The White Bunny

It’s the lit­tle things

My in-laws are cel­e­brat­ing their six­ti­eth anniver­sary soon.

It’s not an auto­cor­rect mis­take. It’s a very real six decades togeth­er. They’re not a cute, corny cou­ple that will give you for­tune cook­ie rela­tion­ship advice like ​“nev­er go to bed angry”. They’re prag­mat­ic, lov­ing, smart, grumpy, hard­work­ing peo­ple. There’s no mag­ic trick.

And yet.

When you look clos­er — a priv­i­lege I had, hav­ing lived with them for the past eight years — you see the mag­ic emerge. It’s not hugs and kiss­es. It’s the tiny, insignif­i­cant min­utes, and the ded­i­ca­tion to know every frac­tion of each oth­er. The nuances that build trust, truth, loyalty. 

There’s the impos­si­bly per­fect amount of sug­ar she pours in his cof­fee. Three spoons, not too full, not too emp­ty. Just as he always liked it. 

Or his per­fect tim­ing to pick a mean­ing­less argu­ment with a smirk, per­fect­ly aware of what’s com­ing, just to give her an excuse to deploy her uncan­ny, deli­cious sharp comebacks.

A lit­tle thing for every minute togeth­er. Thir­ty one mil­lion of them.

Mak­ing things work in life, fam­i­ly or busi­ness requires atten­tion to details.

It shows how much you care. And, if you do, peo­ple stick around. Per­haps for decades.

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Knock knock

Who is it?

Me, the cus­tomer. You should know exact­ly who I am, and I need to learn, very quick­ly, why you’re The One.

But our mod­ern world is com­pli­cat­ed and busy and full of noise. Everyone’s fight­ing for my atten­tion. What makes you dif­fer­ent? I can’t see it. One. Two. Three. Four. Five seconds. 

I’m out.

Our win­dow of oppor­tu­ni­ty to enchant a vis­i­tor is extreme­ly nar­row. Brands need all the help we can get to widen it. It’s 2025 and we can tech beyond our dreams, but mar­ket­ing is still the same. Words mat­ter. Sym­bols work. So do humor, tim­ing, tone, personality. 

But it’s East­er Egg sea­son and this issue is about the lit­tle things.

Relat­ed: Every pix­el is a billboard

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Small wins lead to big results

Micro copy­writ­ing is the fine art of car­ing about the small words on your web­site, archi­tec­tur­ing and design­ing them in a way that facil­i­tates and enrich­es the user experience.

Sub­vert­ing familiarity

Every­thing is bor­ing. So bor­ing that we spend hours gorg­ing on 10-sec­ond videos of dance chal­lenges. It doesn’t mat­ter if your brand’s for­mal or cheeky. Find com­mon phras­es and give them a tiny twist. 

Exam­ple: This email’s sub­ject line is our way to walk the talk.

Nudge’em

The Nudge The­o­ry (Richard Thaler, 2008) is a behav­ioral eco­nom­ics con­cept that explains how, when we archi­tect ser­vices in a phys­i­cal or dig­i­tal space, we can add tiny clues every­where that steer peo­ple through a cer­tain path.

Like any behav­ioral the­o­ry, it can get manip­u­la­tive and shady, but used hon­est­ly, it’s sim­ply a way to play with standards. 

Exam­ple: ​“You’re $10 away from free ship­ping!” is friend­ly. You’re not ask­ing me to buy, you’re giv­ing me a choice. But it’s an easy one and we both win.

Prim­ing expectations

You can use tiny bits of copy to tell your cus­tomers what they can expect from you, even before they’re buy­ing. In oth­er words, to thank them in advance. Be nice, like­able, and gen­er­ous. This will cre­ate an envi­ron­ment of pos­i­tive expectations.

Exam­ple: A ​“Psst, here’s a coupon code for you” cre­ates com­plic­i­ty for your first-time vis­i­tors and it’s a nice way to ease their way to the check­out. ​“Sign up! It takes 60 sec­onds.” promis­es a sim­ple and pain­less process and shows respect for their time.

Reduc­ing Cog­ni­tive Load

We’re not wired to remem­ber unim­por­tant shit. And if we’re hon­est, most of our shop­ping ‑per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al- is not that impor­tant in the big scheme of things. Our brains store new stuff on what’s called the ​“work­ing mem­o­ry”, only to save it in long-term mem­o­ry after prac­tice and repetition. 

Good copy works in two ways. It sim­pli­fies deci­sion process­es, because easy equals less stress, and at the same time, voice and tone con­sis­ten­cy helps cus­tomers learn your brand. It’s a tick­et to their hard dri­ve.

Truth & Transparency

What are your cus­tomers afraid of? What are their objections? 

A web­site is a very spe­cial kind of adver­tis­ing because, just like email, it allows you to talk one to one. Write like you talk, with phras­es that would answer the ques­tions cus­tomers bring from past expe­ri­ences. Warn them can­did­ly when you know your prod­uct won’t be the best fit in cer­tain sce­nar­ios. Proud­ly show your strengths but take the Prat­fall road about your shortcomings.

Have reviews, and make sure they’re real. Once you break trust you lose the cus­tomer. Even if you’re Ama­zon. 

Antic­i­pate pitfalls

Are cus­tomer mis­takes over­load­ing your sup­port team? That’s on you to fix. Use micro­copy in all forms and fields, steps and inter­ac­tions, to make sure your cus­tomers give you the data you need, how you need it.

Exam­ple: ​“Here’s your cus­tomer num­ber, *|FNAME|!* in your con­tact page makes it extra easy for them to have the right infor­ma­tion at the right time.

To sum up, East­er Eggs are also about what you can hide in plain sight. The sum of those efforts will help you stand out from the crowd, and win.

Relat­ed: On Copy­writ­ing That Doesn’t Suck

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Craft egg­cel­lent copy.

Eas­i­er said than done, we know. But the prin­ci­ples are there.

• Help them know you and love you.
• Sim­pli­fy their focus
• Guide their choic­es hon­est­ly in their best interest.
• Antic­i­pate and reduce their questions.
• Give them val­i­da­tion to prove you rock.

That’s it. I don’t want to take too much of your time. It’s East­er. Go trea­sure hunt. Have fun. Fol­low the White Rabbit.