The best possible contest you could ever run to create demand and sales for your products, without cheapening, but in fact while heightening the perceived value of your offer

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Today, I want to share with you a marketing technique so powerful, so daring, so all-around incredible that I wish I had the circumstances and the courage to implement it myself right now.

Alas, I do not. But perhaps you are luckier and braver than I am, and so perhaps you will profit. Let me set it up with this true story:

Before P.T. Barnum got into the circus business, he made his living promoting rare and unusual talents. One of these was Jenny Lind, a Swedish opera singer who had won great fame in Europe.

Barnum decided to bring Lind to America.

Only problem was, Americans didn’t care.

Barnum started a big newspaper publicity campaign to build up desire for Lind. Once newspaper-reading Americans started to be intrigued by the “Swedish Nightingale”, selling tickets became no problem. But Barnum didn’t stop there.

Once excitement to hear Lind sing had grown to fever pitch, Barnum organized a spectacular event, a contest. And that’s the marketing technique I want to tell you about.

Barnum started selling tickets to the first Jenny Lind concert by auction.

And of course, he didn’t stop there either.

Instead, he went to a certain Genin, a hat maker in New York, and advised him to bid whatever it took to win the first auctioned ticket. Secretly, he then went to a certain Dr. Brandreth, a maker of a patent medicine. He told the same to Brandreth, to bid whatever it took to win.

“The higher the price,” Barnum told both men separately, “the greater renown it will give you all over the country within twenty-four hours.”

Brandreth did not do as he was told. He only bid as high as $200 — a princely sum at the time, equivalent to $7,700 today. But he lost the first Jenny Lind ticket. He had this to say later:

“I had better have paid $5,000 than to have missed securing the first Jenny Lind ticket. Such a splendid chance for notoriety will never offer itself again.”

On the other hand, Genin did as Barnum told him to do. He kept bidding and got the ticket for $225. And instantly, he became a nationwide topic of interest.

People all around the country suddenly started asking, “Who is this Genin who paid such money for a ticket?”

Men started taking off their hats and checking the labels inside, hoping that they too might have a real Genin hat. A man in Iowa who did find himself in possession of a ragged and beat-up old “real Genin”, which wasn’t worth 2 cents, auctioned it off for more than $360 in today’s money.

And Genin in New York started selling 10,000 extra hats a year on the back of that initial $225 investment — and became a very rich man.

As for Barnum and Lind, well, as you can guess, their tour became a yuge success. Barnum toured the country with Lind for several years, making tens of millions of dollars (in today’s money) for both Lind and for himself. Eventually, Lind decided to return to Europe and Barnum took his energy and his talents to other pursuits.

So there you go.

A blueprint for the best possible contest you could ever run to create demand and sales for your products, without cheapening, but in fact while heightening the perceived value of your offer.

If you do ever implement this scheme and profit handsomely from it, don’t send me a free ticket to your show — that would be against the whole spirit of the thing. Just write me and say thank you, and I will pass on your thanks to P.T. Barnum.

By the way, I really hate to give this idea away. But, like I said, I have neither the circumstances nor the courage to implement it myself right now.

All I can do is tell you to sign up for my daily email newsletter.

It’s available today for free.

If, like Genin the hatter, you would like to pay a princely sum for it and in that way distinguish yourself, you will have to wait until I start charging for my emails.

On the other hand, if you simply want the entertainment and education inside my newsletter, you can get that opportunity here.

Can you help me find this piece of copy?

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Today, I logged into Facebook for first time in over a year.

It felt like I was sneaking into an abandoned and decaying warehouse late at night.

A peeling poster on the wall screamed at me, “YAY! A page you manage has been updated!”

I had ghostly friend requests from people I have never heard of and new message requests that sounded gruff at best (“do you write advartorials”).

I sneaked around that abandoned warehouse for a few minutes, peeking into a few cardboard boxes and looking under the broken tiles on the ground.

It became clear I wouldn’t find what I had come looking for.

