I got an email the other day from a student of mine who wanted to know why his online sales letters were bombing. When I took a look at his strategy, the answer was obvious.

You see, what he was doing was sending a long-winded sales email that then sent them to a website with a long copy sales letter.

And I told him to take his email, chop it down into one or two sentences and then send them to his website.

In other words, send out a short email briefly describing the benefit of what you are selling in an enticing and teasing way...and let that send them to your long sales letter.

Reason why this works so well is because if your short copy does its job -- gets them interested and wanting to know more -- it will be much easier for them to take the time to read your long copy letter without clicking away or getting distracted.

In fact, people who make it to your letter with this strategy will be more likely to stay. They will be interested. And when you're talking to people interested in what you're saying there is no such thing as "too long" of copy.

It's true.

We know this because studies have shown time and again that with a long copy message readership falls off dramatically after 50 words. But between 50 words and 1,000 words there’s hardly any drop off at all.

The people who don’t care will weed themselves off. The people who do care will want to learn everything they can.

So really, when it comes to selling online, it's all about how much information a person needs to buy and getting that information to them in a way that is easy for them to read, digest and respond to. In fact, one person I read put it this way: