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[nop_90]

hzzp://    instantsqueezepagegenerator.com
hzzp://    www.10minutesqueezepages.com

I notice all of these "marketing pages" seem to be of the same design.
The "10 mile long page"

Why are they in this format ?
Is this format effective ? (I am guessing that it is effective, or else they would not do it).

[kurdt]

Why are they in this format ?

Because it's a sales letter and direct marketers are usually not so good with computers. What I mean by this is that these type of sites try to replicate direct mailing's sales letter format. There's age old battle between short sales letter and long sales letter. In direct mailing long has been tested & proven to be more effective.

Now there's been some movement to sideways sales letter which is smarter way to do it. You might know it also as Product Launch Formula by Jeff Walker. The product is about launches but the idea can be replicated with autoresponders to all prospects after launch. The idea is that first you only capture contact info, then you start sending content frequently and behind the scenes you are just sending pieces of sales letter. The formula works really well and at least according to buddy buddy gurus it's responsible for well over $50 million in revenues.

Is this format effective ? (I am guessing that it is effective, or else they would not do it).

Well that's a bit tricky question. It all comes to demographics. This type of webpage for selling IS effective, to not tech savvy people. You can usually expect about 3-5% conversion with "normal" price products ($19-40). However evolution of webpages has been constantly shaping our perception of "normal webpage" so when webpages were static, these kind of long sales letter pages were so called normal pages. Now in my opinion their effectiveness is probably in decline because they don't look like normal webpage with easy shortcut navigation etc. Funny thing is that usually people who are not interested in the topic and maybe are marketers say always that "nobody has time to read those things". The truth is that if you are interested in that topic or you have a problem that product might solve, you are going to read at least some parts of "the letter".

Selling to tech savvy people is a completely new form or marketing art. I don't think there has been as critical, cynical and resourceful people around ever before. So if you have something to sell, you have to do it very covertly and emphasize tech specs that support your "why it's better than competitors" claims. Usually marketers just do the claims but don't back it up or just show tech specs... that doesn't work so well with tech savvy people.

And why people do that kind of pages? Well that's because they go to WarriorForum.com or read some marketing guru who says those are the best converting. Truth is that many of these marketing gurus are very, very good at selling but they lack in tech side and in my opinion there's not one internet marketing guru who actually uses web to it's full potential.

Also another thing that almost all marketing people except those who are really successful forgot is test, test and test. You should have always at least two different versions of your sites doing A/B testing to determine which is better. Thru evolution you'll find what works best.

[nutballs]

I think kurdt is sort of right but...

Notice that eyebleeders only are used for products or services that can only be sold by way of lying.
For example, weightloss. Do they work, not really. Can I convince you they do? If your fat and desperate, yes.

Try making an eye bleeder for a product that actually works. You can't it actually takes away from the product.

Kurdt is right that it comes from Direct Mail. Though, again, only direct mail that is predatory.
A good product with good design and good marketing call to action, will far outperform an eyebleeder for the same.

I think it boils down to a very simple mantra.
If your going to lie, lie big.

[nop_90]

Hmmmm still pondering
Thanx

[kurdt]

Notice that eyebleeders only are used for products or services that can only be sold by way of lying.
For example, weightloss. Do they work, not really. Can I convince you they do? If your fat and desperate, yes.

Try making an eye bleeder for a product that actually works. You can't it actually takes away from the product.

Kurdt is right that it comes from Direct Mail. Though, again, only direct mail that is predatory.
A good product with good design and good marketing call to action, will far outperform an eyebleeder for the same.

I think it boils down to a very simple mantra.
If your going to lie, lie big.

I don't know man... in my opinion you are sorta right and sorta not

There's a lot of products that work but are marketed by god awful pages because god awful pages are not made by product, they are made by marketers. Some marketers are so elitist towards this old direct marketing style that they automatically discard more modern websites with many reasons like "navigation distracts the prospect" and they don't even test.

One of the things I have learned during my internet marketer years is that you should never believe your own eye. I'm perfectionist in graphics and in presentation. If something isn't perfectly aligned, it's going to drive me crazy and I speak about 1px alignments here. BUT what I have noticed is that I'm usually wrong when it comes to what presentation sells the best. By experience I know the best starting templates but I usually always guess wrong which one of my A/B is going to win, that's why I test everything and that's why I win. I even wish I could write two replies to you right now and test which one conveys my point better. I'm very thankful for Taguchi methods, they speed up the process A LOT.

Anyway, my point is that what you might see as bad might be the best converting page for that product. I just hope you are not doing the newbie mistake which is to mix the feeling of using marketing strategies with guilt from selling a bad product. That's the exact reason why more experienced marketers always say that you really have to choose your products carefully.

