Your advice on this rough draft?

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Could I get your advice on something?

I’m trying to figure out a way to get people intrigued enough to listen to a new podcast interview (published earlier this month), which I myself just listened to.

The trouble is that the interview is with somebody very famous in the marketing space — so famous in fact, that I’ve written about him twice in only the past 10 days.

So here’s what I’m thinking to do. Rather than talking about this famous guy, I’m thinking to craft a message about a powerful promise:

“How to create products your audience loves, feels invested in, and is ready to buy, sight unseen”

This is something that’s revealed in this podcast interview.

​​The basic idea is to get your prospects to participate in the making of your product. That’s the “WHAT,” which is already familiar to a lot of people. But here’s where the extra insight lies:

It’s super important HOW you ask people to participate in that co-creation.

Do it right, and you get helpful feedback and eager new fans… do it wrong, and you get a bunch of skeptics and most probably a product failure.

Once I talk about that, I would then I would finish my message by saying something like:
​​
“And that’s what’s you can find inside this podcast interview blah blah here’s the link.”
​​
So that’s my current rough draft. If you have any advice for me, please write me an email and let me know.

And if you think it might be helpful to listen to the actual interview before you give me your feedback, the link is below. But be warned — this interview is rather short (~20 mins), a little fanboyish, and it covers stuff you might already know. If that doesn’t deter you:

https://ilovemarketing.com/influence-brand-new-insights-into-the-psychology-of-persuasion-featuring-the-godfather-of-influence/

Cialdini’s limited hangout

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In chapter 3 of Influence, Robert Cialdini tells the interesting story of a transcendental meditation event he went to.

Cialdini was at the event to study the recruiting methods of the TM organization. He was sitting in the audience with a friend, a professor of statistics and symbolic logic.

The TM presentation started out talking about inner peace and better sleep. But it got progressively weirder and more outlandish. Cialdini says that, by the end, the TM gurus were promising to teach you how to fly through walls.

Eventually, Cialdini’s rational and scientific friend couldn’t take it any more. He stood up, spoke to the whole room, and “gently but surely demolished the presentation.” He showed how the presentation was illogical, contradictory, and groundless.

The TM gurus on stage fell silent. They hung their heads and admitted that Cialdini’s friend raised really good points, and they would have to look deeply into this.

So whaddya think happened? If you’ve read my recent posts about Frank Abagnale and Uri Geller, you probably know exactly what happened:

Once the TM presentation ended, people in the audience rushed to the back of the room. They handed over their money to sign up for TM bootcamps and workshops.

Did they not hear Cialdini’s friend dismantle the whole TM gimmick? Or were they just too dumb to understand what he was saying?

Nope. Neither. They heard him, and they understood perfectly what he was saying. That’s why they were so eager to jump aboard the slow-moving TM train.

“Well, I wasn’t going to put down any money tonight,” said one future TM’er when pressed later by Cialdini. “I’m really quite broke right now. I was going to wait until the next meeting. But when your buddy started talking, I knew I’d better give them my money now, or I’d go home and start thinking about what he said and never sign up.”

I read this story a few days ago. And I was thinking about how you could use this quirk of human nature for intentional marketing. And then, yesterday, I ran across the term limited hangout.

Limited hangout is apparently a term used by politicians’ aides and CIA operatives. It’s when you cover up the full extent of a scandal or secret by an early reveal of some of the damaging stuff. By letting it hang out. Not all of it, of course.

An example of this was Richard Nixon and company’s attempt to cover up how high Watergate went. They were planning to do a “modified limited hangout” and release a report with a lot of damaging information. Of course not implicating the president.

It didn’t work for Nixon. Too little, too late. But apparently limited hangout has worked in lots of other cases.

The thing is, everybody who writes about limited hangout says it is an example of misdirection… or gullibility… or short attention spans.

Perhaps. But perhaps the effectiveness of the limited hangout technique is just what Cialdini writes about.

When we believe something, then information to the contrary actually drives us towards that something. I will leave it at that, and let you use this dangerous material as you see fit.

And on that note:

I’m not sure if you have a strong desire to hear from me again on similar persuasion topics. If you do, I have to tell you that I often write about borderline immoral tactics. Plus there’s no guarantee that any of them will work for you. If that doesn’t deter you, here’s how you can make sure to hear more of my ideas.

This 9-figure copywriter just made the sales letter discovery of a lifetime…

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Dear friend,

Normally, I don’t write about these kinds of off-limits “insider strategies” of rich and famous copywriters.

