John Bejakovic

Challenging the “easy” norm in direct response marketing

by

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.”
— Apocryphal Ernest Shackleton ad

I had a miserable hike up a mountain yesterday.

Right at the start, I had to scramble up steep boulders. I was soon out of breath. Then the wind picked up, and whipped my ears until my head hurt. Then the fog rolled in, and it got cold and damp. Large frost crystals appeared on the occasional plants. And yet I, along with a growing mass of other people around me, trudged up in silence to the top of the mountain.

At the top, all that waited for me was a tiny and steamy hut, where they served hot tea. It was great, and totally worth it.

My point being:

A good number of human beings want a chance to prove themselves, to test their strength, even to suffer in order to achieve some goal.

And yet direct response marketing is all about making things easy and push-button, and appealing to the greedy sloth in people.

Is there space for a little noble sado-masochism in the slothful world of marketing?

Maybe.

​​I remember reading how marketer Sean D’Souza accidentally made his article-writing course much harder than he first intended it to be. I forget the details, but he mistakenly told his course attendants to write much more, in a much shorter period of time, than what was reasonable.

People taking the course suffered… lost sleep… got tense and nervous.

​​And when it was all over, they raved about the course, and became evangelists for it. Sean now has a waiting list for the course, which he markets as being famously difficult.

Direct marketing industry norms say that you have to provide easier, cheaper, faster solutions. But as marketer Dan Kennedy says, norms reinforce average.

​​So maybe, if you are looking for a market position that gets you above-average results, then promising your clients and customers struggle, expense, and many weeks and months of it, well, maybe it’s not a crazy idea to try.

Speaking of which:

Men (and women) wanted to subscribe to my daily email newsletter. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours spent reading the emails I send each day. Marketing lessons doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success. If interested, apply here.

Taking your reader on a rewarding flight to nowhere

by

This July, two Taiwanese airlines, Eva Air and StarLux, started offering flights to nowhere.

This means you could schlep to the airport, have the discomfort of going through security, waiting to board, cramming yourself onto the plane with a bunch of other junkies… only to have the airplane take off, circle around for a couple hours, and land in the exact same damn spot from whence you took off.

The point is that people are so starved for novelty, excitement, and newness that they are willing to pay to be uncomfortable and to pretend to travel somewhere.

Fact is, novelty and uncertainty are one of a few fundamental human needs. And most of us aren’t getting our fill.

Which is why, sadly enough, your sales copy can outperform others, if only it takes your reader on a tiny journey, all while he doesn’t even move from his La-Z Boy. Or as A-list copywriter Jim Rutz put it:

“You must surprise the reader at the outset and at every turn of the copy.”

But perhaps you are wondering about the mechanics of taking your reader on an rewarding flight to nowhere… or exactly what Jim means by surprising the reader at every turn.

If that’s the case, here’s a surprise for you:

I’ve written about this in detail in Commandment VII of my new book, 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters. If you’d like to find out more about this book, or even get a copy for yourself, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The IOU theory of copywriting

by

I read once (in a book) that credit, aka debt, came way before money. In other words, an IOU — a little slip of clay tablet commemorating the three sheep you gave to me — is a more powerful economic idea than gold coins.

I also read once (in an email) that copywriter Gary Halbert said the most powerful human motivating force is not self-interest… but curiosity.

Is there a connection between these two powerful facts?

Clearly. Because I personally think of curiosity as an IOU.

You give a couple of IOUs to your reader right in your headline. “I promise to pay you some valuable information,” each IOU says, “just give me a bit of time.”

As long as you’re in the reader’s debt, as long as he’s holding one of your IOUs, he sticks around. He wants to get paid.

The good thing is that you can give your reader a new IOU before paying off an old one. That way you can keep him around. But be careful.

If you start handing out too many IOUs… if the debt you’re incurring is too outrageous… if the repayment period is too long… then your reader is likely to get frustrated.

