This blog does not exist

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Or rather, this blog might not exist very much longer.

Perhaps you’ve seen the trend online. Websites with names like thiscatdoesnotexist.com… thispersondoesnotexist.com.

You go there and see a photograph of a cat or a woman. Who does not exist. Who was conjured up, in pixel-perfect lifelike detail, by some kind of computer jiggery-pokery. When you refresh the page, the computer mind creates another fake cat or fake woman for you to be confused by.

Well today, I saw more progress in this direction, thismusicvideodoesnotexist.com. It’s just what it sounds like. The music is generated by computer. So is the video. And it’s watchable, much more watchable than a lot of shit made by humans.

As you probably know, there’s been a surge in AI copywriting tools over the past year or two. Some industry insiders look at these new tools and say, “Hahaha, never-ever will this work.”

I’m not so sure. But I’m even less sure it will matter one way or another.

I had this idea a while ago, a science-ficition scenario. Artificial intelligence gets good enough to generate content — TV shows, music, books.

But good enough for what?

Good enough for each of us. Each of us gets a custom stream of entertainment, based on our previous preferences… based on how our eyes dilate… based on whether we keep watching.

Each of us is served with the perfect content, just for us, just for that moment. Familiar enough… with the right amount of surprise to keep us fascinated and perfectly pleased.

In my sci-fi scenario, you won’t be able to communicate your interests to anyone else. Nobody else will share your tastes so exactly. Why would anyone listen to your perfect song or watch your perfect movie… when he has his own perfect song and movie available, without even a click of a button, just served up, non-stop, 24/7?

Anyways, that’s the future I’m thinking of. And with this video site, it seems like it’s on its way. When it arrives, we will have bigger social problems than a lack of work for copywriters.

Fortunately, we are still not there yet.

That means you can still talk to your friends about a great movie you saw, and that they might like. And you can still make money persuading people to buy stuff that they didn’t know they wanted five minutes ago.

Speaking of which, and motivated by my post from yesterday:

I’d like to point you to a little book I wrote on the topic of copywriting. It collects 10 lessons from 10 of the most successful people to ever put shocking secret to paper.

It’s not a big book… but at least it exists. For now. To find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Friendzone: How to escape it in sex and sales

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When I was a freshman in college, I and all the guys I knew were in love with a girl named Leila.

Leila lived in the campus apartment next to mine. She had big brown hair and big brown eyes and was all-around pretty. On top of which, she had a bubbly and yet moody personality. I guess this was catnip to incompetent, inexperienced, unassertive 19-year-old boys like myself.

One day, it turned out Leila had finally chosen somebody from the herd.

​​The winner was a meek, clean-cut, marathon-running physics major from the next building over. I saw him and Leila around campus a few days in a row, talking intimately, walking by themselves, whispering in the dark.

Leila enthused to her friends how smart this guy was, and how serious, and how she liked his self-respect.

And then, a week later, it was all over. Through the college grapevine, I heard why Leila cut the guy off.

“He just never made a move,” she said.

Yesterday, I kicked off my bullets course. More people signed up for it than I expected. Enough that I could look for patterns and trends, both to make the course better and more interesting for the people who joined… and just for my own curiosity.

So it turns out the members of the trial run of my bullets course are:

1. Geographically spread out, with a predictably big focus on the U.S.

2. Almost exclusively men

3. About an even split between business owners and freelance copywriters

None of this is particularly surprising or interesting. But the following is:

Two out of three people who signed up for my course joined my email list in just the past three months.

For reference, I’ve been writing these emails for the past two and a half years. During that time, I’ve had a steady trickle of new signups.

Many people who signed up for this newsletter in 2019 and 2020 still read these emails. Some regularly. And yet, there’s that stat above. Two out of three people who signed up for the course only joined my email list in the past three months.

I guess there might be complex reasons for this. But I want to give you a simple explanation, which is probably good enough. And that is:

Recency matters.

In sex and in sales, it takes some time to build a basic relationship, demonstrate competence, and excite desire.

