Latest / The Copywriting Podcast with Fexingo: Sales Letters, Headlines, and Persuasive Writing / How One Word Swapped a Headline from Meh to Millions
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this A/B test from a few years back — a SaaS company, B2B, selling project management software. They had a headline on their landing page that read: 'Get Your Team Organised Today.' Luna: Standard. Not terrible, but not memorable either. Lucas: Right. So they tested one change. They swapped one word. The new headline was: 'Unlock Your Team's Potential.' Everything else — subhead, CTA button, images — stayed identical. Luna: Let me guess: the 'Unlock' version crushed it. Lucas: Over three hundred percent lift in conversion. I mean, that sounds almost too good to be true, but Joanna Wiebe from Copyhackers documented this exact test. And it's not just a fluke — the psychology behind it is really clear. Luna: Okay, break it down. Why does 'Unlock' outperform 'Get' that dramatically? Lucas: Two big things. First, 'Get' is what copywriters call a low-imagery verb. It's transactional, abstract. Every piece of software 'gets' you something. 'Unlock', on the other hand, is a high-imagery verb. You picture a lock, a key, something hidden behind a door. It triggers a mini-narrative in the reader's brain: there's a barrier, and this product removes it. Luna: So it's not just about benefit — it's about the story the word tells in one syllable. Lucas: Exactly. Second, 'Unlock' implies exclusivity and potential. 'Get organised' sounds like a chore. 'Unlock your team's potential' sounds like a reward. The emotional valence flips from obligation to aspiration. And when you're writing a headline, the emotion you trigger in the first two seconds is often what determines whether someone scrolls or bounces. Luna: I've seen similar tests with verbs like 'Discover' versus 'Find'. 'Discover' consistently outperforms. Same principle — more evocative. Lucas: Exactly. 'Discover' carries a sense of exploration, surprise. 'Find' is just a search result. And it's not just verbs — adjectives too. One of my favourite tests was for an email marketing tool. They changed 'Easy Email Templates' to 'done for you Email Templates'. Same product, same templates — but 'done for you' signals convenience and eliminates the fear of starting from scratch. Luna: That's a great example. So the lesson isn't 'use bigger words'. It's 'use more specific, sensory, emotionally charged words'. Lucas: Yes. And specificity often beats grandeur. There's a classic test — I think it was from Unbounce — where they compared 'Get Started Free' versus 'Start My Free Trial'. The second one, with 'My', personalises it. It's a small shift, but 'Start My Free Trial' implies ownership. The user is adopting the tool, not just clicking a button. Luna: That possessive pronoun — 'My' — is also a word-swap that costs nothing but changes the psychological framing entirely. Lucas: Right. So the takeaway for today: if you're writing a headline or a CTA, go through every word and ask — is this the most specific, most visual, most emotionally accurate word I can use? You don't need to rewrite the whole page. Often one word is the lever. Luna: And if these kinds of marketing experiments and copywriting insights are useful to you — something you've actually applied or thought about trying — we'd love it if you'd throw a couple of dollars our way to keep the show ad-free and independent. You can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Seriously, even one coffee's worth helps us keep doing deep dives like this. Lucas: Yeah, it really does. And we don't run ads, so listener support is what keeps the lights on. Anyway — back to word swaps. I want to talk about a failure case. Luna: Oh good — because not every fancy word works. Lucas: Right. A fintech startup tested 'Unlock Your Financial Freedom' against 'Take Control of Your Finances'. 'Unlock' actually underperformed here. Why? Because 'financial freedom' is vague and overused. 'Take control' is more concrete — it implies a direct action, a sense of agency. So the word 'Unlock' is powerful, but it can backfire if the rest of the headline is fluffy. Luna: So the word needs to match the promise. 'Unlock' works when there's a clear, desirable thing behind the door. If the benefit is fuzzy, the verb feels like marketing fluff. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the deeper point: the best word in the world can't save a weak value proposition. But the right word can turn a solid offer into a compelling one. So the exercise is — get the offer right first. Then find the word that makes it irresistible. Luna: That reminds me of a test from a charity: they changed 'Donate Now' to 'Give a Child a Meal'. Huge lift. Same principle — specificity and imagery over generic action. Lucas: Yeah. 'Donate Now' is like 'Get Started'. It's a command, but it's abstract. 'Give a Child a Meal' — you can picture the meal, the child. It's concrete, emotional, and it tells you exactly what your money does. That's the gold standard. Luna: So for anyone listening who's about to write a headline or a CTA today: pick one word, and ask if there's a better one. A verb, a noun, an adjective. Just one. Lucas: And test it. Even a small sample. You don't need thousands of visitors to get a signal. Sometimes ten conversions versus three is enough to tell you you're onto something. Luna: Alright, so next time we'll dig into the anatomy of a killer subhead — how to support the headline without repeating it. Lucas: That's a good one. For now, the homework: find one headline on your site or an email you're writing. Swap one word. See what happens.