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How Trump outsmarted Mueller

March 25, 2019March 25, 2019 by John Bejakovic

During the last election, I spent a lot of time reading Scott Adams’s blog.

Adams was one of the few people to bet on Trump very early. And as Trump kept winning, first the primaries, then the election itself, Adams often talked about “cognitive dissonance” — that disorienting feeling when external evidence contradicts our mental models of how the world works.

Well, there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance floating around the Internet today, following the release of the Mueller findings over the weekend.

People simply cannot figure out what went wrong, and how it is that Trump isn’t already under indictment or even in jail.

Well, I’ll tell you how.

It’s because Trump outsmarted Mueller. He was ahead of Mueller every step of the way. He had the Democrats by the nose and Mueller looking in all the wrong places.

And you know how Trump outsmarted them all?

It’s straight out of Limitless. He used a new smart drug called Reviva (which he also used during the election). According to Trump, “Your brain deteriorates as you get older, this pill keeps my brain young & sharper than ever.”

Ok, it’s time to take a moment to breathe.

None of the story above is true — well, except for the cognitive dissonance surrounding the Mueller findings.

The rest of it — the bit about Trump gobbling down a designer smart pill — is something I’ve just read in a very successful, currently running advertorial.

And here’s why I bring it up.

An ad like this could never run on TV.

These days, it also cannot run on Facebook or Google.

And yet I’ve seen this same ad a half dozen times over the past few weeks.

No FTC injunction. No White House cease-and-desist order. Nobody to stop whoever is running these ads from making mountains of golden, shiny shekels. How is this possible?

It’s simple:

Email drops.

In other words, paying for placement in an email newsletter (in this case, Newsmax).

Email drops still seem to be a kind of Wild West of advertising. They make it possible to reach large numbers of people, often using the kind of copy you want (instead of what Facebook wants). And that’s why they can be a great option for advertisers who are looking for new (or alternate) sources of traffic.

Of course, you don’t have to use email drops to sell shit products.

And you don’t have to tell lies to sell whatever it is you are selling.

You can also use email drops to successfully sell decent products with more-or-less ethical marketing. And if this is something you’re interested in, you might find valuable ideas in my upcoming book:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The bully, the charismatic, and the invisible salesman on Facebook

March 27, 2019March 24, 2019 by John Bejakovic

“In my experience, there are basically three types of salesmen: the bully, the charismatic, and the invisible man.”
— Mark Ford

Over the past few months, I’ve been writing a lot of copy for a client in the ecommerce space.

Their typical funnel goes like this:

Facebook ad -> advertorial -> product page

I’ve been handling the FB ads and the advertorials for a bunch of this client’s products. And it’s been going well. But I recently got some feedback.

It seems some of our FB ads have been getting rejected. In the client’s own words:

“We’re getting a few disapprovals here and there for calling out the user. I don’t agree with it but seems everytime we mention the word ‘you’ even if it’s not a direct call out some reviewers will disapprove.”

So what’s going on?

In a nutshell, it seems Facebook is trying to prevent copy that acts like the “bully salesman” in Mark Ford’s quote above.

By Mark’s definition, that’s the salesman who “succeeds by pressing you so hard that you make a purchase just to make him go away.”

One trivial way that Facebook seems to be reigning in this type of copy is by singling out the word “you,” like in the ads I’ve been writing.

But according to million-dollar copywriter Justin Goff, Facebook also seems to be rejecting clickbaity, fear-laden, “punch-em-in-the-gut” sales letters.

So is this the end of direct response marketing on Facebook?

Not necessarily.

As Mark Ford says above, there are still two other ways to make sales through a combination of personality (charismatic type), stories (both charismatic and invisible types), and indirect claims (invisible type).

So for example, Justin also told the story of one marketer he knows.

She had a long-running VSL that Facebook had started rejecting.

So she wrote a new VSL.

And instead of the usual doom and gloom, she made it softer, kinder, and gentler — like a friend giving you advice.

Facebook approved, to the extent where the new sales page was performing better than the old one.

Promising.

In my personal case, I’ve done something similar:

I’ve simply focused on that old standby, pure story telling, with little or no obvious selling.

In other words, I’ve removed that offensive word “you” by focusing on the harmless word “I”…

And then telling people to click through if they want to learn more.

It’s working at the moment. Which might interest you in case you’re planning on running offers on cold Facebook traffic.

And if you are running such offers, and you want help with the copy, get in touch with me here and we can talk.

How to extend your tentacles into your customers’ minds

March 28, 2019March 23, 2019 by John Bejakovic

Earlier today, I was staring in disbelief at my laptop.

