In this talk at Learn Inbound (Oct 2016), Joanna Wiebe talks through case studies for ecommerce and SaaS emails. The common theme among the studies? The winning copy was 2 to 3x longer than the control. Watch and download - and get your team on board with using more words to create high-converting websites and emails.

1. GO LONG
How to Write
Uncomfortably Long and
Stunningly High-Converting
Copy
Joanna Wiebe @copyhackers

2. COPY IS
Joanna Wiebe @copyhackers
TOO
F**KING
SHORT
YOUR

3. You’ve got 10 seconds to
leave an impression
and tell visitors what
they’ll get.
@copyhackers
- NN Group

4. The average visitor
spends 15 seconds on
your website.
@copyhackers
- Someone trying to derail things in a webinar

5. So?
@copyhackers

6. We’re not trying to
convert the average
visitor.
@copyhackers

7. When you use data points like that to
influence what you write or don’t write
on your website and in your emails,
@copyhackers
you murder copy.

8. “BE
MORE
AVERAGE!!!”

9. Don’t murder your
online salesperson.
(That’d just be bad
business.)
@copyhackers

10. I’m not saying
you should do
this:

11. I’m saying you
should not do
this:
Put everything
in a video
Make images
do the lifting
all alone

12. You should not
do this:
Cram all your
copy into an
unreadable
lump

13. And you should
not do this:
Summarize
everything in
as few words
as possible

14. You’re not average.
You’re just trying
so hard to be.
@copyhackers

15. As many as 60% of sales are
lost to“no decision.”
Source: CorporateVisions.com
@copyhackers

16. So the real threat is i n e r t i a.
@copyhackers

17. “I’ll just keep doin’
what I’m doin’,
thanks.”
@copyhackers
-Your visitor

18. What if we forget about
word count… and you
try to convert just 1
person?
@copyhackers

19. Roses are red,
Violets are blue -
Donate to a teacher
With the same name as you.
@copyhackers

20. Dear Joanna -
Roses are red,
Violets are blue -
Donate to a teacher
With the same name as you.
Mr. Wiebe
French novels for his junior high students.
$68 remaining
Donate to Mr. Wiebe’s project
3x more likely to give to a project
Gave 3x as much
Reactivated lapsed donors
Source: Donors Choose Annual Review 2014 - 15
@copyhackers

21. @copyhackers
“That’s me!”

22. @copyhackers
“That’s me!”

23. @copyhackers
“That’s me!”

24. This doesn’t mean that
using someone’s name
is a silver bullet.
@copyhackers

25. It just means that we’re
overwhelmed with messages we
have to make sense of.
AKA noise.
@copyhackers

26. 1986: 2,000 ad messages a day
Sources: Research firm Yankelovich, in the NYT. Marketo at Uberflip Experience.
2016: 5,000 ad messages a day
We recognize 50. We remember 4.

27. “PEOPLE DON’T READ ONLINE”

28. How could the answer
be to write MORE copy?
@copyhackers

29. “Save time
and money”
@copyhackers

30. Summarized, timid and vague messages make you
1 of the 4996
@copyhackers

31. To be 1 of the 4
that stick,try this:
use your words
@copyhackers

32. Your copy is too
fucking short.
Your prospects
NEED your
words.
• Help your visitor visualize
• Make concepts concrete
• Answer your own questions
• Spell out those summaries
• Show your visitor herself on the page

33. We tested 2 home pages
that were approximately
the same length.

34. But Variation B replaced
summaries with real detail.

35. Help me visualize
CONTROL VARIATION B

36. Make concepts concrete
CONTROL VARIATION B

37. Answer your own questions
CONTROL VARIATION B

38. Spell it out
CONTROL VARIATION B

39. Variation B beat the
control by 108% (paid lift).

40. Then we ran a second test
against the new winning
control.

41. So while the product
was the hero in the
control…
In the new treatment,
the visitor became the
hero…

42. (Delaying the product reveal is
uncomfortable for every online business
on the planet.)

