In the unlikely case that my newsletter is the only direct marketer-y list you subscribe to, let me tell you some news:
Last week, there was an affiliate contest.
That means that a bunch of marketers all fought to promote the same affiliate offer, all at the same time. Beyond bragging rights, I assume there were also generous prizes for the best-performing affiliates, above and beyond the usual affiliate commissions.
I did not participate in this contest, and I didn’t even pay very close attention.
But I do know that among the people who did participate, there was a selection of A-list copywriters and top-flight industry gurus, with decades or maybe centuries of experience among them, and with big communities and hefty email lists at their disposal.
And yet:
The person who won this contest was a young guy, who apparently lives in the slums of a second-tier city in Australia… who nobody knew of before he started to build his legend online some five years ago… and who only has a modest-sized email list of his own.
That young guy is a certain Daniel Throssell.
I’m on Daniel’s list, and so I can share with you what Daniel wrote about the final results of this affiliate contest:
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As of the final cart close, I think I had something like 60% of the TOTAL sales (thus meeting my usual goal of ‘more than everyone else put together’) … and somewhere between 8-10x the sales of the second-place affiliate.
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How did Daniel do it?
I’ve already written a couple emails in past years with my thoughts on Daniel’s successful strategies (hence the “part III” in today’s subject line).
As for this most recent success of Daniel’s, my guess is it has to do with all three elements of the old 40/40/20 formula.
40% of your results comes down to your list…
… 40% down to your offer…
… and the remaining 20% down to the least important part, your copy. But it’s that least important part, the copy, that I want to talk about today.
In fact, I just wanna talk about one aspect of copy, a very mechanical aspect. Because even without paying close attention to this affiliate contest, one thing was notable to me:
Daniel sent 28 emails to his list to promote this affiliate offer.
He sent at least one email each day, as he does every day of the year, and many more emails as the deadline neared.
I’m not on the lists of all the other people who participated in this contest.
But from what I can see, most of the big names who did participate do not write daily emails to their lists outside of this promo. Some of them, including some who said they really really wanted to win the contest, chose not to send daily emails even during the actual promo.
To my Elmer Fudd mind, the conclusion is simple:
Email more, and you’ll make more sales, even if you don’t change a d-d-d-damned thing else.
But that’s not all.
Because if you email more, it’s gonna have a positive effect on that next 40% of your success, meaning your offers.
I defy anybody in the world to argue honestly that Daniel’s high-priced courses — which he gave away as free bonuses for this affiliate promo — would have the perceived value they have if Daniel didn’t send daily emails to build up desire for them… to justify the premium prices they sell for… to highlight all the other people who have bought these courses and praised them.
Anybody can say their course costs a thousand dollars. But that does nothing, unless people believe it, and unless they want it.
As for that other final 40%, your list:
I imagine that most everyone on Daniel’s list is also on at least one other list of someone who participated in this contest.
And yet, the odds are two-to-one (or actually better) that if such a person bought this affiliate offer, they bought it via Daniel.
In part, that comes back to the offer. But in part, it’s about the fact that daily emailing trains and transforms the people on your list.
The people on your email list are not simply “buyers” or “not buyers” — like it’s some God-given caste system you have no control over.
Relentless email followup, done well, takes disinterested or skeptical people and turns them into followers, converts, and partners. Not just anybody’s followers, converts, and partners — yours. That’s a moat that protects your business, even if some other business owner can somehow get the names and email addresses of everyone on your list.
So yeah.
Copy is the least important part of your success.
But in a way, it’s also the most important, via its effect on the perceived value of your offers, and via the transformation it creates in the people on your list. And I think Daniel’s results prove that.
All that’s to say… I don’t know? Email more? Maybe daily?
Yesterday, I announced a new service I’ll be launching over the next 30 days that gives you a new daily email prompt each day. The goal here is to make sending daily emails faster by an hour or two a week, and easier to start with and stick with for the long term.
I can tell you that my email today was based on one such prompt, one that I set myself a few days ago. Yes, I eat my own dog food.
I will be offering first access to this service to a small number of people on my list, based on who I think will be most likely to get value from it.
But my offer from last night still stands:
If you feel daily email prompts are something that could be useful to you, then hit reply and tell me what you like about this idea (do tell me why, because simply replying and saying “yes!” won’t do it). If you do that, I will add you to the priority list, so you have a chance to test this service out sooner rather than later.