I quietly made my way towards the exit and closed the private browser tab behind me. I’m not sure if this will have any real effect on Facebook tracking each step I make, but psychologically it was an important step to feeling I had left that dusty, dark, and desolate warehouse behind me.

But like I said, I didn’t find what I was looking for.

Maybe you can help me find it. If you can, I promise to give you something in return.

I was looking for a post by the Note Taking Nerd. This post was an in-depth analysis of a landing page for a vertical jump offer, which I guess was running on Clickbank.

I read this post a few years ago – I guess 2018 or 2019. I thought it was brilliant, and I saved it to my computer.

Only problem is, that was my old computer, which is now gathering its own dust in its own abandoned warehouse in a country far away.

So if you either have this post saved by chance, or if you can find it somewhere and send me a screenshot of it (don’t make me step into that dusty darkness again) then I will give you a free copy of a training I will prepare some time soon.

I know that promise sounds very vague. Here’s what I can tell you now:

This training will be about a fundamental element of making your message sticky — and a fundamental element of making all your copy, and all your writing more persuasive, without resorting to anything obvious like hype or fear or greed.

I will be charging for this training, but like I said, you will get it for free, if you can somehow get me a copy of that Note Taking Nerd post.

And if you’re not interested in that offer, you might be interested in something completely different:

I write a daily email newsletter. It’s been called “the most underrated list in copywriting.” In case you’d like to find out why, you can try out my newsletter for one day, for free, no credit card required, by taking advantage of this special offer.

The secret reason I still stick with copywriting after all these years

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Here’s a confession:

I’m not in this field because of the money or supposed freedom that copywriting brings.

Sure, that’s why I got into it in the first place. And I guess if I didn’t make any money, or if the work conditions sucked, I might move on to something else.

But the real thing that keeps me going in copywriting, that sucks me in and fascinates me, is learning more about myself and about other people.

Because it turns out that direct response marketing is an incredible lens to allow you to see inside people’s psyches, and what they really respond to.

Case in point:

Joe Sugarman of BluBlockers fame once told a story about his cousin, who was a psychiatrist. The cousin was hired by the San Diego Chargers, an American football team.

The Chargers wanted to find out what separated football superstars from the rank-and-file of all the others players. After some MK-Ultra type research, Joe’s cousin figured out there were two personality types who became superstars. They were either:

A. Egomaniacs

or

B. Deeply religious

“And when you really think about it,” Joe said, “what did they have in common? A very strong belief in either themselves or in a higher power.”

I’m not here to tell you to believe in yourself, or in a higher power.

I’m just here to point out am important fact in case you ever want to sell something:

If the thing that sets superstars apart is that they believe, either in themselves or in God, then what does that say about everybody else? What does it say about the 99.9% of people in any field who are not superstars?

They don’t believe. Or at least they don’t have anything focused to believe in.

And mercenary thought it might sound, smart marketers have been taking advantage of this lack of belief to sell trillions of dollars worth of stuff.

Because smart marketers give prospects something to believe in. An external thing… and yet, a thing that doesn’t require religious feeling or faith in the supernatural.

That thing is called the mechanism.

The mechanism is usually described as “how the solution works.” And it is that. But it’s really much more. It’s hope and belief in something outside yourself.

Of course, after a century-plus of creative mechanisms — cold showers and hyperventilation, buttered coffee, adaptogenic mushrooms — you can’t just hold up a bag of rocks and say, “Here, believe in this.”

You gotta come up with a mechanism that threads the thin line between exciting and exotic and believable and achievable.

I got a mechanism for you. It’s called “The John Bejakovic Letter” and it’s been called the most insightful newsletter about copywriting, marketing, and influence. In case you’d like to sign up for it, click here and follow the instructions.

A peek behind the scenes of a smashingly successful launch

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A while back, copywritress Liza Schermann, whom I’ve promoted in this newsletter as somebody who writes interesting, funny, and — I’m ashamed to say this — even sexy emails, went through my Copy Riddles program.

​​Liza had this to say about it:

“The entire course is an a-ha moment. Because you see these things from other copywriters or you read other copy, but you don’t see what’s behind it or why it’s working. Your course shows what happens behind the scenes.”