“This guy is never gonna pay up,” he will say. “This is just worthless paper.” He will throw away all your IOUs into the river, and along with them, your sale.

In other words, don’t overdo your debt of curiosity. But do do it.

​​And if you want some technical pointers on how to do curiosity in your sales copy, why, I’ve got just the thing.

It’s hidden right there inside Commandment III of my new book on A-list copywriter commandments.

In case you haven’t checked this book out yet, but would like to, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters

by

“And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.”
— Exodus 19:16

Yesterday, I published my new book, The 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters. It’s a bit of idea sex between the biblical ten commandments and the wisdom handed down by A-list copywriters like Gary Bencivenga and Gene Schwartz and Jim Rutz.

The book is available on Amazon now for your reading pleasure. But fair warning:

Some of these commandments might be surprising. Others might be familiar or obvious.

The covenant is this:

If you obey these commandments devoutly, then the copy gods will look favorably upon you, and treasure you above all people. Maybe they will even elevate you into the ranks of the A-list one day.

But only one way to find out what the copy gods have in store for you. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

The emotional manipulation of covid-sniffing dogs

by

I read an article today about covid-sniffing dogs at airports in Finland.

Right away, I started fantasizing about being sniffed by some professional beagles and Jack Russels as we roll around the baggage claim area. But just as I was about to start checking flights to Helsinki, my bubble brast.

It turns out you don’t get to play with the dogs as they sniff you for virus load.

Instead, airport personnel take a swab of your scent and then take it to an office, where, I imagine, a very serious dog sits behind a desk piled with tons of other swabs. “Just put it over there,” the serious dog says, “I’ll take care of it in a second.”

Reading this entire article was quite the emotional rollercoaster, and it reminded me I want to get a dog.

But before I lose you, I want to say there is a copywriting lesson here.

I heard Internet marketer Ken McCarthy say once that you want to paint a beautiful picture of success for your prospect, and then throw a wrench into it. First you get the reader to already feel and imagine the glorious outcome… and then you disappoint him, and show him why he’s not there yet. (Because of course, the only way to really get to that glorious outcome is through your offer.)

And vice versa.

Lots of times it makes more sense to glorify pain and shame instead of success.

​​So you paint a picture that makes your reader feel just lousy. But if you do this, you immediately have to hold out an olive branch to him, in the form of an offer (or at least a promise) that can that can take that pain and shame away.

In both cases, it’s emotional contrast that does the manipulation — I mean, persuasion. So the next time you’re writing a story, or trying to close a sale, give ’em the old push & pull, good cop/bad kawp, covid-sniffing dogs routine. Though your prospects won’t admit it, it’s the way they want to be sold.

But be careful. Do this wrong and you can piss off your prospects, and lose them forever. To make sure that never happens to you, sign up for my daily marketing and copywriting newsletter.

Selling fake diamond rings because Christmas

by

My client in the ecommerce space is now selling fake diamond rings.

So I just wrote some Christmas-focused Facebook video ads for these fabulous pieces of jewelry, targeting the women who buy fake diamond rings for themselves (yes, it’s not cheap husbands and boyfriends who are the target audience here).

Will this “Treat yourself because it’s Christmas” campaign work?

I believe it’s got a good shot. Here’s why.

You probably know the famous “copy machine” experiments from Harvard University.

They showed you can get people to do your bidding if you just give them a “because” and some kind of reason why. The reason why doesn’t even have to be any good.

Of course, these experiments are not just about the magical power of the word “because.” They are also about fundamental human psychology, which also applies to making sales.

Think of your prospect’s desire like a volcano, lying dormant at first. Your copy — “a gorgeous ring with an optically flawless stone” — gets the magma boiling and bubbling under the surface, inside the volcano.

But all that hot desire still needs to be released.

So you start to drill different tiny tunnels in the cone of the volcano. Some of these tunnels don’t do anything. But finally you drill the right tiny tunnel… and the volcano wall ruptures. All that boiling lava comes pouring out and scorching everything in its way.

