered bleary-eyed from their garage-lab, giddy with success.
I didn’t even bother getting into the copy — instead, I gave the mailer a focused little pep talk about what had transpired since the digital explosion.
The basic rule is simple and eloquent: Things change.
And most folks resist change. Yes, that super-tight polyester disco-era leisure suit in the back of your closet may yet come back into vogue… but nearly every aspect of successful advertising has moved along at a brisk clip.
The days of easy traffic online are now as quaint as the days when having a toll-free 800 number was an exotic luxury. Ancient history.
The good news: It’s actually fun to stay hip and wired into the cutting edge.
There never was a rule dictating that the adventure and excitement had to stop in your life after a certain expiration date.
The key is simply to stay loose and alert, like a jaguar. The action is still hot and heavy at the front lines, as it always has been and always shall be.
And if you need a little help finding your way through the fog and chaos of the rear ranks… well, that’s what guys like me are for.
We live in exciting times. I understand the urge to go hide under the covers… but I also know the thrill of going mano-a-mano with the great Technology Beast, and winning.
Grrr.
Stay frosty…
John Carlton, http://www.marketingrebelrant.com/
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