But these aren’t normal times…

And the discovery that came out of this top-secret research…

Is simply too important, and has too much money-making potential, to be ignored.

Now in the rest of this email, I’m going to be sharing exactly what this discovery is…

The science behind why it works…

And how you can begin using it TODAY to write killer copy, to make yourself more sales in less time.

Also, in just a few moments from now…

I’ll show you how a tiny mistake in your sales letter lead could be costing you 80% of your sales…

Plus you will discover the “super fun” tactic one elite copywriter, whose sales will soon hit the billion-dollar mark, has found to make his prospects keep reading… and ultimately BUY.

***

All right. Let me emerge from modeling the lead of Stefan Georgi’s Gluco Secure sales letter. (And yes, Stefan is the 9-figure copywriter I referenced in the subject line.)

I’ve been writing my own sales letter lately, to promote the official launch of my bullets course. And in the top-secret research for that, I discovered the following:

Stefan Georgi says one of the biggest jumps he made as a copywriter came by mastering bullets.

“They make great headlines,” says Stefan, “plus they are super fun to write.” But that’s not all.

Stefan says that many copywriters forget to fascinate in the lead of their sales letter.

​​The lead. You know — the part that determines 80% of your overall sales.

​​Stefan doesn’t like the chance that he’s going to lose 80% of his readers right up front. So he adds camouflaged bullets at the end of his leads. (Like I did right before those asterisks above.)

​​​​These lead bullets are a kind of sales insurance to intrigue readers and pull them deeper into your copy. ​Stefan explains:

“Because even if my lead is a bit off, or if my big idea isn’t hitting as hard as I thought it would, throwing in those intriguing bullets at the end drastically increases the chances of the prospect sticking with me. And, the longer they stick with me, the more invested they become, and the more likely they are to ultimately buy.”

“Ultimately buy.”

Ultimately, I don’t have anything to offer you to buy today. But I will soon.

It will be my bullets course. That’s where, if you like, you can learn how to write A-list bullets that go at the end of your sales letter lead… or in your headline… or anywhere else you want to get your reader’s attention and interest.

But not today. Today, if you want to read Stefan’s thoughts on bullets, or discover the other big mistakes he sees in sales letter leads, here’s where to go:

https://www.stefanpaulgeorgi.com/blog/big-lead-mistake-5-forgetting-to-fascinate/

“Worse is better” marketing

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A-list copywriter Carline Anglade Cole doesn’t put a lot of effort into many of her email subject lines. On Thursdays, she sends out an email with the subject line “Carline’s Copy Thought.” Tuesdays are “Trade $ecret$ Tuesdays,” and Fridays are “Flashback Fridays.” And the next week, it all repeats.

Mark Ford, the multimillionaire copywriter and marketer who helped make Agora a billion-dollar company, went through a period where each email he sent out had the same one-word subject line. “Today.” That was it. Over and over.

Is this just a shocking example of laziness that top marketers practice when promoting their own stuff?

Or…

Could it be a case of “worse is better”? Where doing less gets you better results than doing more?

Well consider this. I always open Mark Ford’s emails, even if they say “Today” for the 10th day in a row.

On the other hand…

Today I got an email from an A-list copywriter. I won’t name him, but I’ll tell you I often open his emails. But I didn’t open his email today. I read the subject line and I said, “Oh, I know where this is going. I don’t need to read it.”

The fact is this:

Even people who are perfect prospects for what you’re selling will often dismiss your message instantly. They will use any little excuse to say, “No no, this is not for me, not now.” Even if your offer could hugely benefit them. Even if it’s exactly what they need.

Why are people like this? I don’t know. My guess is it has something to do with why taking out the trash is so hard.

Of course, one way to deal with this is the usual direct response light show, with flashing neon promises and blaring warning sirens.

But if you’ve got enough credibility with your audience, then you can do what Carline and Mark do. And you might actually get better results. And if you’re not convinced yet that “worse is better” can get you better results, let me give you an example with some hard numbers:

Marketer Rich Schefren once offered an upsell he called “Mystery Box.” Once you bought Rich’s front-end product, a video popped up with Rich holding this box and saying something like,

“Do you trust me? I promise you that what’s inside this box is worth 100x the $49 price I’m asking for it. Get it today and see for yourself, and if you don’t agree with me, you can always get your money back.”

Rich says his typical upsell converts at around 30%-40%. The mystery box? No excuses to say no? That converted at 75%.