In less geological terms, it’s not enough to just stir up tons of desire. You also have to give people a way to justify acting on that desire. There are lots of ways to make the volcano finally explode… but an occasion, even if it really makes no sense, is a good one to try.

Speaking of which:

I write a daily email newsletter about marketing and persuasion. Sign up for it here. You know… because Christmas.

Fast and Furry-ous choices for surprising readers

by

Picture this scene from The Fast and the Furry-ous, the first Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon:

Wile E. Coyote draws road markers on the ground leading to a cliff. Then he paints a tunnel on the cliff, and hides.

​​MEEP MEEP. The Road Runner comes rushing up, and runs straight through the painted-on tunnel.

​​Wile E. Coyote comes out of hiding, puzzled. ​​He takes a step back, gets a running start – and slams himself into the painted-on cliff. Of course there’s no tunnel there. And just as he’s staggering back to his feet, MEEP MEEP, the Road Runner comes rushing back out of the tunnel, and runs over Coyote again.

Screenwriter William Goldman once wrote the following:

“In a sense, a screenplay, whether a romance or a detective story, is a series of surprises. We detonate these as we go along. But for a surprise to be valid, we must first set the ground rules, indicate expectations.”

Like a screenplay, a sales letter is also a series of surprises. And if you want to know how to detonate those surprises in your sales letters, MEEP MEEP, it’s all there in that scene from the Fast and the Furry-ous. You’ve got two choices. Can you see them?

You might expect me to tell you. But no, I will subvert those expectations. You’re on your own for this one.

But for other tunnels and other copywriting lessons, you might like to get my daily email newsletter. Simply send $0 to the ACME company, and you will get something in the mail very soon.

No need to confess all your sins or virtues in a sales letter

by

When I was a kid I got convinced that if I swallow a piece of chewing gum, it will get stuck in my appendix where it will fester until it causes an explosion that kills me.

For years, I was careful to chew gum only in the front of my mouth, to minimize risk. And then one day I accidentally swallowed a piece of gum. After hours of tense waiting — no explosion.

My point is that it’s easy to convince yourself that there are some things that you simply must or must not do — without any basis in reality.

Let me give you a copywriting example.

​​Last week I delivered a VSL to a client. He just got back to me to say he thinks it’s great. But he had a question. The course the VSL is selling contains more techniques than the single technique the VSL focuses on. Shouldn’t we change this?

It’s a valid question. In fact, earlier in my copywriting career, I would have believed it’s one of those “musts”: “If it’s in the product, I must talk about it in the sales copy.”

The thing is, in this specific case (a real estate investing product), people don’t really want a complicated, full-blown system. They want an opportunity — some concrete, sexy thing that sounds easy to implement, and that feels like a secret to help them get around the usual ways of doing things.

Which leads me to a bit of wisdom I heard from A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos:

“Does it hurt my case, help my case, or is it neutral?”

That’s what Parris asks about every line, fact, and argument in his sales letters. If something hurts his case, or is neutral, it gets kicked out. Because there’s no need to confess all your sins or all your virtues in a sales letter. Nobody asked — and there will be no explosion if you don’t do it.

Nobody asked me to create a daily email newsletter, either. But I did. I write about copywriting and marketing. If you’d like to see what this newsletter is like, you can sign up here.

Selfishly giving away money to a worthy cause

by

You may have heard that Chuck Feeney is finally broke.

​​Feeney, who once had a net worth of $8 billion, decided in 1982 to give it all away before he died. This past Monday, the last pennies finally rolled out of Feeney’s now-empty wallet, and his life’s mission was accomplished.

You know what gets me? It took 38 years.

Because giving away money in a way that doesn’t do harm, and even more, in a way that actually does good, is a time-consuming job.