But this time is often less than you might think. And after somebody expresses interest… and once you’re past this giving-you-a-shot period… more is not better.

People cool off. They might still like you… but they put you in the friend zone. The way to avoid this is simple. Just make a move.

And now the big question:

Would you like to go on a date with me? If you want to give me a shot, you can join my email newsletter. But be warned. I will make a move and try to sell you something in the first few months.

Perhaps that scares you or turns you off. No problem. But if it makes your heart beat a little faster… then here’s where you can sign up.

An inspiring case study plus Dan Kennedy’s best stuff for cheap

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Today I want to share an inspiring business case study with you, plus how you can get Dan Kennedy’s best teachings for cheap.

First the case study:

I’ve followed the writing of a guy named Glenn Allsop for years. Glenn writes about SEO and business opportunities. He’s very smart and very dedicated and very willing to share just about everything on his blog.

And Glenn just came out with a big new post titled, Generating Six-Figure Profits from $40 SEO Audits.

It’s just what the title says — amazing when you consider that an SEO audit is something most people can’t give away, much less make a business out of.

There’s a ton of valuable ideas in Glenn’s post, and if you’re offering any kind of service (copywriting, design, video…) it’s worth reading in full. But today, I want to share just one thing that I found most striking out of the whole case study.

Because really, why would a highly successful guy like Glenn waste his time doing tiny $40 jobs, even if it did result in decent profits? He has other business ventures that could earn him much more.

But here, from Glenn’s article, are a few things that came out of all this $40 work:

I’ve advised CMOs at billion dollar brands. Audited the official site of a major European football league (one of the big five). Directly connected with the owners of multi-million dollar per month affiliate sites, and spoken with the founders of dozens of TechCrunch-featured companies.

A $40 audit started our interaction, but then so many more things came as a result of these. Especially when people see how I look at their websites and point out things they just hadn’t thought of.

This brought to mind something I heard Rich Schefren say he heard Dan Kennedy say:

“Put your best stuff in your lowest-priced stuff.”

Glenn took this to an extreme, by actually doing per-hour, custom work for people. You may or may not want to do that. If you don’t, you can still create some kind of low-priced offer — a book, a course, a 10-minute sample of what you do — and make it absolutely amazing.

You never know who will take you up on your bargain-basement offer… or how much money they will be willing to spend with you after. That’s how Dan Kennedy got a lot of his clients, according to a recording I heard of him recently. And that’s why, if you want the best stuff that Dan has to offer… you will find much of it available for a few bucks a piece, right on Amazon.

Perhaps that’s not what you were hoping to hear. In that case, I can tell you you won’t like my email newsletter, because it’s filled with obvious value, rather than “secrets” or urgent opportunities.

However, if you are a reader, and you’re patient, then my email newsletter might suit you better. If you’d like to give it a try, here’s where to join.

Notorious self-promotion for other marketers to learn from

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Here’s a puzzle for you:

The top 5 most money-making MMA fights of all time… all feature the same fighter.

He’s a short Irish guy who has lost four of his last seven fights. These days, he’s better-known for his whiskey brand and for his criminal activity than for sports or sportsmanship.

Even if you don’t follow MMA, you probably know who I’m talking about. It’s “The Notorious” Conor McGregor. So my puzzle for you is this:

Why is McGregor such a draw on TV and in real life? After all, he’s estimated to be worth over $100m and is by far the richest MMA fighter in history. Why him and not the hundreds of other MMA pros?

Maybe you say it’s McGregor’s exciting fighting style. Or his ability to knock people out. Or his boyish charm early in his career.

I say all that stuff is cool for a while. But it gets old, much like hard teaching in your daily emails gets old.

Instead, I think it’s because McGregor is a natural-born promoter. He knows how to sell himself… and he knows how to sell fights.

My point is that, if you’re in the business of persuading, influencing, or making sales, then each of McGregor’s public acts is worth studying.

