What I mean is, isn't it better to get less--but more qualified prospects than gathering to all people -- the good, the bad and the ugly?

So how do you guys do it, short but sweet? Medium length, or long salesletters?

I seriously don't see any advantage with a short squeeze page more than that you have to explain more about your product AFTER they have opted-in..

Maybe it depends on the product, a software is probably good with a short opt-in squeeze page.. but other than that, no thanks for me!

What's the advantages with a short opt-in page?

Peace
Peace

Max,

Short pages... can be very effective depending on the reason for optin.

I've found if you are "giving away" a newsletter or course, it can be best to gather the names and do the selling later.

I've got a few clients right now where we get the optin with almost no copy. Just 1 screen or even just a video. But...

... the reason they're opting in is to receive a mini-course or newsletter. These become your further qualifiers. Over the series of 7-9 mailings of the course material, you have more and more opportunities to pitch.

Same with a newsletter.

So... when it comes to capturing names, it's my opinion that you give them just enough to hook them, and qualify them later when you have more time.

Too much copy and you'll lose the optin... Longcopy sales letters are far too long IMO to use for optin.

My rule is... Short... sweet... form above the fold... maybe even another screen or 2 below that, but don't make them work to optin.

I like what you say, but exactly how are you going to qualify them later, with a long salesletter or just by speaking to them in the mail or how?

Thx.

Peace
Peace

Dude,

Once you have their email you can pitch
to them however you want. Video, podcasts,
pdf's, long copy, short copy, emails, they are
all options.

Make your squeeze page too exhaustive and
you may never have a chance to utilize all of
these options.

What Jason said!

Yeah, good idea.. but how many more spam complaints do you think you will get? If any..

I'm still curious to know what others have to say about this, will the conversions actually increase?

Not spam, Max... They sign up for your newsletter or "course". And you give them content... but then you continue to try to get them to read your sales letter to buy whatever it is you're selling (related to the niche).

And no conversion won't go up. It will probably go down. But in the end, if you can write copy... sales will go up.

You market to them... You spam NO ONE.

If you're afraid to market to them, what the hell are you getting their email addresses for? Your christmas card list?

OKay, I'm getting it now... chill

Well, personally, I know would be more likely to sign up on a short page than a long page. If the page is too long, I'd most likely just leave before I get halfway down the page.

An opt-in page is to gather names for an e-mail list. The e-mails sent to the lsit are for selling products & services.

I've split-tested long versus short optins for a few sites, where it's principally offering email-seires + free report + other bonuses. I found long work better, but, I give them the option of opting immediatley, and in about four other places in the letter plus a pop up.

I see it as the best of both worlds. They can opt-in quickly, or exercise their discrimination and find out more.

I remembered something the late Gary Halbert said: it's just as hard to sell them something for free, as it is to sell them something that costs.

Anyways, so far, my tests show long, with many places to opt-in converts better than short. But the difference wasn't dramatic. But, even a 5% increase, can be significant if you optin level is already high.

Just to clarify: I'm not talking about qualifying then (though that's probably a natural byproduct) but of just allowing those who need more motivation/information to have it. It also, I think, looks a little more credible when there's a lot of testimonials praising what they'll get for free if they opt-in. I usually track down testimonials specific to emails/bonsuses/etc. for the opt-in page.

John