I started giving away a tiny bit of money a few months ago for purely selfish, mercenary reasons. Earlier this year, I broke through a long-standing earnings ceiling. And I wanted to make sure I never fall through the hole in that ceiling and drop back down to the ground floor.

So I took the advice of Tony Robbins, who says to give away some money — as a way of signaling to your brain that you’ve got more than enough. (You might think this is some kooky new age bullshit, but the more I learn about persuasion and human psychology, the more I believe this kind of stuff.)

The thing is though, giving away money to a halfway-deserving cause, where the money will be spent on something other than comfier chairs for holier-than-thou bureaucrats, well, that’s not easy. Some months I don’t give anything away, just because I don’t know where.

But let me snip to the chase: I just signed up to give away $40 a month to some charity. Frankly, I don’t know if the charity is any good — that would take more research than I’m willing to put in.

But the donation was recommended by direct marketer Brian Kurtz, who claims it’s worthwhile. And for this donation, Brian is also giving me (and you, if you want) an ethical bribe: the digital version of his Titans of Direct Response event.

Thing is, I’m not sure whether this will satisfy my need to give away money. After all, I’ve lusted after this Titans product for a while. It’s got recordings of top marketers and copywriters revealing things they’d never revealed anywhere else. I thought about getting this product earlier, but I put it off because it normally sells for a couple thou. Well, I can now get it for much much cheaper, and give away some money too to a charity. (But will my brain believe that?)

I can’t say this is the decision you too should make. You might not believe the Tony Robbins philanthropy/earnings juju, or you might not want the Titans course, even at a fat discount. But if you are interested, or if you just want to see how a marketing master structures an attractive offer, head on over to the following page and read the P.S.:

https://www.briankurtz.net/informationinspirationor-just-lunch/

A sexy technique for writing bullets that leave other copywriters green with envy

by

I was at the gym today when I saw a guy getting ready to do squats after me. I watched him nervously as he stacked a few plates on the barbell. And then I took a big sigh of relief. I realized he will squat less weight than I was just squatting.

Like the other 7.8 billion people on this planet, I shrink with envy when I lag other people in some measure. I swell with pride when I am better than them.

You might know pride and envy as two of the seven deadly sins. Which brings me to a sexy copywriting technique I just heard copywriter Chris Haddad talk about.

Chris says most people write boring bullets. I know I do. The fix, according to Chris, is to take your boring bullets and marry them to the seven deadly sins.

Let me give you a few examples. Here are three sin-lite bullets I quickly wrote for the description to my soon-to-be-published book, The 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters:

II. A simple guiding principle that’s almost guaranteed to bring you into the top of the copywriting game (and it’s not just to work harder).

III. A 5-minute way to transform your copy so it sucks in your reader all the way to the sale, without him realizing what happened.

VII. A technique to convert even the most jaded, skeptical, and hostile prospects (some copywriters say this is the biggest breakthrough of the last five years).

Not awful, but not good either. So let’s soup it up by appealing to perennial human failings:

II. [WRATH] Hate losing, and hate yourself when you lose? Follow this commandment, and you will be able to crush competing copywriters, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women.

III. [SLOTH] The easiest commandment of the lot. It takes just 5 minutes to do but it can suck your reader all the way to the sale, without him realizing what happened.

VII. [PRIDE] How to “get one up” on jaded or even hostile prospects who think they are too smart to believe your marketing or to buy from you (some copywriters say this is the biggest breakthrough of the last five years).

These sinful bullets still have a way to go, particularly in the way of mechanism or proof. But I think they are better than what I started with. So if you too work for the Satanical Church of Direct Response… then try appealing to lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, sloth, envy, and pride the next time bullets are on your plate.

Speaking of lust:

My daily email newsletter can help you get laid tonight. And then you can brag about it to your friends… while you aggressively chew on a large leg of mutton, paid for by all the easy money you earned by taking my push-button copywriting recommendations.

Click here to subscribe. Or don’t — and be left in the dust as other, younger copywriters catch up to you and then overtake you.