Over the past few months, I’ve gotten addicted to listening to a Japanese woman’s YouTube channel, on which she puts out collections like, “1963 Billboard Top 100 Countdown.”
These collections feature hit songs I know, and are also a good way to discover something new, or at least new to me.
But the real reason I’m listening to this woman’s YouTube channel, as opposed to a million other YouTube song collections and playlists, is that her collections feel somehow authoritative, vetted.
After all, the included songs were all hits at the time they came out. People loved each of these songs then, even if some of the songs fell into obscurity later. The Billboard rankings prove it.
My own addiction reminded me of something I read in the Robert Collier Letter Book.
At one point, Collier was selling a subscription to the Review of Reviews, a monthly magazine that I guess was similar to Reader’s Digest.
The problem was few people really like committing to a subscription.
The solution of course was a series of attractive bonuses, which could appear and disappear on command.
But how to make a bonus instantly attractive?
One solution was to again defer to authority and vetting by others. The winning bonus was a little book that collected 64 stories that won the O. Henry prize for the best short story of the year.
Result?
30,000-40,000 new subscribers with one sales letter, bundling a stupid magazine subscription with this sexy bonus.
You can do the same, by the way.
Maybe your niche already has some objective measure of authority to it — best-selling books, top-ranked ClickBank offers, investors who made the most money.
Or if there is no such objective measure, you can always invent a new prize or award.
You can use this authoritative or vetted status to create an attractive bonus or offer, and of course, to put yourself in the middle of the action.
And with that, I would like to announce the formation of the Best Daily Email Awards.
This is a new yearly award for merit in the daily email format.
Each year, the Best Daily Email Awards are selected by the prestigious and exclusive Daily Email Academy, which you are a member of by virtue of being a reader of this newsletter.
If you would like to nominate a particular daily email for a Best Daily Email Award, simply forward it to me before this Sunday, July 28, at 8:31pm CET.
Any daily email by any brand or person, in any market or niche, is eligible. You don’t need to explain your reasoning for nominating this particular email. The only restriction is you may only submit one entry, and that it’s actually a daily email.
And then, I, as the current acting Director of the Daily Email Academy, will collect the results, and announce the winners at the inaugural prize ceremony next week.
And yes, I’m 100% serious about this. So start forwarding now.