Cry me a river, Smartcar — and build yourself a moat

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Yesterday, I read a bitter blog post by the CEO of the company Smartcar.

Smartcar is a small, 20-person company developing software that allows app developers to connect to smart cars.

And it looks like Smartcar (the company) has just been screwed. That’s because a bigger, better-funded company called Otonomo has apparently cloned Smartcar’s product, down to the API documentation.

And that’s what the CEO of Smartcar was railing against yesterday. He said Otonomo’s actions are illegal, wrong, and a rip-off.

To which I say, cry me a river. What did your expect would happen if your product started to show promise?

I personally think there are a couple of lessons in here.

First, it’s a good idea to learn about basic business principles rather than blindly following your passion and hoping this will carry the day.

For example, Warren Buffett, billionaire investor and currently the third wealthiest person in the world, has long talked about his castle-and-moat approach to investing. Says Buffett:

“We’re trying to find a business with a wide and long-lasting moat around it, protecting a terrific economic castle, with an honest lord in charge of the castle.”

I don’t know about Smartcar’s economic castle and the honesty of their lord, but they clearly didn’t have an adequate moat.

Not a surprise, because as Buffett says, “most moats aren’t worth a damn.”

So what makes a good moat? Buffett gives a few categories (the specific examples below are mine):

Being the low-cost producer (Walmart)…

Having an unassailable natural franchise (VMware)…

Having a clear technological advantage (Google)…

Occupying a strong position in the consumer’s mind (Apple).

Hopefully you’ve already one or more of these in place to protect your business.

And if you want to make your moat deeper, wider, and filled with hungry crocodiles, here’s how to occupy a stronger place in your consumer’s mind — without being Apple.

The key is to inform your consumers about all the great stuff your product or service will do for them…

To inform them frequently…

And to do it in a way where they still enjoy hearing from you, rather than being worn out by the constant thud of the selling hammer.

If that’s what you want to do, I’ve got two resources that might help.

The first is a list of 12 books, blogs, and courses on copywriting and marketing — which I personally found most useful when I was starting out.

The second is my own daily emails on marketing and copywriting.

Conveniently, you can get both resources with one simple action. And that’s by signing up with your email at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/copywriters-hero/

Long-form sales copy is finally dead

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If you go on Google right now, and search for “freshly pressed olive oil,” you’ll soon find a quirky web page as the top result.

It’s for the Freshly Pressed Olive Oil Club, which mails you olive oils from around the world, right after they’ve been pressed, year round.

Here’s the interesting thing about this site for copywriters and marketers:

One of the people behind this business is Gary Bencivenga, often referred to as the “greatest living copywriter.”

Back in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and up to his retirement in 2005, Gary made his clients lots of money (hundreds of millions of dollars?) by writing long-form sales copy. His promotions sometimes spanned 40 or 50 pages.

And in fact, Gary even wrote a long-form sales letter for the Freshly Pressed Olive Oil Club.

It used to be there, right on the homepage.

But if you check the homepage of the club right now, that’s not what you will see any more.

Instead, you’ll see a quick and clear headline for the offer…

Some bullet points that have been pulled out from the original sales letter…

A bit about the founder of the club…

And a couple of buttons to buy.

That’s it. All in about 2 or max 3 pages of copy. So what’s going on?

I don’t know. But my guess is that they tested this shorter home page, and it’s working better than what they had before.

And here’s the lesson I draw from this.

If you start to learn about copywriting, you’ll quickly be told that “copy is never too long, only too boring.”

You might hear this backed up with the experience of top-level marketers and copywriters — including Gary B. — who will tell you that long copy, if done right, always outperforms short copy.

And it may be true.

IF you only have one shot to make the sale (ie. direct mail) or IF you are selling to cold traffic.

But that’s not how many online marketing situations work today.

And that’s why I say long-form sales copy is finally dead.

And in case you think this is just cherry-picking and exaggeration… then I agree with you. But I also think it’s no worse than saying “copy is never too long” — when it clearly can be.

Even if it’s written by the great Gary Bencivenga himself.

All right, that’s enough copywriting iconoclasm for today.

But in case you want more copywriting lessons — and not all of them controversial — you might like a list of the 12 best copywriting resources I’ve personally benefited from:

https://bejakovic.com/copywriters-hero/

5 lessons from the most successful email I’ve written to date

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About a year ago, I got hired to write a set of emails for the 8-figure supplement company RealDose Nutrition.