43. We used a PAS
framework. This let us
dig into the details and
get specific.

44. The new variation beat the
high-performing control by
49% (paid lift).

45. “Make it about me”

46. An 8-email series that brought in 3.5x the paid conversions
@copyhackers

47. coincidental
insignificant
short copy
3.5x @copyhackers

48. CONTROL (EM 2)
18% is a lot. That’s the improvement in
play rate that Wistia customers see by
customizing the color of their video
player appearance to reflect their
company branding on their website. It’s
that easy.
Get more plays on your videos by
customizing your player colors.
Customize your player

49. “I’ll just keep doin’
what I’m doin’,
thanks.”
@copyhackers
-Your trial user

50. VARIATION B (EM 2) We saw 18% more people
click “play” when we did
this Joanna
We customized the color of our video
players.
That's all it took to get nearly 20% more
views of our videos.
The Wistia video player defaults to grey.
Which is nice. But grey.
So why stick with grey when you can go
with hot pink... or dollar-bill green... or,
well, Wistia Blue? Take a look:
copyhackers-customize.jpg
You can change a video's player color in
2 clicks in Wistia
Getting 18% more views is pretty major.

51. VARIATION B (EM 2)
Videos that used to get 100 views a day
now get 118 views a day. In a month,
that's an extra 500+ vides. And it only
takes something like 11 seconds to
make this very simple but very powerful
change to your videos...
Sounds really easy - I want to change my
video player color now
PS: Watch this to see how to optimize
your videos in Wistia...

52. Make concepts concrete
CONTROL VARIATION B

53. Spell it out
CONTROL VARIATION B

55. Meet Wistia customer ZeeBlu
There are a lot of creative ways to grow
your business with video. Collecting
email addresses is an easy way to fill
your database with sales-ready leads.
We thought you’d enjoy reading how
ZeeBlu, a digital marketing firm, collects
leads with video for their client (the
Santa Barbara Chicken Ranch) and uses
coupons to connect with their
customers.
Want to collect leads with your
videos?
Upgrade to a Wistia Pro Plan and use
Turnstile in your videos.
CONTROL (EM 3)

56. @copyhackers

57. Without the pic,
what would your brain see?
@copyhackers

58. Words are supposed to
create pictures.
@copyhackers

59. Words are supposed to
engage our imagination.
@copyhackers

60. The greatest thing you have
working for you is not the photo
you take or the picture you paint;
it’s the imagination of the
consumer. They have no
budget, they have no time limit,
and if you can get into that
space, your ad can run all day.
Don Draper
Season 6,Episode 4
@copyhackers

61. Video marketing with Wistia
turns viewers into leads
What if you could double your leads
without doubling your PPC spend...
...without doubling your content
production...
...without doing anything more than
switching on Wistia Turnstiles?
When we stopped using on-page lead-
generation forms and started using
video turnstiles, we went from a 6%
conversion rate to an 11% conversion
rate. That's nearly double the leads.
Without any extra effort.
"Sounds great," you say, "but what on
VARIATION B (EM 3)

62. earth is a Turnstile?"
This, my friend, is a Turnstile:
{{turnstile gif}}
It's a really elegant content gate in
Wistia. Here's how it turns your
marketing and demo videos into Lead
Collection Machines:
1. Prospects land on your page.
2. They see your video front and center,
not squished next to an ugly form.
3. They click play.
4. They watch.
5. And then, just at that moment when
you're about to reveal an incredible
data point or the climax of a killer
story, voila! The Turnstile appears...
6. You can add a Turnstile at the
beginning of a video. At the end. Or
at an exact point on your timeline.
And anywhere you embed the video - on
VARIATION B (EM 3)

63. any page or any site - you can collect
leads.
Where do all those leads go? We've got
over a dozen one-click integrations. So
you can send leads straight to your
email provider, like MailChimp,
Infusionsoft or Emma. Or to your CRM,
like HubSpot.
Grow your list.
Fill your CRM.
Let your marketing videos do the work
they're meant to do.
@copyhackers
VARIATION B (EM 3)

64. Help me visualize
CONTROL VARIATION B

65. In almost every case,
the winning email copy
was 2 to 3x as long as
the control
@copyhackers

66. “I’m not afraid to
read.Just make me
want to.”
@copyhackers
-Your prospect

67. Generalized,summarized
and vague messages don’t
work.Long or short.
@copyhackers

68. Your copy is too
fucking short.
Your prospects
NEED your
words.
If it doesn’t pass the Closed Eyes Test,
rewrite it until it does.
If there are dots to connect, connect
them.
If there’s a question on the page,
question it.
And if your brand name or the words
“we” or “I” lead a sentence, rewrite it to
lead with “you.”

69. Use your words.
@copyhackers

70. They’re free.
In unlimited quantities.
@copyhackers

71. THANKS!
Here’s what you should do now:
1. Rewrite at least 1 email
2. Write everything better at airstory.co
3. Come say “hi”
@copyhackers