It had just finished rebooting, when I realized I had lost a bunch of important files.

The text editor I use, which normally saves all sessions when it’s being shut down, malfunctioned for some reason. And after my laptop restarted, I found the text editor didn’t save about 10 pages’ worth of notes, todos, and ideas, which I had been accumulating over the space of many months.

I wasn’t angry or even surprised when this happened.

But I did feel strangely lightheaded and disoriented.

The question is, why would I have such a reaction?

Well, maybe my laptop experience today is a good illustration of what philosopher Andy Clark calls the “extended mind.”

In Clark’s view, our mind is not just in our heads.

It is also distributed in our laptops, our smart phones, and pieces of paper we use for notes. And if that’s true, then I had a part of my mind amputated today. No wonder I felt light-headed.

But here’s the thing:

If you believe Andy Clark, then it’s not just gadgets and pencils and paper that extend our minds.

It’s also the regular interactions we have with other people.

That’s one reason why it can be so painful to have a romantic breakup, or to lose a close friend or family member. Literally, a part of your own mind has been lobotomized.

Which is kind of sad in these real-life situations…

But we’re not here to mope. Instead, we’re here to talk about marketing and sales and making money.

And if you want to do make money, then you should start getting in touch with your clients or customers regularly.

Over time, you will literally start being a part of their mind as they continue to hear from you.

And if you do a good-enough job, they will actually feel a tiny pang of pain or anxiety in case they don’t hear from you as expected.

So how do you do a good-enough job communicating with clients and customers?

I’m glad you asked, because I’ve got some opinions on this matter. And I’ll share them in my upcoming book on email marketing. Which you can get for free, if you sign up for it in time over here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Where will you be in March 2091?

March 22, 2019 by John Bejakovic

Right now, Elon Musk’s cherry red Tesla Roadster is cruising through outer space, somewhere beyond the orbit of Mars. A dummy named Starman is sitting inside the car, wearing a pressure suit and listening to David Bowie.

Musk launched his car into space last year, Starman dummy and all, as part of a test launch of his SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Now, Elon Musk is clearly a smart guy.

But there are lots of other people in the world who are as smart as he is.

And yet, he’s the only one who has managed to make electric cars sexy…

And to then send them into space on a rocket built by his own private company.

In other words, there is something to be said for thinking big.

The more I learn about business, the more I realize many people do not think big enough.

Again, many people out there are smart. Many of them have honed valuable skills or expertise. And many are willing to work hard.

And yes, all of these ingredients are necessary.

But for making a big success, you also have to develop the habit of thinking bigger than you’ve been used to.

This can be surprisingly difficult.

And I feel that, past a certain point, it’s really the only thing that distinguishes people who have enormous success — like Elon Musk — from those who don’t achieve very much.

Now, I’m sure there are lots of psychological strategies you can use to get yourself to think bigger.

But ultimately, I think it comes down to a simple decision.

You can start to think bigger.

So why not start it now?

Anyways, that’s my pep talk for this Friday. In case you decide to start thinking bigger with your business, and you want help with marketing, you might get some good ideas from the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

And one final point before I take off:

The starbound Tesla Roadster is on an elliptical trajectory around the sun.

The next time it gets close to Earth, it will be 2091.

The question is, where are you going to be then?

Severed ear fills a gaping hole for UK landscaper

March 21, 2019 by John Bejakovic

It seems Dr. Evil is going to prison.

I’m talking about Brendan McCarthy, aka Dr. Evil, of Dr. Evil’s Body Modification Emporium in Wolverhampton, UK.

His trial just concluded, and it seems he will be off to jail for 40 months.

He pleaded guilty to removing several ears, nipples, and bits of tongue of willing clients, without a surgical license or any skill in treating possible adverse reactions. (In Dr. Evil’s defense, he did stop short of removing toes and fingers, which some clients also requested.)

Now if this story makes you mildly queasy, you might be wondering, why would anybody willingly have their ear removed?

Well, we know the answer, at least in the case of Ezechiel Lott, a landscaper from the West Midlands who had Dr. Evil sever his ear.

“It’s because of one-upmanship,” Ezechiel says. “You see somebody who has something extreme, and want to go one up on it.”

Now, I’ve personally never done any kind of modification to my body (excepting an accidental run in with a butter knife in my final year of college).

But I always thought people were motivated to get tattoos or those loopy earplugs or skin branding as a kind of positive expression of their personality.

I should have known better.

People are frequently much more motivated by a fear or insecurity than by gain or benefit.

So they cut off their ears because they’re afraid of not being unique enough.