​​The goal was to promote a “reds” product — basically the good stuff in fruit minus the sugar — to people who had bought RealDose’s flagship weight-loss supplement.

RealDose already had an email sequence that was going out to these customers.

So I wrote 5 new emails that we just stuck in the middle of this existing sequence.

The result of adding in these new emails was a 3x increase in sales for this email funnel.

The thing is, one of the emails did way better than the other four. You can find it below, along with my guesses about why it did so well:

SUBJECT: The evil twins blocking your path to good health

Here’s an interesting bit of recent research:

Inflammation (caused by obesity) reduces the number of taste buds on the tongue.

When you think about it, this is really perverse.

It means food will taste more bland…

Driving up appetite and reducing the feeling of satiety…

Contributing to more obesity, more inflammation, and fewer taste receptors on the tongue, repeating the cycle one level down.

This downward health spiral illustrates an important point:

Extra weight and inflammation are very tightly linked. In fact, they are mutually reinforcing, in dozens of separate ways. The list of problems this vicious cycle creates goes on and on: hormonal changes, cardiovascular effects, problems with the immune system, additional weight gain.

So what can you do to deal with the evil twins of inflammation and weight gain?

Well, you’ve already taken the first step by getting Weight Loss Formula No. 1, which will help you lose fat.

What about the other problem child, inflammation?

RealReds to the rescue, thanks to its 8 polyphenol-packed ingredients and a healthy dose of digestive fiber.

Not only will RealReds help with its high polyphenol content (which reduces your inflammatory response), but it contains practically no sugar, unlike whole fruits. This makes RealReds the perfect complement to Weight Loss Formula No. 1 in helping you along on the path to good health.

Oh, one more important thing.

RealReds taste great, even though it’s almost entirely free of sugar. You can just mix RealReds with water, or add it to smoothies, or even make popsicles.

After all, if inflammation is going to play tricks with your taste buds, you have to fight back somehow.

When you’re ready to give RealReds a try, here’s where to start:

[link to product]

So that’s the email. Now, why did it work well?

​​Who knows. But here are my 5 best guesses:

#1. Curiosity + benefit headline

I’ve written about this before: curiosity + benefit seems to be one of the most powerful ways to open up a sales message. Curiosity alone can be too vague (“These evil twins are out to get you”). Benefit alone can be tiring (“How to beat the inflammation that’s keeping you fat”). But together, curiosity + benefit are magic.

#2. Research

People who buy health products love to hear the word “research” and love to be told about new scientific findings that relate to them. The key is to present the research in a friendly and understandable way, like I did above.

#3. Tied into where the prospect is

One of the cardinal rules of sales copywriting is to meet the customer where they are. These prospects had just bought RealDose’s weight loss product, and since this tied perfectly into the angle for this email, I called it out.

#4. “Reason why” sales argument

Reason why copy — what other kind is there? The headline + research sucks readers into accepting that inflammation is keeping them fat… and then presents the product as a way to eliminate inflammation.

#5. Close ties into the hook

I was proud of being able to tie in the close of this email (“RealReds taste great”) to the hook (“Obesity makes you lose your sense of taste”). Honestly, maybe this is just vanity, and I’m not sure it helps sales. Still, it can’t hurt to close a sales message on a high instead of simply trailing off into the call to action.

And there you have it — my most successful email to date.

The thing is, I’ve had lots of other successful emails — as well as some bombs. And I’ve learned lessons from all of them.

And when you want to read more of those lessons, here’s where to start:

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

Why Whitesnake was wrong about customer acquisition

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I’m on a short weekend trip to Belgrade, and to get here I took an eventful car-sharing ride with a truck driver.

One of the surprises was him putting in a CD to play — which had bands like Joy Division and the Pretenders and Television.

And among other things, Whitesnake. You know:

Here I go again on my own
Going down the only road I’ve ever known
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone…

And as with everything these days, this made me think of a marketing lesson I’ve learned lately.

This is from Jay Abraham, the 21 billion dollar man (that’s the increase in profits Jay claims to have made his clients).

Anyways, the lesson Jay is teaching is exactly the opposite of what Whitesnake’s drifter is saying.

You don’t want to go at it alone, says Jay, at least when it comes to marketing yourself and acquiring clients.

That’s because there are plenty of people who benefit when you are successful.

And if you can identify these people, they will gladly bankroll some or all of your customer acquisition.

Now this might sound too good to be true, so let me give you a real-life example of how this could work.