As an example of that, consider another revealing thing Liza told me:

This summer, she went through Copy Riddles for a second time as a refresher.

​​She applied the bullet lessons in Copy Riddles to a rewrite of an email launch sequence for a client. The client sent out this rewritten email sequence to an already spent list, promoting the same tired offer, for a second run of this launch, and—

Ended up making NOT just a few extra sales from that spent list and tired offer…

NOT just matching the sales she made the first time around…

But actually making 150% of the money she made during the first launch, when the list was entirely fresh!

As a result, Liza says, the client “was over the moon. So much so that she recommended me to a friend of hers who also has a language course.”

Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!

Well… about that.

It turns out the reality is a tad more murky. Liza told me that for this second launch:

– The price tag for the offer increased, and
– The list was significantly larger than the first time around, and yet,
– The client actually made fewer sales than first time, though the total money was more.

So was that second launch actually a success or no? And if it was, did Liza’s new copy, and her time inside Copy Riddles, have anything to do with that 150% of money made?

If you ask me, money made is more important than number of sales made. And fewer customers at a higher price are better than more customers at lower price.

Also, having seen Liza’s rewritten emails before and after, I personally believe that the “after” was stronger and contributed to that extra 50% in money made.

Whatever the case, here’s the behind-the-scenes point:

Imagine if I had cut off this email at “Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!”

​​Imagine I had dropped all that murky stuff about price increases and a larger list.

​​Imagine if I had simply kept the picture sharp and clear and said, “… and that kind of smashing success, ladies and gentlemen, shows the power of Copy Riddles, which you can invest in today for the low, low price of…”

The fact is, that’s exactly what happens in copy all the time.

You don’t see all the facts behind the copy. You don’t see what the copywriter chose to omit, and you don’t see how he patiently twisted, polished, and positioned what he allowed you to see.

You might say that’s despicable or dishonest to hold back the whole, naked truth.

​​But to me it’s the essence of what copywriting is — creating a calculated perception, a gloss, a heart-pumping response. And yes, that’s true even in cases like my email today, where I’m making a seemingly transparent reveal and “taking you behind the scenes.”

Anyways, if you want interesting, funny, and — there’s that word again — even sexy emails for your business, you can try to hunt down and hire Liza. She has my full endorsement. And she might be taking on new clients, though I can’t say for sure.

On the other hand, if you write your own copy, or if you want to work with clients who pay you to write copy for them, then you might want to get on my daily email list, and experience more copywriting a-ha moments than you would ever believe possible. If you’re interested, click here and fill out the form that pops up.

How to bombard copywriting clients with extra value at no extra effort

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A Copy Riddles member named Nathan, who asked me not to share his last name for (I’m supposing) financial reasons that may become obvious if you read on, once told me his bullet-based recipe for pleasing and impressing clients:

===

I love what Harry said. I do something similar:

– I familiarise with the content I’m promoting eg. eBook
– Develop the big idea
– Write as many bullets as I can – as quick as I can
– connect them all to the big idea and edit based on your training
– Sprinkle them throughout my copy

Then, as a bonus to my client… I hand them the best bullets and tell them they’re free “Twitter” posts. Sometimes it’s around 30-40 bullets I end up handing over.

Clients love it as they feel like they’ve been bombarded with extra value. And it took no extra effort.

===

About a month ago, I wrote about how I survived the first few years of my freelance copywriting career. I had work on and off, I made enough money to survive, but it was hardly the promised “barefoot writer” lifestyle.

​​All that stuff about business owners being desperate to find good copywriters — and being desperate to throw good money at good copywriters — well, I realized that was just hype.

Except it’s not.

I experienced first hand it really is true. There are successful business owners who are desperate to find a good copywriter, and to pay him or her well — if only they could locate the underground dens where such good copywriters burrow.