​​Twice the sales. For less effort. Might be worth a try in your business as well.

And since you’ve read this far, let me ask you a question:

Do you trust me? I promise you that the free offer that’s waiting at this link is worth 100x the price I’m asking for it. Try it today and see for yourself, and if you don’t agree, you can always get your entire investment back.

Stupid email from: tricks

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A few weeks ago, I got an email with the subject line, “Once in a lifetime sit in….on this?? 😳.” The email was from “Your Official Invit.”

“Hm,” I said. “Who is this Invit and what does he want?” I opened the email.

It turned out to be from Clickbank, promoting their Platinum Summit event. I don’t remember ever getting any emails from Clickbank before.

Then a few days passed and I got an email from “A story you’ll love.” Again more trickery. It was really Clickbank again.

Then more emails. From “Your first sale.” From “Your boss.” And from “Future John.” Clickbank. Clickbank. Clickbank.

I finally unsubscribed.

I’ve never seen these stupid email from: tricks done well. And by done well, I mean done so it didn’t piss me off and so it made me want to buy whatever they were selling. Or even just read the email.

And so I thought I would certainly never try this myself.

But, maybe… maybe I will change my mind.

Because it turns out it can be done well. I saw Dan Kennedy do it well.

Dan of course never sent emails. But he did send sales letters and package inserts from characters like Viva The “Broken English” Cleaning Lady and Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant. The Oscar one starts out with a cartoon of a scowling elephant with boxing gloves on. Then there’s a headline which reads:

John, A Nasty Note From Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant
You might want to read carefully. You’ve already won a prize. Not that I think you deserve it.

This works. Not because it comes from Dan Kennedy. But because it’s entertaining and builds up the relationship instead of tearing it down (not that there ever was one, Clickbank).

I’m not sure I will ever figure out how to do this with made-up characters in email.

But maybe, if in the future you see an unfamiliar email from Casper The Clickbank Camel… consider it might be this guy right here.

Oh. But I forgot. You’re not subscribed to my email newsletter. If you’d like to fix that, so you and Casper can stay in touch, then here’s where to go.

F for Frank Abagnale

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My headline today is a play on F For Fake. That was a documentary Orson Wells made about frauds, forgers, and fakers, himself included. And it ties into some real news about Frank Abagnale.

You’ve probably heard that name. Frank Abagnale is the real-life guy whose story was told by Steven Spielberg in Catch Me If You Can.

Between the ages of 16 and 20, Frank impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and a college professor. He traveled all around the world… broke the hearts of lovely stewardesses… and lived rich by passing fake checks.

Even if you don’t approve of Frank’s crimes, I bet you enjoyed the movie based on Frank’s life. And maybe you even had a bit of sympathy for his daring and boyish charm, at least as portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Except… maybe… it never happened?

I don’t mean the movie stretched the truth.

I mean, maybe Frank’s story of fraud and forgery was all a fake, from day one?

According to some guy writing for WHYY, an NPR subsidiary, it’s all a big lie. Frank Abagnale never did any of those exciting and romantic things we know him for. Well, he did pass a few bad checks, and he did stalk a stewardess for a while. But that’s about where the romance ends.

And it gets crazier because:

Apparently this was well-known back in the 70s. That’s when a few newspapers published articles to debunk Frank’s grandiose claims.

But it didn’t hurt none. Frank’s legend grew through self-promotion, and grew, and grew, until he took over Hollywood.

This is similar to the story I wrote about a few weeks ago, about psychic Uri Geller, and James Randi, the guy who debunked him. But my message for you today is less controversial than what I wrote back then.

My message today is simply a business truth:

You don’t succeed because you create and deliver a superior product or service. The world will not beat a path to your door.

Instead, you succeed because you create and deliver superior marketing.

This is true whether you’re a computer engineer, a consultant, a copywriter… or as Frank Abagnale’s story shows, even a con man. As Frank’s dad puts it in a famous scene from Catch Me If You Can:

Frank’s dad: You know why the Yankees always win, Frank?

Frank: Cause they have Mickey Mantle?

Frank’s dad: Nah. It’s cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.

And if you need ideas for superior marketing:

You might like the ideas I share in my email newsletter. Click here to give it a try.

Rejection-then-retreat in negotiation, pick up, and sales funnels

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Would you do me a favor real quick? It’s going to be painless and won’t cost you a cent:

​​Would you go on Amazon right now and leave a review for my book The 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters? It doesn’t matter if you’ve read the book or not.

I’m waiting.

