If One Little Word Wasn't Impressive Enough

... How about one little letter?

A few weeks back (on 21st October) I told you how adding one little word to a client's shampoo label had saved the career of a struggling copywriter. To save you a trip through my archive, the word was 'repeat'.

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how that almost doubled sales, or why almost every shampoo since then has used the same 'rinse and repeat' mantra. In fact, it's become a cliché for marketers too. As in, 'If it works once, do it again...'

But copywriters can trump 'one little word' with 'one little letter'. There are a few instances, but I'm grateful to the great Ted Nicholas for reminding me of this one: the letter 's'.

And the latest instance of a one letter change to a headline actually tripled the response.

The original headline read, 'Put Money in Your Pocket'

And the improved version was, 'Puts Money in Your Pocket'

Underestimating people's inherent laziness rarely disappoints. Just removing the idea that the product required some effort was enough to multiply response by three. And the change in the headline text is almost subliminal, suggesting that this is a non-conscious reaction, which straight away makes it even more interesting.

There's a lot of psychology in successful marketing. I'll return to the subject here from time to time.

Meanwhile, have you ever improved the response to an ad by changing one letter? More likely is that you've done it by removing the idea there's any work involved with your product. For instance, 'learning' and 'making' are work for most people, while 'discovering' and 'getting' sound easy and even accidental.

So, 'Learn How to Make Money' sounds much harder than 'Discover How to Get Rich', although there are other conscious and subconscious meanings in the phrases 'make money' and 'get rich' that complicate things!

Still, that's for another day, although if you've read much about wealth creation, you'll already know what I'm getting at...

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

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PPS. Of course, the other lesson from the one letter change is in the value of testing, especially in your headlines.