I’ve been doing a lot of ecommerce sales funnels lately.

My clients have basically been specialized operations that source trendy physical products from suppliers in Asia, run ads on Facebook or other platforms to sell these products, and then rinse and repeat.

I write the copy for them.

And if I do a good job writing this copy, it’s not just my clients who benefit.

The suppliers benefit.

The video production company that makes the VSL’s benefits.

Any other freelancers they might be hiring — media buyers, designers, translators — all benefit.

Even the platforms that run the ads benefit. ​

So if I wanted to go out and find more ecommerce businesses that want to run the same kinds of marketing funnel for their products…

Then it would be smart of me to start approaching all these 3rd parties and trying to get their help, referrals, and even sponsorship for my own marketing efforts.

After all, if I’m successful, so are they.

Anyways, this a very powerful idea.

And whatever your business, it’s almost certainly applicable to you in some form.

As for me, I am not really looking for more ecommerce clients.

I’ve got enough right now.

But I am always interested in talking to potential new clients.

Especially if you’ve got a unique product, and you need long-term help with your marketing.

So make up your mind…

Don’t go wasting no more time…

And get in contact with me, again.

Hungry Hamza’s ISIS diet fail

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A few weeks ago, news surfaced that British jihadi Hamza Parvez was being held in a Syrian prison.

Hamza was one of the first Britons to join ISIS — he ran away in 2014 to Syria, after convincing his UK family that he was going to study in Germany.

So what was Hamza doing in Syria?

Well, along with standard ISIS duties, he appeared in a recruiting video. He also tried to create a social media following back home in the UK, to convince other young Britons to come join him in the land of jihad.

But he failed in his social media quest.

The trouble seems to have been that Hamza, who was solidly built at the start of his ISIS career, lost almost 70 lbs. while in Syria.

He wasn’t happy about the distribution of food within ISIS.

And unfortunately, he decided to complain about this online. At one point, he even wrote on Twitter how he had a dream — ordering food from KFC, Nando’s, and even his fave Thai place.

As a result, his online followers started to mock him as “Hungry Hamza,” and his jihadi credibility went down the tubes.

There’s a lesson here for hungry marketers as well.

It’s from a throwaway comment I heard Ben Settle make in his now-dead podcast.

“Whatever you do,” Ben said, “you want to make it look easy.”

He was talking both about the content of your marketing (ie. don’t complain about being hungry)…

As well as about the form (ie. keep sending out an email each day, as though it costs you zero effort).

Of course, the reality might well be that you’re hungry…

Or that producing a constant stream of marketing content is costing you effort.

But your audience — jihadi or not — never needs to know that.

Hopefully this helps you in your own marketing.

And if you want more advice of how to write fresh daily emails that never sound hungry, check out the following:

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

How to write for political causes you don’t believe in

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A soul-searching question popped up on Reddit a few days ago:

“Would you write copy for a political cause you don’t believe in?”

To which I replied — I already have.

And I enjoyed it.

The story is that back in 2015, when the election was ramping up, I was hired to write some fundraising copy for an organization backing Bernie Sanders.

That went well, and so I got hired for a second job, writing fundraising copy for organization backing Trump.

And then Hillary.

And even Lyin’ Ted Cruz.

Altogether, I wrote about two dozen landing pages tying into current news, prophesying how the country is going to hell if the other guy gets elected, and soliciting donations.

Now, as you can imagine, I cannot align politically with both Bernie and Donnie, both Hillary and Ted.

In fact, I don’t really align with any of them.

And maybe that’s why it wasn’t any kind of issue for me to treat this as a simple sales copywriting job. After all, I often have to promote products that I’m not the target market for. It’s not hard to do, as long as you do a lot of research about the target market, and you figure out what moves them.

However, in the future, I would NOT write for the same political organizations that hired me back in 2015 and 2016. But that’s another topic for another time.

On the other hand, if I did get a direct call from Trump Tower — or from the deep woods of Vermont — offering me a retainer to write fundraising copy for the next election…

Well, I’d consider it.

Until that call comes, I’ll keep working on more traditional sales copy. Such as sales emails, promoting nutritional supplements and online health courses.

And if you want to read some of the lessons I’ve learned by working on such capitalist endeavors, you can find them in the following:

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

She-Wolwerine is alive and well — in Scotland

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Jo Cameron, a 71-year-old woman from Scotland, can claim to be the female version of the X-Man Wolverine.