As I’ve written before, I got into this lucky position a few years ago; Nathan discovered it earlier this year. He wrote me to say:

===

As you know, I went into a full-time copywriter role around six months back (as with a mortgage and kids, I can appreciate the reliable income). I’m excited to share that I’ve been headhunted to a more prominent company and will start the new copywriting role at the end of this month — with a hefty pay rise.

But it’s not just the “head hunting” and “pay rise” that is the exciting part…

Is that my old job don’t want to lose me, so they’re going to contract me to keep writing for them… And…

The marketing manager (who also recently moved to another organisation) is contracting me to write for her as well.

All of this means I’m more than doubling my income.

Why this success? I don’t think it’s because I’m better than any other copywriter. Honestly, I think it’s because I read what you, Daniel and Ben say… I trust it… And I put it to practice.

You already know how important your bullet course has been for my journey, but the value you share in every email (just like this one) I treat with as much respect as any piece of information I’ve paid for.

===

I’m not sure if you got the kind of value from this free email that Nathan is talking about. Perhaps you didn’t.

But perhaps you did. And perhaps you even want the information I charge for, so you can go through it, put it to practice, and even profit from it. In that case, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Promiscious upgrading is a very bad plan indeed

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A Copy Riddles member named Paul writes in:

Hello John,

I purchased Copy Riddles some months ago.

Will you give me (and all previous buyers) access to the member’s area now that the program is delivered on a website?

The answer is yes and no.

I definitely gave Paul access to the members-only area of my site where Copy Riddles is now hosted.

Hence the yes part in the “yes and no” above.

But I won’t do the same for all previous buyers — not unless they write me and ask. ​​Hence the no.

The reason I am not giving access automatically to all previous buyers is that I have to do it manually, and that takes some time and effort. And why go to that expense for someone who might not appreciate it? ​​In the words of the godfather of modern advertising, Claude Hopkins:

I consider promiscuous sampling a very bad plan indeed. Products handed out without asking or thrown on the doorstep lose respect. It is different when you force people to make an effort.

As it was for bars of soap a hundred years ago, so it is for the new Copy Riddles today.

If you have gone through Copy Riddles previously, in its old, email-based form, and you’d like me to upgrade you to the new, web-based form, just write me and ask. I will do it, as Joe Sugarman used to say, promptly and courteously.

And if you haven’t yet gone through Copy Riddles yet in any form, here’s what Paul (same Paul as above) had to say after I upgraded him to the new Copy Riddles:

What you offer in the “Copy Riddles Course” is a very clever and powerful way to improve our copywriting skills. It’s based on the work of the greatest copywriters. But it’s the kind of practical value you wouldn’t generally find in the books they wrote. In fact, I think there are very few copywriting courses that offer this level of practical value. Best of all, yours is very affordable. Thanks again John. Oh, and by the way, my mother tongue is French and I find that everything you present is clear and well explained, even though I am not a native English speaker.

In case you’d like to join Copy Riddles before the price goes up:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

“Why would you ever say anything that’s not awesome?”

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This past summer, I wrote an email about how I was struggling to get through the Dig.This.Zoom course, in spite of having paid $1,200 for it.

Maybe it will turn out the course wasn’t an entire waste of money, because it did provide me with the following quick story:

In one Dig.This.Zoom lesson, Aaron Winter, former copy chief at Motley Fool and guru to super successful Dig copywriters like Dan Ferrari and Austin Lee, was talking about headlines.

​​”So there’s headlines,” Aaron said, “and then there’s… stuff? Content? We reject that. Ideally, they’re all headlines. Why would you ever say something that’s not awesome?”

In slightly clearer words, Aaron was saying that each line of your copy should have as much pull — as much emotional weight and curiosity and benefit, all fused together — as your headline has.

This is the kind of inspirational but vague mysticism that made me start to tune out the entire Dig.This.Zoom course.

Fortunately, Austin Lee, who was on this particular Dig.This.Zoom call, chimed in at this point with some practical advice:

“One of the most fun and educational exercises you encouraged me to do was write a headline for every little section of my outline. I really wrote an entire promo of maybe 26 or 32 headlines all the way down through the offer.”