Take, for example, McGregor’s Instagram post yesterday. It was about the retirement of Khabib Nurmagomedov, who beat McGregor badly two years ago, and who is now retiring with an undefeated 29-0 record. To which McGregor wrote:

“Happy retirement kid, smell ya later. Never forget who came in the game and made ye. Straight from my big Irish balls.”

Perhaps you find this arrogant or nasty or stupid. And perhaps it is. But it’s also a good illustration of something McGregor does over and over. And that’s to take every large public event in his industry… and twist it until it points back to him.

Speaking of which:

Today is the last day to sign up for the first run of my bullets course. By my calculation, you’ve got exactly 6 hours and 13 minutes remaining if you’d like to join. And if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about… or you want a refresher to push you off the fence one way or another… then hurry here and follow the instructions at the bottom.

You, your own copywriting secret weapon?

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Here are two flexible factoids, and a suggestion you might find valuable:

1. A-list copywriter Gary Halbert said curiosity is the most powerful human motivating force.

2. Another A-list copywriter, Parris Lampropoulos, keeps a “Didn’t know that!” file. This is where Parris puts new and interesting facts he comes across during research for copywriting projects.

​​But Parris has spent hundreds of hours doing research on dozens of big projects… so when he comes across something new and interesting to him, you can bet it will be new and interesting to his audience.

So I’d like to suggest you do something similar.

Invest $3 in a notebook… or invest two seconds to create a file on your computer desktop. Write “Hm, I didn’t know that, or, that’s interesting” across the top.

​​And you’re pretty much done. From then on, as you come across something that fits that heading, you just add it to your notebook or file.

The longer your list grows, the more interesting and valuable it will become, by process of elimination.

Eventually, you will have a list of things that stimulate curiosity for almost everyone in your audience. And if Gary H. is right, you will have the most powerful tool in motivating people to action.

​​In effect, you make your own curiosity and capacity to be surprised into your copywriting secret weapon.

I do this exact same thing, and it’s been valuable to me. In fact, it’s how I write these emails each day. Which brings me to my self-serving reason for telling you about this:

A reader named Glenn wrote in to challenge me on some sloppy self-promotion I committed recently.

Glenn pointed out that in the email I sent out announcing my bullets course… I didn’t feature a single Gary Halbert-style bullet.

Fair point.

My answer to this is that emails like the one you’re reading are basically the modern version of sales bullets. The only difference is you’re not restricted by space (like in a sales letter or print ad)… or by having only one shot to make the sale (like when paying for cold traffic).

Other than that, bullets and sales emails are the same.

​​You find some information that your audience might want. You condense it and sexy it up.

​​If it’s really cool and interesting information, you can choose to give it away in your copy… or if it’s meh information, then you might choose to tease it endlessly in your email or bullet, and hide the payoff in your product for sale.

In other words, if you can learn how to write sexy sales bullets… you will be a long way to being able to write emails people will want to read day after day. Particularly if you add in something new and interesting to tell your reader, which is what your “Hm, I didn’t know that” list is all about.

Anyways, that’s part of my pitch for joining my bullet writing course, which kicks off this Monday. If you’re interested in joining, then the first step is signing up for my email newsletter, which you can find here.

Free bonus: Storytelling for sales

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Here’s a shameful confession:

My only ambition in life was to be a novelist, but I’m largely cured. An article by Robin Hanson, titled Why We Fight Over Fiction, does a good job explaining why:

We tell stories with language, and so prefer to tell the kind of stories that ordinary language can describe well.

[…]

Stories that take place in modern settings tend to focus on personal, romantic, and family relations, as these remain to us relatively familiar moral universes. Or on artist biopics. Or on big conflicts like war or corrupt police or politicians. For which we have comfortable moral framings.

In other words, we almost always tell the same stories, reinforcing the same mores we’ve been reinforcing for a long-ass time, dealing with the same types of characters we are already all-too familiar with.

