Copywriting is one of the most important skills.
This newsletter dives into simple but powerful ways to increase conversions.
Let's just dive right in 🐰
– Neal
Customer.io
Tidying up your messaging strategy? Get data-driven insights from 2023 and important trends already taking over 2024 in the Customer.io State of Messaging Report. The report analyzes 360 survey responses from marketers, product managers and engineers on messaging trends in their companies and industries—plus 24 months of platform data.
Learn how to optimize your messaging and thrive in the ever-evolving realm of customer engagement. Customer.io is a multi-product customer engagement platform helps marketing teams create data-driven campaigns that reach audiences at the right time.
Download the State of Messaging Report here.
## Neal
Email alone doesn't cut it anymore
44% more startups sent messages on 2+ channels in 2023 than in 2022.
Those that did saw 63% better performance. That's huge.
Dive into more data-driven insights in the Customer.io State of Messaging Report.
The report analyzes 24 months of platform data and 360 survey responses from marketers, product managers, and engineers on messaging trends.
We've been using Customer.io for over 4 years for this newsletter and to send the right message to the right person at the right time.
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Use Wallet Opening Words to increase conversions
Insight from Katelyn Bourgoin and Phill Agnew's Wallet Opening Words.
Tiny word changes can massively impact how people feel and react.
Our partner, Katelyn Bourgoin, and Phill Agnew (host of Nudge) coined the term “Wallet Opening Words.” Powerful words that cause people to reach into their wallets.
Here are some of my favorite lesser-known ones that are simple to implement:
Because bias
Simply telling people WHY you’re making a request is powerful. Even if it’s meaningless.
An experiment showed that 60% of people allowed the researcher to cut in line at the photocopier by saying “I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?”
By simply adding "because I'm in a rush" raised compliance to 94%. Surprisingly, adding the obvious "because I have to make copies" also reached 93% when there was 5 pages, but had no change when they said it was 20 pages.
Specific prices
Specific numbers are both more believable and more memorable than round numbers. We’ve taken advantage of this by running sales for UNIGNORABLE for 37.5 hours vs 24 hours.
A study found that beggars received +60% more donations by asking for oddly specific amounts rather than the typical quarter, dollar, dime, etc.
Framing
There’s a classic psychological bias called “what you see is all there is.” We often take what is presented and evaluate it without bringing in all our knowledge about the world.
A powerful way this manifests is that you can control how someone perceives and experiences something by framing it a certain way. For example:
If you know the job your product does for customers (an indulgent snack), you can better frame it as being really good at doing that job (an unhealthy lassi). Whereas if you tried to frame your lassi as a healthier alternative to a milkshake, all the people seeking indulgent snack would go buy a milkshake.
Authority
Would you rather talk to a customer support person or the founder? Which would you more likely believe and reply to?
Turns out, letters from a dentist’s office saw a 54% reply rate when signed by the dentist, but only 18% when signed by the dentist’s secretary.
Emails that come from the founder will always perform better than emails that come from Bob the SDR. This donation request coming from Obama was the most successful email of his 2012 presidential campaign:
Present tense
People commonly write in past or future tense on websites and in emails.
But, present tense is far more powerful. A study found customer reviews using present tense receive 26.4% more upvotes and increase product purchase intent by 12.3%.
Studies also found that languages that use present tense to describe future actions (i.e. “I buy that tomorrow” rather than “I will buy that tomorrow”) are better at saving for the future because it feels more tangible.
Words are powerful
Just because you run a few ads or send a few emails that flop, doesn’t mean that no one wants your product or service. The words you choose are critical.
Here are some helpful copywriting resources:
- Above the Fold Playbook: This will walk you through rewriting the most important part of your website: the beginning.
- The Growth Guide: We walk through how to write copy for your landing pages and ads in this free guide to growth marketing.
- My copywriting articles: I have written a few free articles on copywriting ranging from copywriting frameworks and 10 ways to hook people.
- Wallet Opening Words: This newsletter is a snippet of 5 of the 26.5 techniques that Katelyn and Phill cover in WOW.
- Julian’s Guide to Writing Better: My cofounder Julian spent months developing his free writing guide after getting millions of views of his content.