Short copy VS long copy, which one is better?
This is one of the most frequently asked people we’ve gotten from people who gets started with running ads on social media.
Opinions are split about this subject.
On one side, we got those who argue that since in today’s world with some money ads constantly appearing everywhere, every day, that the people’s attention span has been reduced so much, that short ads works better.
On the other hand, there are those who say that the problem with short ads is that the quality of the traffic you get form it might get you less qualified prospects than those who come through long advertisement, so they choose quality over quantity.
What’s our take on this?
The most important thing when choosing whether going with a direct approach (or not) is context.
You have to take into consideration the level or awareness and sophistication of the audience you’re targeting.
In order to make this concept easier to understand, let’s use an example…
Let’s say that you’re in the Sahara desert..
You see some travelers from other country in there who have been walking all day.
Since the travelers are tourists, and since they’re on the desert and there’s practically no competition, they probably haven’t seen much advertising about water in there, so their level of sophistication is low (so you don’t have to explain the mechanism of how your water was processed to convince them to buy your water), and since they’re very thirsty, they’re very aware or their problem, so if you just go to them, you won’t need too many words to convince them to buy your water. You just basically show them the water, tell them the price and they’ll buy with the direct approach.
Same thing happens with any other product that solves a pain point that people are very aware of, specially you’re first or second in the market to solve that problem, and if the product is low priced. That’s something that Todd Brown explains very well in his Marketing Funnel Engineering Grid (see image below):
Short ad copy is frequently used when selling physical products (like water bottles). In cases like these, people are aware of the problem they have (like thirst), and you’re selling product that con satisfy that problem; not a lot of words are needed for that.
Now, when you’re seeking clients for high ticket products/services, everything changes. Here it is way more common that your prospects are not so aware of the problem they have, and it is typical that the market is very sophisticated (which means that your audiences see a lot of ads from many competitors they can choose from), so it is natural at the time to make a big investment that they decide to think about it little bit more.
With that said, what can you do on those cases? You have several choices available. You can:
- Use long form copy in which your goal is to start creating trust and credibility
- Get help from advertorials (which basically are ads that are positioned as an informative article).
- Use videos in which you explain what you’re offering.
- Capture the contact info of your prospects in order start building trust with them them over time (following up really helps)
So, in summary, everything depends on the context. While you have this in mind, you’re advertising efforts will be way more effective.