This might be bad news if you had hopes of being a novel novelist… but great news if you want to influence and persuade people. Because even though we’ve heard the same stories over and over, we keep craving more. Storytelling remains a powerful way to persuade and get attention. And yet it’s as formulaic as making a soft-boiled egg.

Which brings me to the bullets course I am launching next Monday. Bullets happen to be great for mastering most of what copywriting is about. But one big piece is missing, and that’s telling a story.

So to fix that, I’m including a free bonus along with the course. It will be a special presentation, delivered by me, on how to tell a story in copy or your other sales messages. And for the record, this is something I know pretty well.

Over the past several years, I’ve written dozens of front-end advertorials — basically mini sales letters — all following the same “horror story” structure.

By my estimate, these advertorials have made several million dollars worth of sales from cold traffic, mostly Facebook and now YouTube. I think a big reason for this success is the stories right at the top of each of these advertorial — they grab prospects and keep them reading, all the way to the point where they are wondering, “What the hell did I just buy?”

So in this bonus presentation, delivered over Zoom so you can ask me questions, I will tell you how I come up with these effective stories… how I organize them and present them… and how you can do the same.

Again, this is a free bonus that you get if you sign up for my bullets course by Sunday. If you’re interested in signing up for the course, or just to learn more about it, then the first step is simple and risk-free. It’s to sign up for my email newsletter. You can do so here.

Looking for 7 beta-testers to pay an unthinkable amount for my copywriting knowledge

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I’m looking for 7 beta-testers for a trial run of my bullets copywriting course.

Bullets? Yes, that’s the mechanism. But the goal is to get you better at writing copy all around.

If you’re already writing sales copy, even if you’re advanced, I think this course will make you better. That’s what it did for me, even though I’ve been writing copy for money for years.

On the other hand, if you’re new, this course will implant the basics quickly and thoroughly into your brain, including the stuff that everybody talks about (“just make a big promise!”) but nobody really gives you the fine points of.

Like I said, mastering bullets is the mechanism to do this. My argument (in fact, not mine, but Ken McCarthy’s and Gary Halbert’s) is that bullets are what sales copy is all about. That’s not because you should write sales letters packed with bullets (“so 1997…”). It’s because if you can write a great bullet, you can create curiosity, you can rev up desire, you can control attention.

But the point of this post is not to sell you. If you’re not sure you want this course, no problem. It probably makes sense to skip the rest of this email.

​​But if you’ve been reading my blog for a while… or if for some other reason you already know that you do want in… the first step is to get on my email newsletter. That’s where I will share the full details of this bullet course, and make it possible for you to join.

Casino Royale positioning

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Last night, I finished rewatching Casino Royale, the first Bond film starring Daniel Craig. As you might know, this movie came out surrounded with controversy.

There was a lot of opposition to casting Craig in the Bond role. Fans complained that Craig — short, blonde, and blessed with “large, fleshy ears” — was a complete mismatch to the required Bond look and feel.

And yet, Craig has grown on Bond audiences. Casino Royale was a big part of that. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie gets a 94% approval rating, and the summary says:

“Casino Royale disposes of the silliness and gadgetry that plagued recent James Bond outings, and Daniel Craig delivers what fans and critics have been waiting for: a caustic, haunted, intense reinvention of 007.”

So I’d like to propose to you the idea of Casino Royale positioning.

Strip away the silliness and the gadgetry of the current offers in your market. Instead, offer a short, blonde, large-eared alternative that nobody in his proper mind should want.

Here’s a famous example:

Back in the late 1950s, the American car market was dominated by beasts. Each year, American car models became larger, with more chrome and more tailfin. When that game went to its extreme, the unlikely winner turned out to be Volkswagen, with its promise of a small, ugly, practical car.

Example two:

This one comes from closer to home, namely, the financial newsletter market. In that market, the typical promise goes something like,

“How to double or even you triple your investment — as soon as next month!”

In other words, the typical promise is to get rich quick. And then get richer, quicker! And then even richer, as of yesterday!