Or they buy testosterone supplements — not because they care about improved performance at the gym — but because they’re afraid of not being man enough.

Or they buy get-rich schemes — not because they want to retire to a private island — but because they’re afraid their father will think of them as a failure otherwise.

So what’s the conclusion?

Well, you can draw your own.

Maybe it’s how you should be happy with what you’ve got.

Or maybe it’s how you shouldn’t be happy, because other people have more.

In fact, if you’ve got a business, then it’s a fact other businesses are making more money than yours right now.

And if you don’t want to be left behind, you’ll need good sales copy. Which is something I might be able to help with. In case you’re interested, take a look at the offer on the following page, which might help you fill that gaping hole:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

A quick catalogue of forbidden parts of the human psyche

March 20, 2019 by John Bejakovic

The Roman playwright Terence wrote two thousand years ago:

“I am human, and nothing human is alien to me.”

Well, if you want to persuade people, you better have the same attitude.

You see, when people make buying decisions, it’s often deep dark instincts that are actually at work. And if you ignore those monkey and lizard hallways of the human brain, you won’t make as many sales.

But how do you know what weird and nasty things are actually lurking in the mass mind?

You look on the front page of Reddit. Or at least that’s what I did over the course of several weeks, while tracking forbidden emotions and ideas that kept coming up over and over. Here’s a partial catalogue:

#1 Disgust

The subreddit r/WTF features bizarre and revolting images or videos. And yet, the posts frequently go viral and make it to the front page. Example viral post:

“Tugging an enormous abscess out of a cow”

#2 Schadenfreude

There seems to be a strong human instinct to take pleasure in others’ misfortune or mistakes or stupidity. However, the world today has become a democratic place with a lot of concern about minimizing suffering. How to square the two? You have to direct your schadenfreude to appropriate targets. Example viral post:

“Steph Curry blows the open dunk and then airballs the 3”

#3 Indignation, anger, judgementalness

Indignation and judgmentalness are incredibly popular, and several subreddits specialize in them. Two that frequently make it to the front page are r/ChoosingBeggars and r/trashy. Example viral post:

“Kurt Cobain suicide letter t-shirt” (from r/trashy)

#4 Defeatism

American society is all about success and unfailing optimism. At least outwardly. On Reddit, the defeatist attitude often resonates very well. Example viral post:

“When the romantic beach getaway with your hubby doesn’t go as planned” (a video of a middle-aged woman looking on as a bunch of drunken college girls in the bar dance to Baby Got Back)

#5 Breasts

Of course, sex sells. But in the mainstream mind, it’s no longer ok to publicly stare at a woman’s breasts or ass. This holds on Reddit, too. You won’t find pictures of sexy girls on the front page — unless they are somehow disguised. For example, by being a vintage movie star. Example viral post:

“Scilla Gabel, Italian actress and Sophia Loren’s body double, 1957”

Now a disclaimer for the end: These forbidden parts of the human psyche are powerful. But you probably don’t want to clobber your readers over the head with them.

Instead, you will want to introduce them in subtle ways to make your marketing message most effective.

In case you want to see how I’ve done this in several successful email campaigns, you’ll want to get a copy of my upcoming book on email marketing. You can sign up for a free copy of it here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The obvious secret to creating blockbuster products

March 15, 2023March 19, 2019 by John Bejakovic

I talked to a potential client a couple of days ago.

He’s selling a prostate supplement. It’s going well. And he now wants to create other products he could sell to the same audience.

So he wanted to know whether I could give him advice about which products to develop based on what I’ve seen working. I told him the truth:

I don’t know that I can predict which marketplace will sell the best. But I do know of a formula for almost guaranteeing that a product you create will be a blockbuster.

It’s a secret I learned from master copywriter Gary Bencivenga. In Gary’s own words, great products are “those with a clear-cut, built-in, unique superiority supported by powerful proof elements.”

Now, this might sound obvious. Or maybe too abstract. So let me give you a few real-world examples of what “powerful proof elements” really mean in practice:

# 1. RealDose Nutrition is an 8-figure weight-loss supplement company that I’ve written for. Their main product is called Weight Loss Formula No. 1. It’s a combination of four ingredients, each of which has been shown in clinical studies to improve a different hormone related to weight loss.

RealDose sources their ingredients in the same way as in the clinical study and they use the same dosage (hence RealDose). At core, their marketing simply consists of saying, “Our product works, and here’s the science to prove it.”

# 2. Another supplement company I’ve written for is Vitality Now. The face of that company is Dr. Sam Walters, who at one point formulated nutrition bars for NASA.

