Copywriting Friday: “I amazed even myself!”

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Printed: February 2024

This text is drawn from our inner Copywriting Friday information, the place we spotlight the ability of nice copywriters. We’ve accomplished this for years—utilizing our huge vault of extremely changing adverts.

A few of the older examples are dated in type and tone, however the rules and methods are each timeless AND crucial for conversion charge optimization. Get pleasure from.

This text focuses on the Johnson Field, a copywriting method that’s near our hearts at Conversion Fee Specialists.

A Johnson Field is a highlighted part of textual content on the high of a unsolicited mail letter, e mail, or internet web page. It’s designed to seize consideration, emphasize key factors, and hold the reader on what Joe Sugarman known as the “slippery slide”—a path that effortlessly leads the reader by means of the content material. (Sugarman wrote the copywriting traditional, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook.)

A Johnson Field in motion

In a earlier article, we promised to go deeper right into a promotion for the e-book The Fact About Cash. Having analyzed the again of the envelope, we now transfer on to the primary web page of the letter inside.

However first, it’s value reminding ourselves that the promotion was written within the Nineteen Nineties and focused older readers. You’ll be able to inform this from the entrance of the envelope:

The front of the enveople for this promotion. The envelope headline reads, ‘How can you erase years of poor financial habits?’ Beneath there’s is a photo of a self-satisfied gray-haired man smoking a cigar.

It’s simple to cringe on the self-satisfied geezer with the cigar, however keep in mind this promotion is 30 years previous. It understands its goal market, to not point out the right way to hold an viewers shifting ahead.

That’s why the copywriter chooses to open their 8-page gross sales letter with a Johnson Field.

The first page of the promotion is dominated by a Johnson box containing eight specific claims. See below for the specific content.

Evaluation

Let’s begin with the headline, considered within the context of erasing poor monetary habits:

I amazed even myself.

The primary line is each relatable and disarming, however it additionally lays the inspiration for the entire promotion—a journey of non-public and monetary development.

We’re on a journey, the reader thinks, and the individual scripting this letter has gone forward and despatched again a map!

Then it will get higher…

Me, perceive cash? No method! Not way back, I struggled to steadiness my checkbook. However now I do know&mldr;

Wait. He’s identical to me.

The copywriter has conjured the persona of their goal market—somebody who struggles with monetary issues. The purpose is to get us nodding alongside.

This concept—that somebody like me has gone forward and gotten the outcomes I would like—is extremely highly effective. Consider all of the testimonials and case research we see supporting the gross sales of services.

The copywriter is conjuring the same impact.

Wow, this man struggled to steadiness his checkbook (like me), however have a look at what he’s realized:

The trick that makes bank cards WORK FOR ME, not towards me.

The TWO WORDS that can lastly make me financially safe.

The MORTGAGE SECRET that advantages me—and drives bankers nuts!

The important thing step that can take me from OWING cash to OWNING cash.

The MAGIC NUMBER that the IRS doesn’t need anybody to find.

The ONE ASSET that I need to depart to my youngsters. (HINT: It’s NOT cash.)

The key that makes it IMPOSSIBLE for somebody to steal my identification.

Why getting completely out of debt is usually a large FINANCIAL MISTAKE.

What emotions do these traces evoke for you (even when you aren’t the goal market)?

In case you learn the earlier article you’ll see how related these bullets are to the fascinations on the again of the envelope.

Related, however not the identical. In case you’re counting—and we’re—the copywriter has made 14 large claims for the e-book thus far.

And that is simply web page 1 of the “letter.” The anticipation is mounting once more, pushed by language that’s dense with guarantees, secrets and techniques, and magic.

Particularly, we’ll name out three methods the copy makes use of to seize consideration and have interaction its goal market:

It touches on key ache factors for its viewers— bank card debt, monetary insecurity, and identification theft. It is aware of its viewers.
It builds curiosity by leaving extra questions than solutions. What’s the quantity the IRS doesn’t need me to find, and why?
It makes use of specificity to lend credibility. It’s not the “belongings that you could depart to your youngsters”; it’s “the ONE ASSET.”

Right here’s an instance of all three of those methods coming collectively in a single line—specificity, curiosity, and the (implied) ache of economic insecurity.

The TWO WORDS that can lastly make me financially safe.

And beneath all this, as we talked about, is the implicit journey from the place you at the moment are to the place you need to be.

This journey, in fact, is the driving drive for all times (and gross sales). We will at all times think about one thing higher, wherever we’re, and there’s no scarcity of individuals keen to “assist” us get there.

Take into account this line:

The MORTGAGE SECRET that advantages me—and drives bankers nuts!

It’s intriguing in fact, however it additionally guarantees insider data.

In a single sense, it’s drawing a line within the sand. On one aspect are the lots, the chumps who don’t know The Fact About Cash. On the opposite aspect are the fortunate few, these of us who’re within the know and financially free.

Are you in or out?

As with the envelope, the copywriter has constructed large stress in a couple of traces. In case you had been within the goal market, it could be laborious to place the letter down.

Which, in fact, is the purpose.

Utilizing Johnson Containers in what you are promoting

Whereas the Johnson Field has its roots in printed gross sales letters, the strategy of presenting key advantages upfront stays extremely efficient. For instance:

In your emails, optimize the preview textual content to concentrate on the important thing worth proposition, or use a header part to summarize all the worth you’ve included.
In your touchdown pages, optimize the content material that’s seen with out scrolling, or add a “sticky” space that can hold key messages onscreen.
In your social media posts, pay further consideration to the “preview” textual content that seems earlier than the submit expands. (That is usually solely a few traces.)
In your movies, use the primary few seconds to element what the viewer will get in the event that they stick round.
In your product pages, summarize the important thing advantages and gives earlier than you get into the main points.

After we look past the gross sales letter, the Johnson Field turns into a mind-set about all our content material and touchpoints. And it really works. We just lately added Johnson Containers to a shopper’s extremely optimized web site and elevated its conversion charge by 20%!

See you subsequent time on Copywriting Friday.

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