What, you’re still here?

No review for me?

That’s too bad. I’m a little saddened to be honest. But then please at least read this article to the end.

I myself have been re-reading Robert Cialdini’s Influence for the past several days. And since I’m a slow reader, I’ve only gotten as far as Chapter 2, Reciprocity.

You know what reciprocity is. It’s when you do somebody a favor… and that way you oblige them to do you a favor in turn. It’s a standard technique of grifters, conmen, and Hare Krishna devotees, because it works even if you force a favor on the other person.

I remembered that much about Cialdini’s book. But I forgot about the other kind of reciprocity Cialdini describes.

Cialdini calls this other method rejection-then-retreat. That’s when, rather than forcing a favor, you force a concession.

It’s simple to do:

You start out with a big first ask. When that’s rejected, you back off to what you really wanted all along. You’ve made a concession… now it’s the other guy’s turn.

Very devious. Very clever. And very familiar, when you think about it.

It’s the standard way people negotiate. “$10k? Oh no, absolutely not. This Miata is worth at least $22k. But I guess I could let it go for 18… 14? No, you’ve gotta be kidding me. 17 and that’s my final offer. 16? Deal.”

It’s also a standard gambit for pickup artists. I won’t give you the salacious details here. You can use your own imagination.

And finally, rejection-and-retreat is in play in every modern sales funnel, which features a front-end offer, some upsells, and inevitably, downsells if you don’t take the upsell:

“All right, so you don’t want the incredibly valuable lifetime subscription to Cat & Mouse Stockpicking Alerts for only $4,999. Will you at least accept a 2-year subscription, for only $387?”

And since you’ve read my post to the end, let me tell you this:

This reciprocity stuff is powerful. Do it right, and you can really manipulate people, even against their own interest. But beware.

Reciprocity is a perfect example of what I wrote about a couple days ago. It’s a technique that can wear out quick if you abuse it. And when it wears out, you won’t just lose that one-time sale. You will also lose the chance to do business with that person, probably for life.

Oh, and if you think I’ve done you any kind of a favor by exposing you to this devious rejection-then retreat stuff… then you know how to repay me. I have an email newsletter. Consider signing up for it. And if you decide you want to, here’s where to go.

The story my clients offered me $0 not to tell

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A few days ago, a mysterious-sounding story bubbled up in several corners of the Internet where I make my home. Its title:

“The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell”

BCG in this case is Boston Consulting Group, a big international consulting company.

And the story sounds mysterious… until you realize that $16k isn’t very much money for a big corporation like BCG. So whatever this guy had to tell can’t be that shocking. Still…

I found the article interesting and surprisingly familiar. And if you are a freelancer or consultant of any sort, I think it can be valuable for you to hear.

In a nutshell, this former BCG-er’s article says three things:

1. Consulting clients often don’t know why they’ve hired a consultant. It’s a kind of cargo cult thing — just something that businesses like them do.

2. Consultants often have to make their work fit the client’s foregone decisions. Even if that means supporting foolish or wasteful actions.

3. As a result, the consultant who wrote the article burned out. His pay was good. His workload was small. And yet, his motivation, as a result of 1 and 2 above, was even smaller.

Perhaps you see where I’m going with this.

I’ve had similar experiences working as a freelance copywriter. Not with all clients. But with enough.

I’ve been hired by clients who only wanted a sales letter because of direct response buzz in their mastermind. Often this meant the client had no real need of a copywriter, because there was zero hope they’d make any money from the copy I wrote.

There were other situations where the client was more experienced… but also very set on doing things that were clearly a bad idea. In this case, whatever expertise I could bring to the project was like trying to stop a runaway train by throwing a pillow at it.

I found both cases to be frustrating and demotivating work — even when it was well-paid.

And so, over time, I started screening out clients like these. But often I still didn’t screen well enough.

That’s one of the reasons why these days I’m trying not to take on new copywriting clients. Instead I just look to partner up with businesses, in a way where I simply get a share of the money that I make for them.

Like I said, I thought the BCG guy’s experiences and my own might be useful to you if you are a freelancer or consultant also.

That said, there is a good chance that you have to simply live all this stuff… and experience it on your own skin before you learn.

Still, I wanted to let you know about it. It might save you some wondering if there’s something uniquely wrong with you… and maybe it will even help you move more quickly towards work freelance or consulting work that’s more motivating, and less frustrating.