[nop_90]

I am interested in other members view points on the subject.

One of the things I have learned during my internet marketer years is that you should never believe your own eye. I'm perfectionist in graphics and in presentation. If something isn't perfectly aligned, it's going to drive me crazy and I speak about 1px alignments here. BUT what I have noticed is that I'm usually wrong when it comes to what presentation sells the best. By experience I know the best starting templates but I usually always guess wrong which one of my A/B is going to win, that's why I test everything and that's why I win. I even wish I could write two replies to you right now and test which one conveys my point better. I'm very thankful for Taguchi methods, they speed up the process A LOT.

I have that problem a lot. What my "gut instinct" tells me should work for convincing people is usually wrong. Also I can drive myself crazy about little things that probably do not matter. This is what has happened right now. I have a "product" to sell, but the landing page has driven me crazy .

Anyway, my point is that what you might see as bad might be the best converting page for that product. I just hope you are not doing the newbie mistake which is to mix the feeling of using marketing strategies with guilt from selling a bad product. That's the exact reason why more experienced marketers always say that you really have to choose your products carefully.

Well on the bright side I have overcome that minor problem. First products i "sold" where online adult dating rubbish. To my surprise people actually purchase said rubbish.
I have come to the conclusion that 99% of all consumers are morons and sub-consciously they want to be duped.
I agree with choosing products part carefully. Much better to sell "Vote for GWB t-shirts" as opposed to "Vote for someone sensible".

For the "Vote for someone sensible" T-shirt, the demographic is probably atheist or agnostic who are naturally skeptical, these people are generally speaking much harder to dupe.
The "Vote for GWB" crowd generally speaking already believe in the "Mentally unstable invisible dictator in the sky", so they will be much easier for dupe. My product would actually benefit them. These people might give thier $$$$ to some horrid TV evangalist etc. It is much better i spend the money on booze, floozy bar-girls etc, as opposed to some TV evangalist. I know it is hard but i always try and make the world a better place .

Anyway it is my moral duty to find the best ways to seperate sheeple from thier $$$$. I hate in-efficiency
 

[rcjordan]

>predatory
>Notice that eyebleeders only are used for products or services that can only be sold by way of lying.
>Try making an eye bleeder for a product that actually works. You can't it actually takes away from the product.


All generally true, but....

A group of web marketers (nicks you'd likely know) were once asked to consult on a proposed sales site for a new techy, subscription-based, whitehat product. The product worked well, so no need to lie. The company had some direct marketers in its management/ownership and they eventually overruled the web marketers' high-road suggestion and went with the eyebleeder.  Sad to say for those who had faith that the veg-o-matic sales pitch would be shunned, it worked incredibly well from the git-go.  This was about 4 years ago. I was given an update about a month ago and the company has been raking in the BIG bucks --though once they achieved critical mass they did tone down the site.

Looking a why it worked, I think it was because the field was relatively new (video and podcast advertising) but the customers --usually marketers themselves, such as real estate firms-- sensed it was the next-big-thing. They were looking for assurances that their own hunches were right and that this product was a turnkey solution. The eyebleeder pounded on that theme over and over.

[isthisthingon]

Anyway it is my moral duty to find the best ways to seperate sheeple from thier $$$$. I hate in-efficiency

 

I wish I had numbers and facts for you nop, but this is just guesswork.  A squeeze page would probably be more effective when (as you mentioned) the reader simply wants to believe what you're selling will work and yet does not want to be responsible for verifying all the facts for themselves.  So for online dating I'd think a few sexy enough shots of girls-gone-wild on a clean set of pages would do the trick.  But a miracle 24hr hair loss restoration kit??  Squeeze page!! 

Chemistry kit for your nephew's x-mas present?  Safety and smiling kid in one page.  Discount time-travel machine?  Squeeze page!!  Learn Spanish in 24 hours?  Big breasted hispanic girl on a clean one-page promise ad and/or a squeeze page   Common sense tells me that if obscuring information or appearing to have more solid evidence backing up a sketchy product than actually exists is important than a squeeze page fits the bill.  But if the product sells itself, like mail-order brides, then just display the product that already provides what people want 

Not very helpful I know but you did say you wanted to hear opinions form others on the Cache 

[isthisthingon]

A group of web marketers (nicks you'd likely know) were once asked to consult on a proposed sales site for a new techy, subscription-based, whitehat product. The product worked well, so no need to lie. The company had some direct marketers in its management/ownership and they eventually overruled the web marketers' high-road suggestion and went with the eyebleeder.  Sad to say for those who had faith that the veg-o-matic sales pitch would be shunned, it worked incredibly well from the git-go.  This was about 4 years ago. I was given an update about a month ago and the company has been raking in the BIG bucks --though once they achieved critical mass they did tone down the site.