And just in case you think I’m pulling your adamantium leg, consider the following:

For starters, grandma Cameron feels no pain.

In fact, there were times when she smelled the sizzling of her own flesh before noticing she had put her hand on the burning stove.

The weird thing is that people who don’t feel pain typically don’t live very long — their unfelt injuries pile up and kill them before they get to their 30’s.

Not so for X-Cameron.

That’s because she also seems to have a superior healing ability. Her mauled and scorched flesh heals quickly, usually without a scar. That’s how she could reach age 71, in spite of constantly taking stove damage.

On top of this, the woman never feels any fear, anxiety, or depression. She even has several unique genetic mutations that scientists have never seen before.

And here’s the crazy thing. ​​It turns out this She-Wolverine didn’t even realize she had any superpowers until a few months ago. She thought she wasn’t unique in any way.

And that ties into the plot of today’s issue of my daily email serial:

You too might have resources that you don’t appreciate.

​​Here’s another example to get you thinking:

Some 20 years ago, pioneering Internet marketer Joe Vitale had an email list of around 800 names. Up till then, he hadn’t done anything with this list.

But at some point, Joe got a hankerin’ to buy a BMW Z3.

And he set his mind on paying the $40,000 price tag by hustling up new money, instead of tapping into savings.

So he looked over his assets…

And he noticed the unused email list.

And he decided to create an online course, delivered entirely through email, which he would pitch hard to this list.

The price of the course?

$1,500.

Long story short, 20-odd people bought Joe’s email-only course. He got his Z3. And it was all financed by an otherwise inactive list.

Now, you might not have an unused email list sitting around.

But you probably have at least some other resources — whether it’s real-life connections, a Facebook audience, or skills that you can trade and barter.

And if you do create some kind of an offer, and you need ideas on how to promote it successfully to an email list, then young mutant, head over to the following page:

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

The case against 60-day money-back guarantees

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A couple weeks back, I was lurking in a Facebook group when I saw an inflammatory post.

Let me first give you a bit of background.

The Facebook group where this post appeared is for people, like myself, who plopped down $500 at some point to get an online course called the Energy Blueprint.

​​The Energy Blueprint is offered by a guy called Ari Whitten, and it’s all about scientifically proven ways to increase your energy (if you’re healthy) — or to overcome fatigue (if you’re not).

Now, if you think about it, you’ll soon realize one important thing:

Claiming to have the solution to something as chronic and ill-defined as fatigue will attract at least a few people with a strong victim mentality.

Such as the author of the inflammatory post I mentioned at the start.

The post itself has been taken down, so I can’t quote it verbatim. But it basically said:

“This course hasn’t helped me one bit. I don’t have the money to buy all these supplements or to do all the treatments. I tried getting a refund but I was told it was 4 days out of the 60-day refund period. I just want to warn everybody that Ari Whitten is a scammer who’s taking advantage of people.”

Now, many people in Ari’s group immediately jumped to his defense, saying how much he’s helped them.

A few even cried, “Two months is not long enough to see how well the course works!”

Which might be true. But in that case, why offer a two-month guarantee?

Personally, I think there are two valid approaches to money-back guarantees.

The first tries to draw more people in. In this case, the guarantee should be as long and generous as possible — a year, five years, a lifetime.

The other approach focuses on the quality of your customers.

It’s what people like Ben Settle do, which is basically to say, “Only buy if you’re sure you want this, because there are absolutely no refunds.”

The thing is, both of these approaches can work, and they can work well.

The “generous guarantee” people will tell you that longer guarantees mean higher sales, but they also result in FEWER refunds.

Perhaps counterintuitively, Ben also claims that NOT offering a guarantee actually hasn’t lowered his sales any — and may have even increased them. And of course, his approach eliminates all the headaches that come with refunds and the people who demand them.

In other words, both extremes seem to be good when it comes to guarantees.

What you don’t want to do, at least in my opinion, is offer a wishy-washy 60-day guarantee — which can backfire on you like it did on Ari Whitten.

As for me, I don’t have any kind of guarantees for my copywriting services. Sometimes, I’ve written copy for clients, and it bombed. Other times, I’ve written copy and it was a big success.

I’ve gotten paid in both cases.

And I have learned some lessons from these failures and successes. In case you want to know what those lessons are, you might like the following free, no-risk offer:

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

How to help your prospects grasp the horror of buying from the competition

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Having trouble getting hard? Don’t get suckered into buying yohimbe. Here’s why…

A couple of days ago, I talked about the proven and ancient copywriting principle of “grasping the advantage.”