And if you want more like this:

I write a daily email newsletter. Mostly about hard-core direct marketing and copywriting topics. But occasionally about the business of copywriting, like today. If you’d like to try it out, here’s where to go.

“It’s like he reads my mind!”: The discipline to not lose your secret marketing edge

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“Could it be real?” Agassi asked himself in wonder. He slowed the tape down. “No… it can’t be true!”

The first three times that Andre Agassi faced Boris Becker, he lost.

The time was the late 1980s. Both Agassi and Becker were rising tennis stars — both future number ones.

But those first three meetings, it was all Becker. Three tight competitive matches. And each time Agassi fell short.

The trouble was Becker’s booming serve. The damn thing was unreadable and unreturnable.

The defeats stung Agassi. So he locked himself away and looked at hours and hours of footage of Becker serving, and winning, and winning.

And then Agassi noticed something. At first, he couldn’t believe it.

So he looked at more video tapes. And then more. On each one. Every damn time.

Becker had a tell.

Right before he served his unreturnable serve, he did this thing with his tongue.

If he stuck his tongue out to the left, it meant he would serve wide.

If he stuck his tongue straight out, it meant he would serve down the middle.

From then on, until the end of their careers, Andre Agassi beat Boris Becker 10 times out of 11. Becker kept telling his wife in disbelief, “It’s like he reads my mind!”

I’m telling you this story for two reasons:

One is to show you how people give away a lot with their physical gestures. And not just in poker or in tennis. Real life, too, or even Zoom. You just gotta pay attention. People can literally give away secrets they think are hidden inside their skulls.

But there’s a second thing. Like Agassi said:

“The hardest part wasn’t returning his serve. The hardest part was not letting him know that I knew this. So I had to resist the temptation of reading his serve for the majority of the match and choose the moments when I was gonna use that information to break the match open.”

So my second thing is to advise you to apply this same restraint to marketing and copywriting.

​​Once you figure out how to read your prospect’s mind, have discipline. And only use that information in those crucial, break-point, match-over opportunities.

​​Otherwise, your prospect will wise up. He will stick his tongue back inside his mouth. And then it’s back to the video room, for hundreds of hours of more research.

For example, I’ve figured out a magic phrase to get people to sign up to my email newsletter. But I can’t use it all the time, or it will lose its magic. I have to save it for special moments.

So for now, if you’d like to get on my email newsletter, so you can learn more about persuasion and marketing and copywriting, let me just say, here’s where you can sign up.

How Gary Bencivenga transforms his counterexamples

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A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga once wrote an ad for an agency he worked for. The ad ran in the Wall Street Journal, and the headline read,

“Announcing a direct response advertising agency that will guarantee to outpull your best ad.”

As you might expect from Gary, this ad was packed with all kinds of proof. In fact, a quarter of the ad consisted of eight case studies of previous clients that hired Gary’s agency.

​​Seven of the clients got tremendous results. One did not, and they didn’t pay anything, as per the guarantee in the headline.

I thought of this ad today because of a book I just finished reading, called Transforming Your Self, by Steve Andreas. The book is about our self-concept — how we think about ourselves — and how to change that.

Right now I’ll only share one bit of this valuable book with you. It’s about the raw meat that your self-concept, at least according to Andreas.

​​(And bear with me me for just a bit. Because this does tie into Gary Bencivenga and sales and marketing.)

So say you think of yourself as “smart.” How do you know that? How do you know you’re smart?

Andreas’s answer is that you have a set of mental images, each representing an experience, which back up your claim to being “smart.”

Perhaps you see your parents praising you when you were 7… or some workplace triumph… or getting through a dense book and really grokking it.

Whatever. The point is you have examples that back up your claim to being smart. Probably lots of them.

But what about the counterexamples? What about that time the intimidating college professor asked you a question… and you just sat there squirming, like a sweaty turnip?

That’s the interesting bit.

According to Andreas, your self-concept becomes stronger when you include counterexamples in your mental database.

A counterexample makes your claim to a quality more real and believable. (I’ve tried it out personally… and I believe it.)

And by the way, that’s exactly what’s happening in Gary’s ad above. That one counterexample makes the ad more real and believable.

But what if you have more than one counterexample? What if they start to pile up? What if they rival, or even outnumber your good examples?

That’s what the rest of Andreas’s book is about.

But Gary, master psychologist that he is, figured it out intuitively. And if you read Gary’s ad, you can find the answer, both in the headline and in the offer itself. In case you want to crack the code, here is Gary’s original ad:

https://bejakovic.com/bencivenga-agency-ad