Unfortunately, Vitality Now isn’t in the business of selling nutrition bars. If they were, they could make a killing simply by saying, “The same nutrition bars used by NASA!”

# 3. I’m currently going through a magalog written by another famous copywriter, Parris Lampropoulos. This magalog is for a boner pill called Androx. One of the ingredients in Androx is cordyceps — a mushroom from Tibet that was used at the emperor’s court in China for its libido properties.

Thanks to this, Parris can open up the sales message by talking about how the Emperor had to have sex with nine different women every night, and how this was the supplement that made it possible.

With products like these, which have such powerful proof elements built in, the marketing writes itself. Or as Gary Bencivenga put it:

“It’s your mission to come up with a product so inherently superior that, as soon as it’s effectively explained, demonstrated, or sampled, your prospects have no conclusion to draw except “I want it!”

I hope that’s the kind of product you’ve got (or are looking to make). And if that’s the case, and you just want good ways to explain and demonstrate to your buyers WHY your product really is superior, then you might like my upcoming book:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

What kind of an idiot uses the self-checkout lane?

March 18, 2019 by John Bejakovic

Today, I saw a woman in the self-checkout line at the local supermarket.

She couldn’t finish her purchase and she was waiting for help.

Nobody was coming to rescue her. So she looked at me imploringly as I felt up the avocados to see which ones are ripe.

I can’t help you lady, I thought to myself. Nobody can.

Sure, the self-checkout counter is always alluring. I admit I’ve been sucked in by it before.

There’s no line.

You get to play around with the barcode scanner.

Plus you don’t have to make small talk with the cashier.

Tempting, yes. But it inevitably backfires.

The flaky, illogical self-checkout machine will defeat you sooner or later, and leave you stranded just like that poor woman today. It’s happened to me enough times. That’s why I never go to the self-checkout counter any more.

I’ve found that it pays to have professionals do things for you.

This applies whether you want your avocados weighed and scanned…

Your website designed…

Or copy written for your sales funnel.

Speaking of which, if you do want some professional help with your sales copy, you might like my upcoming book on email marketing. It won’t write the copy for you, but if you’re looking for a copywriter, it might convince you that I’m your man. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Computing the average cost of trash

March 14, 2019 by John Bejakovic

Here’s a quick quiz for you.

Imagine you go to a cafe and you see two options on the menu:

Option A is a cup of coffee. Option B is the same cup of coffee plus a muffin. Except the muffin comes with a clear disclaimer:

“This muffin is either fresh or left over from yesterday”

Now here’s the quiz question:

Let’s say that both option A and option B cost somewhere between $2 and $6. How much do you think option A — coffee only — costs…

And how would you rate the cost of option B — coffee and a possibly fresh, possibly stale muffin?

Think about it for a second.

And while you think, I want to make it clear this isn’t just a fanciful, hypothetical question.

In fact, it represents a very common situation in online marketing, where people regularly have a standard offer, like an ebook (that’s the coffee in the example above)…

And then they tack on a free bonus, like a second, less valuable ebook (that’s the muffin).

The thinking goes, if people want what you’re selling, they will only want it more in case you give them anything as a free bonus as well. Right?

To answer that, let’s go back to the quiz above. What value did you put on the two options?

Perhaps you said the coffee alone was $4…

And the coffee plus muffin was $4.25.

Even if those aren’t the exact numbers, odds are, you didn’t think option B could be worth less than option A. It just wouldn’t be logical.

And you’re right. Only one problem, though. People are not logical.

We know this because psychologists have run an experiment very similar to the scenario above.

To start, they presented both options A and B as above.

In this case, people reliably evaluated option B — coffee + questionable muffin — as being slightly more valuable than the coffee alone.

But here’s the twist.

If people were shown only one of the options and asked to evaluate how valuable it is…

Then they would value coffee alone at, say, $4…

But if they were shown the coffee + questionable muffin, they would value it at something like $3.25.

Did you catch that?

The coffee + muffin, evaluated in isolation, is perceived as less valuable than the coffee alone.

The issue, of course, is that the muffin could be trash left over from yesterday. And nobody wants to pay for trash.

This isn’t really logical — because the trash shouldn’t take away from the solid core offer.

But like I said, people aren’t logical. They don’t add up the value (so say the psychologists) of the perfectly good coffee with the possibly crappy muffin.

Instead, they seem to average out the value of the good coffee and the suspect muffin — making the total offer worth less than the coffee alone.

I think the message is clear if you’re considering tacking on bonuses to your core offer.

Either make your muffins fresh, or don’t add them in and spoil the coffee.

And if you want more freshly roasted marketing ideas that are not trash, you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/