I bring this up (spoiler alert) because I am promoting my Copy Riddles program. Whenever I do promote this program, I always get some form of the following question:

Is Copy Riddles just about bullets OR about about copywriting in general?

The answer is yes.

As Aaron says above, copywriting is really about your best headlines. And your best headlines are really just your best bullets. Or as Ben Settle put it once:

“Bullets still work, never stopped working, and will always work — When written correct everything ‘comes’ from the bullets, including non-bullet copy or ads where there are no bullets.”

Copy Riddles is now open and ready to turn you into somebody who writes stuff that’s awesome. Whether that’s awesome bullets, awesome headlines, or awesome body copy.

​​In case you’re interested:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

sold out

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Just a heads up, nearly half of all the artificially restricted copies of Copy Riddles have sol—

Relax. I won’t go there.

A couple days ago, I tapped into a rich vein of discontent by writing about Justin Goff’s “sold out” email, which tried to push an unattractive offer that had “sold out” fewer than half of all available copies.

Many readers wrote in to say they found this kind of marketing sneaky and misleading (“This email had me screaming at my phone”).

And then, among the many “you tell ’em!” replies, I got a message by a reader named Andre, who wrote in with a suggestion for me:

Your email about no real urgency on infinite+ digital copies reminded me of what Tony Shepherd used to do.

Because he had a fairly large suite of digital products…

He ripped a page out of Disney’s marketing book.

What he did was promote a product for a set amount of time and then…

Put it back into the “vault” where it was unavailable until the next time he promoted it.

It’s an interesting strategy to use for digital products.

Not sure if that would ever work for you, or even a creative variation, but hey, there it is.

The fact is, this model is exactly what I was doing with my Copy Riddles program — until yesterday.

I presold and launched Copy Riddles last year in April. I dripped the content out by email day by day — because I was creating it live, day by day.

After that initial launch finished, I placed Copy Riddles inside a heavy trunk and had the trunk locked and brought inside the Bejakovic Cave of Treasures.

​​I then had the cave sealed with a large boulder and guarded by a large man with a large sword, who only ever said one thing, “Hassan chop.”

It was only every few months that I had Hassan move the boulder and open up the cave. Only for a few days at a time did I let people inside to partake of Copy Riddles treasures.

This model worked well. Each time I made Copy Riddles available for a few days, I had new people sign up. And I made good money.

Plus there were other benefits, too.

For example, many people who had signed up during earlier runs signed up again, since they got lifetime access.

​​On that second or third run, some of them finally consumed all the content, which made it so they could finally get the promise of the course — A-list copywriting skills, implanted into your brain.

​​That was good for them and good for me. Because, promise delivered, they were now that much more likely to become my long-term customers.

Anyways, like I said, that’s the model I used — until yesterday.

As of yesterday, Copy Riddles is now an evergreen course. It’s available year-round, and not just during a few launch periods. And it’s delivered through a members-only area of my site (which I might rename The Cave of Treasures) and not through email.

I’m telling you all this because of the ongoing Copy Riddles “launch.”

All the current “launch” really means is that if you do decide to get Copy Riddles before this Sunday, Oct 30 2022, at 12 midnight PST, you will pay less than if you join Copy Riddles after this “launch” period ends. I will increase the price to $400 on Monday as a first step.

But there’s a second reason why I’m telling you about my course model switch. And that’s in case you ever create and want to sell courses of your own.

How you package up and deliver those courses will have a big impact on how those courses are perceived, sold, and consumed — independent of the content and value inside.

But if you are creating your own courses, don’t assume that just because I changed from the launch to the evergreen model that this is the way to go.

The fact is, this switch wasn’t a decision about money or about the number of sales made.

I simply wanted offers I could promote regularly at end of my daily emails. Copy Riddles is now one of those offers.

But this switch means I’ve lost some of the benefits of the launch model. I’ve had to think up ways to try to reproduce at least a part of them.

We will see if the price increase on Monday will work to stimulate the same kind of urgency as Hassan rolling back the boulder on the mouth of the cave.