Not sure what this whitehat product is.  But if it has anything to do with SEO then I'd say the eyebleeder would work, since SEO is something that everyone wants but hardly anybody knows how to achieve.  Drowning viewers with TMI just assists in the process of putting our brains to sleep so we can trust-fall with our wallets into the arms of those who will "SEO" us into profitability 

[nop_90]

I wish I had numbers and facts for you nop, but this is just guesswork. 
......
Not very helpful I know but you did say you wanted to hear opinions form others on the Cache 

All of the views are very helpful.

@kurdt
He mentioned tech savy users. IMHO these are a minority of consumers.
Probably the failure of linux, freebsd etc into the general market can be directly blamed on these people.
A linux distro page will generally speaking deal with "facts". Also speaking for myself personally, we have little loyalty per say. As in if product XYZ is technically better then ABC we will switch to XYZ. This is not "normal" behaviour.

Lack of facts and figures .... No problem.
Bottom line is only one way to figure out if something will work is to try it out.

Basically i became interested because of SEO. I noticed that very small things can impact conversion rates alot.
Along the way in my studies i found
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bloggers/satoshi-kanazawa
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bloggers/dan-ariely

I like satoshi the best. He does not wrap his findings in "morality" etc.
But these guys are theorists.
Kinda like Einstein, he comes up with the theories etc.
But it is the engineer who implements Einsteins ideas into practical things.

Also in a mathematical world the environment is "binary" as in true or false, it is an artificial world.
In the real world, it is analog.

[nutballs]

Right rc.
I think we are all agreeing though that it is a function of target audience and product type?
Obviously eyebleeders would work for a legit product, which actually works as advertised, but may be that the target audience is the eye bleeder type. Also I wonder if all of these could be sold more effectivly with a well designed, brief, focused message. It's probably more hinged on target audience than product quality. The stuff my wife does for example would never effectivly be promoted via bleeder, not that she our marketing partner would ever even consider it anyway.

[isthisthingon]

Obviously eyebleeders would work for a legit product, which actually works as advertised, but may be that the target audience is the eye bleeder type.

   Well put, nuts.

[rcjordan]

>we are all agreeing though that it is a function of target audience and product type?

We ARE agreeing, nb, ...but I think we should note that we are likely doing so because of our own bias against the hard sell.  If you were to search on 'ugly sells' and my nick you'd find that I have a long history of rubbing web designers' noses in this topic.  But while I know that the hard sell works, even I can't bring myself to produce a Vegas Strip page.

>The stuff my wife does for example would never effectivly be promoted via bleeder

I wonder, though. Could it?  (I didn't bring this topic up while seated next to her at Greasewood Flats 'cause I didn't want a beer in my lap.)

> not that she or our marketing partner would ever even consider it anyway

BINGO!  That's what I see more often than split-testing, the rejection of bleeders because we find them so distasteful.  As mentioned above, though I've done a lot of UGLY in my time, even I won't do a bleeder ...to my loss?

[nutballs]

true true on all counts.

But I do think that there are many things where a bleeder is not nearly as effective.

to use an extreme example.
A used car = bleeder.
Ferrari = no way in hell will a bleeder work.

To use personal experience.
Software that will name your computer "run faster" = bleeder
100k+ Virtualization solutions for datacenters = no way.

Though, technically, there are a lot of bleeder aspects to the virtualization stuff we promote. Its just thats at the "whitepaper" level for the nerds. The execs get a couple pretty graphs and see the words "save millions" or "more efficient" or lately "save by being green".

[Bompa]

Interesting to hear these views.

I think of the mile long sales page as the online version of TV's 30 minute infomercial.

true true on all counts.

But I do think that there are many things where a bleeder is not nearly as effective.

to use an extreme example.
A used car = bleeder.
Ferrari = no way in hell will a bleeder work.

I wonder.

If we tried to sell a Ferrari with the typical squeeze page, it would certainly
undermine the product, but, if the squeeze page had multiple pictures of
a Ferrari (with a sexy girl leaning on it), a video of a Ferrari excelerating up
a steep, winding mountain road, etc etc, ie packing the Ferrari-emotions
onto the page, it might sell like crazy.

I think buyers buy on emotions.  Though sometimes the emotions are kept
under hat.  Everyone wants to proud of their purchases.  No matter what.

Bompa