What if we told you that a single letter can double your response rate?
Or even triple it?
The right letter in the right context has the power to completely change the way your readers think about your product, making them more likely to purchase—but only if you use the letter just right.
Do you want to know what it is?
The Letter That Changes Everything
Did you guess the letter S?
Tacking on S to certain words in your copy can transform your headlines and drastically increase your responses.
But to understand how the letter S can ramp up your sales, we need to look at an example.
An ad for cassette tapes was supposed to read “Put music in your life.”
This headline is simple and effective. It invites the reader to take action and suggests that by making a purchase, the customer is actively improving and adding excitement to their life. It implies that their life is missing something, but the solution is simple: buy a cassette, and put music in your life.
But when they reran the ad with a typo, it actually read this: “Puts music in your life.”
According to marketing expert Todd Brown, this typo resulted in at least a 300% increase in responses.
What gives?
Why This Trick Works
Adding an S to a verb in a headline changes the way the verb works in that sentence. A verb that starts out as an imperative becomes an indicative.
(In case you forgot about them from middle school English class, imperative verbs are commands, while indicatives are verbs that demonstrate or describe action.)
Imperative verbs are very powerful in marketing. They lend your copy a sense of authority, and they make great calls-to-action (CTAs) for your readers to take.
However—sometimes—indicative verbs are better.
Consider our example from the cassette ad. “Put music in your life” commands the reader to add music to their life, presumably by making a purchase. The reader is the implied subject who needs to take action.
But when we say “puts music in your life,” the subject of the sentence isn’t the reader—it’s the cassette tapes. The implied meaning is that these cassette tapes have a proven track record of putting music into people’s lives. The tapes work, right now, in the present tense.
Consider these examples: “Burns belly fat in 3 weeks.” “Boosts sales in your sleep.” “Revitalizes your skin.” They read like facts of the universe that don’t need demonstration.
And one of the secret benefits of using the present tense like this? You get the implication of the future tense, too. Not only do these products work right now, but they’ll go on working in the future—with or without the reader. You can leverage your prospects’ FOMO to get them to join the action.
The present tense implies that your product, service, or system works, is working, and will work. All the reader has to do is take action to start reaping the benefits.
How to Use It
First things first: not every verb in your copy can or should be changed to an indicative with the letter S.
This trick can work wonders, but only if you deploy it in just the right ways.
Do: Experiment with adding an S to your headlines, subject lines, and subheaders. Look for sentence fragments where you would normally include a command, and try swapping it out for an indicative.
Don't: Use this trick on your CTA buttons. CTAs need next steps for your readers to take, and commands remove any ambiguity about who needs to take action.
Do: Read your copy out loud to see if it still makes sense with the added S.
Don't: Tack an S on the end of every verb in your copy. You may thinks it a very good idea, but you’ll just ends up sounding silly.
Ready to see if the letter S can transform your results like it did for the cassette tape business in our example? Perform an A/B test with an ad or email! See how your audience responds to an indicative verb instead of an imperative. Maybe your prospects prefer the direct imperative approach, or maybe they’re motivated by the FOMO an indicative verb can elicit.
Need a hand creating killer headlines? Not sure how to A/B test digital ads with copy tricks like this one? Schedule a call! Our team of marketing experts would love to help you, from leveraging language to get conversions, to establishing your brand identity through design, to finding and retaining new prospects with the latest in online resources. Let us take your digital presence from functional to exceptional!
