Harvard Health Letter Sales Letter Landing Page Review

ARTICLE SNIPPET - Harvard Health Letter Mistakenly Opts Out of a Traditional Landing Page and Instead Uses a Simple Transaction Page Devoid of Selling Efforts in Their Attempt to Sell Their Newsletter

Harvard has opted not to use a traditional landing page to sell the Harvard Health Letter. Instead, the main sales page for the Harvard Health Letter is a minimal transaction page with the barest of copy and graphics, and is devoid of the selling effort one would normally expect when promoting a paid subscription publication online. Knowing the smart marketers at Harvard, we have to believe that this is a deliberate choice. As we recall, they don’t use this "bare minimum" approach in print promotions: their paper direct mail that we’ve seen consists of strong, long-copy sales letters that sell the publication and its benefits, and sell it hard.

Why then would they opt for this "bare bones" approach online? This review really addresses a broader, more important question: are online and offline copy fundamentally the same or fundamentally different?

When Internet marketing was in its infancy, many so-called Web gurus pushed the belief that the primary virtue required in online copywriting was brevity: if it’s short, it’s good. Using short copy online contrasts with the practice that direct marketers have of using long copy to sell publications. Direct marketers embrace long copy. Not because they like it but because, through tested experience, they know it works best for certain products and offers, such as newsletters and health care, and Harvard’s product is both.

Primary analysis of the Harvard Health Letter page is that the short, minimalist presentation is inadequate to do the selling job and the page should be tested against a standard, longer-copy landing page following direct response fundamentals and the established Mequoda principles.

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