Latest / The Copywriting Podcast with Fexingo: Sales Letters, Headlines, and Persuasive Writing / How a Blank Space Increased Donations by 50 Percent
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this fundraising letter from 2018 that I still think about. It was sent by a mid-size charity — I think it was a children's hospital foundation — and the control letter was pretty standard. Long copy, lots of emotional stories, a list of needs, a reply card. Luna: Right, the classic direct-mail approach. Four pages, small type, one big ask. Lucas: Exactly. But the test letter — this is where it gets interesting — they left the entire second page completely blank except for one sentence in the middle. Just a single line: 'We trust you to know what's right.' And then white space. Nothing else. Luna: Wait, the whole second page? No images, no subheads, no story? Lucas: Nothing. Just that one sentence. And the response rate lifted by 50 percent over the control. Luna: That's wild. But also — I think I get why it worked. That sentence, in all that emptiness, it almost forces you to stop. You can't skim it. Lucas: Exactly. The white space becomes the frame. The eye lands on that sentence and the brain treats it as important. There's nowhere else to look. And the sentence itself — 'We trust you to know what's right' — is a permission statement. It's not asking for money. It's affirming the reader's judgment. Luna: So it's a double move: the space says 'this matters', and the words say 'you're a good person for deciding what to do'. That's pretty elegant. Lucas: Totally. And it flies in the face of what most copywriters are taught — which is to fill every inch with benefits, facts, urgency. David Ogilvy said the more information you give, the more you sell. But this test proved that sometimes, subtraction is more powerful than addition. Luna: When does it work though? I mean, you can't just leave blank pages in every sales letter and expect a lift. Lucas: Right, there are conditions. First, the reader already has some context. In this case, the first page of the letter had already established the problem — sick kids, underfunded programs. So the second page didn't need to explain. It could afford to be quiet. Second, the single sentence had to carry real weight. If they'd written 'Please donate now' in the middle of a blank page, it would've felt manipulative. But 'We trust you to know what's right' — that's a relationship builder. Luna: So the white space amplifies whatever you put in it. If the message is weak, the white space makes it weaker. Lucas: Exactly. It's a spotlight. And if what's under the spotlight is a dud, you've just wasted a whole page. But if it's something resonant, the white space makes it feel monumental. Luna: I'm thinking about the Volkswagen 'Think Small' campaign from the sixties. That was all about using white space to make a small car feel like a big idea. Lucas: Classic. The ad had this tiny photo of the Beetle in a huge white field, with just a few lines of copy at the bottom. The visual metaphor was: this car is small, but there's room for it in your life. The white space wasn't empty — it was meaningful. It said 'simplicity' and 'honesty'. Luna: And compare that to a typical car ad from the same era — full-bleed illustration, giant headline, lots of copy. The Beetle ad stood out because it was quiet. Lucas: Right. And that same principle applies to digital copy too. When Apple launched the iPod in 2001, the product page was incredibly sparse. White background, one image of the device, and a headline: '1,000 songs in your pocket.' That was it. No bullet points about battery life or storage capacity. The white space made that one claim unforgettable. Luna: It also made the product feel somehow inevitable. Like, of course you need this thing. The copy didn't try to convince you — it just stated the obvious. Lucas: And today, we see the opposite problem everywhere. Emails with too many sections, landing pages with too many CTAs, blog posts with highlighted text and pull quotes and social share buttons competing for attention. The default is clutter. So a deliberate use of white space becomes a competitive advantage. Luna: I want to bring up a counterexample though. There's a reason long copy works for high-consideration purchases. If I'm about to drop ten thousand dollars on a consulting package, a one-line sales page isn't going to do it. Lucas: Absolutely. White space is a tactic, not a religion. For complex, high-risk offers, you need to educate, reassure, and overcome objections. That takes words. But even in long copy, you can use white space strategically — short paragraphs, wide margins, generous line spacing. It makes the information feel more accessible, less overwhelming. Luna: So the principle isn't 'use less copy'. It's 'use the space around your copy to guide attention'. Lucas: Exactly. And that's something a lot of marketers forget. They write the words, but they don't design the silence around them. The best copywriters think like designers. They consider the negative space as carefully as the positive. Luna: I remember reading about a test by the catalog company Lush. They redesigned one of their product pages to have much more white space — bigger images, shorter descriptions, more breathing room. And the conversion rate on that page went up by something like 30 percent. Lucas: I've seen that case. The original page had dense copy, small photos, lots of product cross-sells. The redesign gave each product more room to breathe. And the data said: people bought more when they weren't overwhelmed with choices and details. Luna: Which ties back to that fundraising letter. The blank page didn't give the reader more information. It gave them permission to feel something — and then act on it. Lucas: Honestly, if today's episode was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just the smallest possible way to say this kind of marketing conversation matters. And we keep the show ad-free because of it. Luna: Yeah, it's a nice model. You get value, we get to keep doing this without selling your data to some mattress company. Everyone wins. Lucas: So back to the white space idea — I think the real takeaway is this: the next time you write a sales page or an email, try cutting 30 percent of the words. Then see if the message becomes clearer, not weaker. Luna: But Lucas, what if cutting words actually makes the message less clear? Like, sometimes you need all those words to tell the story. Lucas: Then you haven't cut the right words. The goal isn't to be brief for brevity's sake. It's to remove the words that aren't earning their space. Ask yourself: does this sentence make the reader more likely to act? If not, kill it. Luna: That's a good editing rule. Every sentence has to justify its existence. Lucas: And every piece of white space has to justify its existence too. If you leave a huge gap but the surrounding copy is weak, the gap feels like a mistake. But if the copy is strong, the gap feels intentional, almost sacred. Luna: So it's about intention. Whether you're filling the page or leaving it blank, the reader should feel like you made a deliberate choice. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what separates amateur copy from pro copy. The amateur writes until they run out of room. The pro writes until they can't cut another word — and then designs the silence around what's left. Luna: One last thought: that blank-page fundraising letter — I bet it also worked because it surprised people. They opened the envelope, saw page one, turned to page two, and expected more of the same. Instead, they got a punchline. The surprise itself probably boosted attention. Lucas: That's a great point. Surprise is a powerful attention-getter. And when you combine surprise with a message that makes the reader feel trusted and respected, you've got a potent combination. Luna: Alright, so if someone wants to try this — start with a piece of copy they already have, a landing page or an email, and see if there's a sentence that could stand alone in a sea of white. What would it be? Lucas: That's the exercise. Find the one thing you most want the reader to remember or feel. Then put it in the emptiest space you can. And see what happens.