And as for those other benefits of the launch model — like people actually consuming the content and getting value out of the course — well, I’ve had to think up other things.

I’ll talk about those in future emails during this “launch” period. Meanwhile, if you want to get Copy Riddles now, before the price goes up, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Copy Riddles rolls into town again

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“Advertising is like learning — a little is a dangerous thing”
— P.T. Barnum

And with that quote, I would like to announce that my Copy Riddles program has once again rolled into town and pitched its tents down by the old horse track.

If you have been on my list for a while and know what Copy Riddles is and you know you want in, then you can buy your ticket now, by following the link below.

If you have not been on my list for very long, or you don’t know what Copy Riddles is about, then grab your cotton candy and settle into your seat and get ready for a show.

Over the coming days, I will be advertising Copy Riddles heavily. With a spectacular show involving clowns, elephants, and burning rings of fire, I’ll be explaining what Copy Riddles is and why you might want to get it, and get it before 12 midnight PST this Sunday.

Because a little advertising is a dangerous thing. And as P.T. Barnum’s ghost can testify, I am very averse to danger.

If by chance you are ready to join Copy Riddles right now, or you’re just curious about it:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

“sold out”

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Yesterday, marketer Justin Goff sent out an email with the subject line “sold out”. The body copy immediately explained what was sold out:

Just a heads up, nearly half of the 250 swipe files that are available in the special sale going on today have already been taken…

So they will be sold out soon.

Here are a few things I, and probably many other people who are on Justin’s list, know after this email:

1. Justin has been promoting this affiliate offer for a few days.

2. So have several other marketers with large lists, including some with the largest lists in the copywriting/IM niche.

3. After several days of steady emailing by all those marketers, going out to tens of thousands of people in total, fewer than 125 sales of the affiliate offer have been made. That probably translates to a less than 0.1% conversion rate — and maybe as low as 0.025%.

I don’t know how many sales, and more importantly, how much money, Justin made with this “sold out” email. Maybe he did great. And maybe I will look like a fool for sticking my nose into things that I don’t know anything about.

With that in mind, let me say that Justin’s email is a violation of a fundamental rule of copywriting.

Perhaps the most fundamental rule of them all.

It’s a rule I was exposed to in the mythical webinar training that A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos put on back in 2018. Parris repeated this rule, over and over, while talking about how he evaluates his own copy, and while critiquing many pieces of student-submitted copy. The rule is this:

“Does it help your case, hurt your case, or is it neutral? Only keep it in if it helps your case.”

This rule might seem blindingly obvious. But as Justin’s email above shows, even smart and successful marketers will break this rule — because they get rushed, careless, or greedy.

When I read Justin’s email, my first impression was, “Fewer than 125 copies sold? This must not be a very attractive offer.” My second impression was, “Even if it’s a fine offer, I’ve got plenty of time to get it, since at this rate it won’t sell out soon — in spite of Justin’s alarmist subject line.”

Again, I might be sticking my hoof in my snout by talking about a promotion where I don’t know the actual sales numbers, and one which is still going on.

But the bigger point stands. Does it help your case, hurt your case, or is it neutral?

Anyways, on to my own promotion:

Nearly half of the infinity+ digital copies of my Most Valuable Email course have already been sold.

The remaining infinity+ copies are sure to sell out soon. So starting tomorrow, I will turn my great eye elsewhere, and start promoting my twice-born Copy Riddles program.

That means you might not hear from me about my Most Valuable Email program for a while, even though it will continue to be available for sale.

But hold on—

Is this any kind of way to do urgency? Should the fact that I won’t be pitching MVE for a while make you want to buy it today?

No. Not unless you’re the type to get activated by “sold out” subject lines and other transparent scarcity tactics.

On the other hand, if you like the basic promise of Most Valuable Email — “turn ordinary and rather boring emails into something clever and cool” — then today is as good a day as any to start down that path. ​​And maybe even better than any later day — because if you get going now, you will start seeing the benefits of this little trick in action sooner.

Whatever the case, if you are interested, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/mve