So into this market came Gary Bencivenga, often called the world’s greatest living copywriter. And rather than coming up with creative new ways to promise millions of dollars in the next 14 minutes, Gary did a Casino Royale. The promise in his headline?

“Get rich slowly”

And yet, this short, flat-faced, large-eared promise turned out to be one of the bigger successes in Gary’s very successful career.

So if your market is outdoing itself in silly promises and gimmicky mechanisms, Casino Royale might be the thing to try.

Strip everything away… look into your customer’s eyes with an icy cold stare… and say, like Craig does when asked whether he wants his martini shaken or stirred…

“Do I look like I give a damn?”

I’m planning on putting out a book in the next few months with more positioning ideas. If you’d like advance notice when that book comes out, along with more free positioning ideas before then, you might like to sign up to my secret service MI6 email newsletter.

My secret fear: I should be further along than I am

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I’ve been writing sales copy for clients for almost six years now. I tell you this fascinating fact for two reasons:

First, because I often worry that I should be further along than I am.

Don’t get me wrong. I do ok.

And in many ways, I’ve achieved the ideal of the life that I once wanted, back when I first heard you could make a living writing sales letters while sipping mai tais on the beach… with no other assets than a laptop and a bit of how-to knowledge available for free online.

(It turned out to be more involved than that. And I figured out along the way that I can only stand the beach for about 3 days a year.)

So I do ok. But the fact remains:

When I compare myself to the people who are really at the top of the copywriting game — both in terms of success and writing ability — well, then my throat gets dry and my hands get cold and I feel the blood drain out of my face.

Which brings me to the second reason for today’s post:

A while back, I read an article by a guy named Rob Allen, titled How To Become An A-List Copywriter In 3 Levels.

Rob had a podcast called Kings of Conversion, or maybe he still does, where he interviewed successful copywriters. He himself is a successful copywriter, though from what I understand, he is not somebody you would call an A-lister yet.

And yet, Rob wrote up an interesting description of the copywriter journey. I found it useful and reassuring. You might find the same.

Rob’s article breaks down where people tend to be, in terms of mindset, success levels, and skills, based on how many years they’ve been in this field.

It’s surprisingly accurate in describing my career so far… and I’m hopeful it will be a good predictor of things to come.

Like I said, you might find Rob’s article useful, and perhaps also eerily on point. In case you’re interested, here’s the link:

https://kingsofconversion.com/how-to-become-an-a-list-copywriter-in-3-levels/

Cheapest way to get an A-list copywriting education (only good until Thursday)

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Say you’d like to get a bunch of A-list copywriters to sit around and share insights and advice with you. I’m talking the biggest names in the direct response industry… people like Gary Bencivenga and Parris Lampropoulos and David Deutsch. Copywriters who have sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stuff with just their magic, fascinating words.

How much would you be willing to pay for such an opportunity, if it lasted, say, an entire afternoon?

$5k?

Too much?

How about $1k?

Still too much?

Maybe only $500?

Well, I’ll tell you how to get it for free.

This Thursday at 1pm EST, a bunch of the most successful copywriters of all time are getting together in virtual space, somewhere in east Zoom. The occasion is the one-year anniversary of the death of Clayton Makepeace, himself a famous A-list copywriter, and a mentor to many of the people who will be speaking on this call.

Here are few things that might interest you about this event:

1. It will last for 3 hours.

2. So far, about a dozen A-list copywriters and other direct marketing veterans are confirmed to be participating.

3. I have no idea what these people people will talk about. But even if there are zero headline tips and even fewer magic sales letter closes being shared… I suspect the call will still be very valuable.

4. Since this is organized in Clayton’s honor, and based on the profile of the people who will join, I imagine it won’t just be a 3-hour-long tease-fest that’s designed to sell something else. But I could be wrong.

5. I don’t know if there will be any recordings of the call, and if there are, how they will be made available and to whom.

5. This event is free to attend, but you do gotta register.

So if an A-list education sounds good to you… and if free is a price you can afford to pay… then here’s where to go:

https://members.carlinecole.com/clayton