That’s when you tell your prospect how your product is unique…

And you then paint the picture of all the ways this uniqueness will gently make your prospect’s life better.

Today, I want to point out a technique I spotted in a top-performing sales letter. In a way, this technique is the negative version of “grasping the advantage.” You might call it “grasping the horror.”

The sales letter in question was written by A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos, and it promoted a natural boner pill.

After going through all the ingredients of this pill and helping the reader grasp the advantage of each, this letter addressed the competition.

Among which, there is yohimbe. A natural, fat-burning, erection-promoting supplement.

Yohimbe wasn’t safe enough to be included in this pill, says Parris. That’s because yohimbe can raise blood pressure.

Now, at this point, Parris has basically stated the disadvantage of yohimbe. But that’s not enough. After all, maybe the prospect doesn’t realize why higher blood pressure is a problem.

Don’t worry. Parris immediately makes him grasp the horror of this disadvantage:

“Because yohimbe raises blood pressure,” Parris says, “it puts you at risk for stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, and seizures.”

Whoa. Better not mess around.

Of course, there’s some clever sleight of hand here.

Just because yohimbe raises blood pressure, it doesn’t mean it will cause stroke (in normal doses, it might only raise blood pressure marginally, not enough to create problems).

Parris gets around this with the vague phrase “puts you at risk.” This phrase connects the two pieces of information and makes the connection seem inevitable.

The result is that his prospect grasps the horror — even if the competition isn’t all that bad.

Sneaky. ​​Speaking of which…

​Be careful in case you sell a supplement or other health product through email.

Most advice you’ll come across is from people who have zero experience in this kind of marketing.

And if you follow this dud advice, it can put you at risk of losing a ton of sales, of getting mass unsubscribes, or even of getting your domain blacklisted as spam.

None of which is necessary. If you just follow the advice in my upcoming book, which you can get a free copy of here:

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

An inspirational sermon on the world’s greatest art thief

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In February of 1997, a man named Stephane Breitwieser walked into the Rubens House in Antwerp, Belgium.

It wasn’t his first visit to the museum.

In fact, he and his girlfriend, who helped him in many of his capers, had already staked it out multiple times.

You see, Breitwieser, only 25 at the time, was an expert in stealing art.

During his career, he stole over $1.4 billion worth of paintings, statues, jewelry, tapestries, chalices, weapons, musical instruments, and religious relics — all in broad daylight, without any violence, threats, or damage.

On this particular day, Breitwieser walked out with a small ivory figurine by a 17th-century master.

And he got away with it.

In fact, he kept getting away with it.

And as his successes mounted, he kept getting more brazen — and more addicted to stealing.

The amazing thing was he wasn’t doing any of it for money.

He never sold anything he stole.

Instead, he stashed it all in his room, on the top floor of his mother’s house, where he would lie around and admire all the beautiful things he now owned.

Of course, eventually Breitwieser’s extraordinary run came to an end.

He was arrested after returning to the Richard Wagner Museum in Switzerland, where he had stolen a little curled bugle several days earlier.

Once arrested, Breitwieser broke down at the police station, and wound up confessing to the theft of over 300 pieces, from over 200 museums.

Now here’s the instructional part.

Breitwieser eventually got out of jail.

And while he was legally forbidden from setting foot into the museums he had stolen from, he nonetheless made his way back to the Rubens House in Antwerp.

He looked at the statuette he had stolen twenty years earlier, which was reinstated in the exhibit.

And he realized that that day in February 1997 was probably the very high point of his life.

He had gotten such a rush from stealing.

He had amassed such a treasure trove of beautiful objects.

And he felt invincible — for a while.

But that was all long gone.

Now he was on the outside, and he would never be able to reclaim his former thieving glory.

Kind of a strange thought.

That a moment in your life, 20 years ago, was as good as it will ever get.

And that the rest of your life will only be one long anticlimax.

But here’s the thing.

Fortunately, you are probably not an art thief — real or aspiring.

And so, even if you look back in your past and realize that things used to be better than they are now…

There’s nothing stopping you from working towards a new goal, which will overshadow whatever pinnacle you had achieved in the past.

And the thing is, the very act of working towards that goal will give you more meaning and satisfaction than any past achievement could.

At least, that’s how I see it.

And how I try to live my life.

Maybe you disagree.

And if you do — or you need some inspirational copy written for your email list — get in touch with me and let me know what’s up.