A couple days ago, I saw a little study titled, “Best Font for Online Reading.”
Spoiler: there’s no clear answer.
One font, Garamond, allowed the fastest reading speed on average.
But that’s just on average. Not every person read fastest with Garamond. Another font, Franklin Gothic, proved to be the fastest font for the most people, though the average reading speed was lower than Garamond.
So is it time to change your sales page font to Garamond? Or Franklin Gothic?
Or maybe even to Open Sans — the font that came in last in terms of reading speed?
There is an argument to be made for having people be able to read your copy faster. If they get through your copy more quickly and easily, they get your sales message more easily, and they make it to the order button faster. And money loves speed, right?
On the other hand, there’s an equal argument to be made for having people read slower. The more time and effort somebody invests with you, the more likely they are to trust you (one of those mental shortcuts we all engage in), and the more likely they are to justify that investment and trust by buying in the end.
So like I said, no clear answer.
But this did bring to mind a story Brian Kurtz likes to tell about a time he hired Gary Bencivenga.
As you probably know, Brian was the VP at direct response publisher Boardroom. And in that role, he hired some of the most famous and most brilliant copywriters of all time, Gary among them.
Anyways, Brian’s story is about two sales packages, one fast, one slow, both written by Gary Bencivenga, both promoting the same product.
To me personally, this story has proven to be the most fundamental and important lesson when it comes to copywriting or running a direct response business.
Brian’s little story won’t tell you what kind of font to use, or what kind of copy to write, fast or slow. But maybe it will make that choice a lot clearer in your mind.
In case you want to read Brian’s valuable sales and copy study, you can find it at the link below. But before you go read that, perhaps you might like to sign up for my slow but trustworthy email newsletter. In any case, here’s Brian’s article:
https://www.briankurtz.net/how-you-sell-is-how-they-will-respond/