People make claims about how excessive long copies are and then complain about why their conversions suck. Here’s the thing about conversion. Customers need to be sold enough to take buying action.

Emphasis on the word “enough”. It’s safe to say that short form copies are not persuasive enough to drive conversions. The reason being the lack of decision-making information for the customers. In the end, they read and bounce.

You should write long-form copies whenever you can because they convert two types of buyers. One, low action threshold buyers. Two, high action threshold buyers.

Long-form copies satisfy both types of buyers since they provide complete information for conversions to take place. But there’s a catch. You need to write something worth reading.

It starts from your writing

Good copywriting comes from good writing. That’s self-explanatory. Before you can write to persuade, you need to be able to write with clarity. Clarity leads to persuasion. Keep that in mind.

Many copywriters fear long-form copies because they would appear boring to the readers. Let me tell you something. If you still have this mindset, you have a long way to go in the world of copywriting. No amount of copy is too long if the reader is interested in what’s being written.

Organized structure

The old way of writing is obsolete. You know…where you elaborate one main point for a whole paragraph. Copywriters shouldn’t write like that.

Copywriters should write as if they are talking or explaining something to someone. We call that conversational copy and it works very well for me at the moment.

Good copywriting is an organized structure of ideas. That is why you’re still reading. I wrote in a way that keeps you reading, no matter how long the article will be. In other words, I structured my ideas in a manner that relates to the previous sections.

Once you start reading the first sentence, you are likely to continue reading until you’re distracted or you finish this article.

Concise sentences

I know you have a lot to talk about. But avoid talking too much in a sentence. Our human brains can only take up so much in one go.

It’s always a good practice to break down your sentences to make them concise and readable. The job of your copy is not to talk or babble. Its job is to convey the most important information about your product or service.

Copywriting is salesmanship in print. It’s best to avoid using compound sentences or long sentences in one paragraph. These types of sentences are the number one reason for boring copies.

You don’t talk non-stop when you’re talking with your friends, right? The same goes for your copy. Break them down, simplify them, and give your readers mini-breaks between sentences.

Words with power

Do you know what is the biggest weapon of a copywriter? Words. Copywriters write words that can evoke certain emotional responses within the readers. It’s hard to explain in words so I’ll give you a comparison to illustrate my point.

“Demand generation is now about generating revenue, not just leads. It’s also a much more strategic endeavor than it used to be because of the amount and type of information available in today’s marketing environment and how quickly that data can change with new developments or trends happening at any time.”

vs

“Demand generation is about revenue, not just leads. With the absurd amount of information available on the Internet, demand generation has become a sought-after marketing strategy across industries. It’s changing at a rapid pace with many existing developments and trends in the marketplace.”

Can you feel the impact of words? I’m certain you did. That’s the power of words.

The build-up method

You see…novels have hundreds of pages, tens of thousands of words, and people still read them. Why is that? It’s because each consecutive chapter is correlated to either the plot or the previous chapters. That’s how novel writers hook their readers.

There are three effective techniques that you can use to keep your readers reading no matter how long your copy is. I call it the “build-up method”. You want readers to start from the first sentence and build up the reading momentum so high they cannot stop. And this is how you do it.

Connect those train of thoughts

Take this article for example. Every section is somehow connected. Together, they make up a relatively long article. You don’t see any section breaking off from this chain of interrelated ideas just to talk about my life story. Never.

Even if I wanted to talk about it, I would make sure the idea fits into the topic. So what you’re trying to do here is basically stacking up ideas on top of each other. Combine this technique with your writing skills, your readers will have a hard time trying to skip sections.

Every time you start a new section, it must be a new but related idea. Either to the previous section or to the whole topic in general. That’s how you build up reading momentum. It’s also how novels and tv series are so addicting.

Polish your paragraphs relentlessly

You have to be strategic when it comes to your paragraphs. You don’t start a new paragraph just because you feel like it. You start a new paragraph to either make it more readable or to apply cliffhangers (more on this later).

Your paragraphs don’t need to be short but they can’t be too long. It’s not readable if they are too long.

One way to keep your paragraphs tidy is to limit them to 4 to 5 sentences. That way you don’t overwrite and your paragraphs stay readable. Another way to keep them readable is to use active voice more often.

Because we speak in an active voice, readers tend to relate to it better when they read. Most of my sentences in this article are in active voice.

The last tip, make your paragraph interesting to read by varying your sentence length. Use short sentences always. Use longer ones if you need to explain something in detail. This will keep your readers’ minds engaged. Monotonous copies are super boring.

Use cliffhangers to hook them

Cliffhangers are anything that evokes the reader’s sense of curiosity about something. If you notice, I use cliffhangers throughout this article. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading up to this point.

Cliffhangers have a pulling power that keeps the reader engaged in your copy. That’s why they are so powerful and effective.

If I only vary the length of my sentences and use active voice to write, it’ll still lack that pulling power. Cliffhangers give readers a reason to continue reading despite the article’s length.

This is because the human mind is hardwired to quench our thirst for knowledge. In other words, we are curious beings by nature. We want to know what we don’t know.

And cliffhangers give that effect to your readers — the momentum to keepreading to find out what’s next.

Trust me, it’s really hard to stop when something keeps pulling you towards a certain direction, especially in a long-form copy. By the time you realize, you have reached the end of the article.

Some examples of cliffhangers I used:

• But there’s a catch. You need to write something worth reading.
• You want readers to start from the first sentence and build up the reading momentum so high they cannot stop. And this is how you do it.
• Many copywriters fear long-form copies because they would appear boring to the readers. Let me tell you something.
• Here’s the thing about conversion.

Final words

Long-form copies are the god of conversions. Only if you know how to write it. I’m making this statement not because I wanted to, but because I have seen results.

Long-form copies give the readers the confidence they need to convert if they are interested in converting. So embrace long-form copies.