When trying to write about your product or service, is it true that “Less is More?” Or did some lazy copywriter come up with that expression to save himself work? (See below for the presumed origin of the expression “Less is More.”)

The “Less is More” mantra is popular in marketing communication. You see minimalist print and television ads that are heavy on dramatic visuals and light on words. Postcards rather than 4-page letters arriving in the mail. Web sites with a few skinny paragraphs to the page. 

The “Less is More” strategy assumes that people are suffering from information overload and time constraints. Your prospects are flooded with information. No one has time to wade through it all. If you want your message to be noticed, you have to make an immediate impact; your copy has to be explosive as dynamite.

There is also an aura of style around “Less is More.” Short and sweet is sexy. Thin is in. On the darker side this style gives way to a sense of scarcity, as in the corporate mandate to “Do more with less.” That doesn’t sound nearly as sexy.

There’s also a logical component to the “Less is More” strategy: why use 20 words if 10 can do a better job? No one can argue with that logic.

Therefore the conclusion to draw is: Keep it short.

Well . . . not always.

The Oreo Approach

I can give you a sure-fire example when more is more: Double Stuffed Oreos. To be honest, I scoffed when I first saw them: the thick layer of white filling between the two svelte chocolate cookies seemed so out of proportion, so obscene. Then I tried one. Baby, more is more!

But does the Oreo approach work with words? 

In researching this column I came across an enthusiastic (and very long) list of tips for writing “killer direct mail copy.” One of them went something like this: don’t hold back a few benefits to satisfy some notion of ideal copy length. You might be just one benefit short from winning over a prospect, so be sure to get them all into your copy.

Hmm . . . maybe that tip makes sense. But the first question that comes to mind is this: If the first seven benefits you’ve written about don’t excite your prospect, do you really believe he’s still reading to find something that strikes a nerve? 

So Which is it: Less or More?

In a previous life I knew a marketer who was struggling to edit a lengthy piece that the CFO had written for the company’s annual report. 

“No one will ever read this,” the marketer pointed out. “We need to shorten it.”

The CFO said, “It’s never a question of too long or too short, it’s a question of compelling or not compelling.”

The CFO had a good point (even if she wasn’t a good writer). “Compelling or not compelling” is the essential question at hand; not “less or more.”

The challenge in marketing is to provide the exact amount of information your audience needs at any given stage of the communication or sales process — whether you are prospecting, presenting, demonstrating, or closing. 

If, at every step of the way, you are aware of what your audience already knows, and you also understand what they still need to know in order to move forward or make a decision, then you put yourself in position to write a compelling message. 

The compelling message might be a clever headline and high level benefit when you’re casting a wide net for prospects. It might be an exhaustive list of features and benefits when your hot lead is comparing you to one of your competitors. In all cases, the answer to the question of more or less depends on the needs of your audience. Only by understanding their needs can you rise above the world of word count and deliver a compelling message.

The Presumed Origin

The expression “Less is More” is generally attributed to the poet Robert Browning, who in 1855 used this line in a poem called “Andrea del Sarto.” The poem itself takes a “More is More” approach. The reference to “less is more” is in line 78.