Bubonic plague and sales letter reverse-engineering

by

In my bimonthly visit to The Daily Mail to get my fix of shock news, I found out something worrying:

There is a plague, brewing right now in the Far East, ready to bring the world to its knees. And no, I’m not talking about the one infecting us all with face masks.

Instead, the literal, bubonic plague is back, bubbling up in a region of Mongolia that borders both China and Russia.

(In other words, you’re not even safe indoors any more).

I didn’t realize the bubonic plague has stuck with us all these years. But according to the WHO, there were thousands of cases of the plague even in the last decade, mostly in Africa and South America. And in the early 20th century, even California had its own plague outbreak, with the epicenter first being San Francisco and then Oakland.

Of course, the biggest plague of them all was the Black Death. It raged through Europe between 1347 and 1351, and killed around 50 million people, about a third of the continent’s population.

Since I spend so much time thinking about copywriting and marketing, this made me think of Lee Euler’s famous Plague of the Black Debt promo, and a presentation A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos gave about it.

Way back when, Parris was a young, struggling, in-debt copywriter. But when the Black Debt promo landed in his mailbox, Parris wound up paying for the newsletter, even though he had no money to invest. The copy was simply that persuasive.

Several hundred thousand people did as Parris did. In fact, this promotion was so successful that people were calling Agora’s offices to buy copies of the promotion, so they could give it to their friends and loved ones. In other words, people were willing to pay to hear the sales pitch.

So Parris thought to himself… if there’s a piece of copy so powerful that it could get some dude with no money to buy an investment newsletter… maybe it might be a good idea to analyze it, see what the secret sauce is.

He wound up breaking it down, paragraph by paragraph, line by line.

And within a year, Parris went from struggling and being in-debt to having 3 controls for big financial publishers.

In the presentation I watched, Parris goes through the Black Debt promo and breaks it down for an audience. I won’t repeat what he said here. For one thing, this was part of a paid product. For another, it wouldn’t be interesting if I rehash it.

However, I’ve noticed a lot of people asking how to actually study successful sales letters. As in, what do you actually look for? There’s even a paid offer out right now, specifically teaching you how to analyze controls.

To me this seems overkill. But if you are just starting out, and are wondering what to look for in a successful DM promotion, here’s a list of questions to ask. These are the questions Parris addresses throughout his presentation., As you’ll see, they aren’t what you might expect:

1. Look at the format. Sales copy usually mimics a well known format like a letter or a video or a documentary. What is the format of this copy mimicking? How is it congruent with the message?

2. Look at the copy surrounding or preceding the main copy (eg. the ad, email, or envelope that gets them there). How does it position the main copy to come?

3. Look at the way the copy kicks off — the headline and the lead. How do they tap into what’s swirling around in the reader’s mind at that exact moment?

4. Look at the headline versus the subhead. How do they complement and complete each other, in terms of emotions, promises, and even format?

5. Look at the lead or the author’s bio. How do they communicate the author’s power? (Power in the literal sense of, “This is a powerful person who could help me. Finally I could have somebody powerful on my side.”)

6. Look for the proof. Where does it appear in relation to the claims it supports?

7. Look at logical arguments. How do they disguise emotional arguments as well?

8. Look for analogies, stories, anecdotes, and historical precedents. How do they prime your brain into accepting claims it might not accept otherwise?

9. How does the copy tap into the fear that you’re being left behind, manipulated, excluded, lied to?

10. How does the copy dismiss alternatives, and position itself as the only option?

11. Where and how does the copy introduce surprises, twists, turns, and genuine novelty?

12. How does the copy guarantee you’re getting a sure thing? Yeah, it’s probably got an actual guarantee. But is there more to it than that?

The “translation problem” of persuasion

by

I recently learned about the “translation problem” in persuasion.

For example, if I recommend a movie to you (like I did in my post a few days ago), you don’t really know whether to take that recommendation.

After all, my taste in movies is probably not the same as yours. I might also be recommending the movie for some reason you don’t care about (like learning better storytelling).

In other words, when I tell you a movie is great and you should watch it, you have to translate what that really means for you.

But there’s another way to look at this problem, which is more relevant for every-cent-counts direct marketing.

Specifically, I’m talking about the marketer’s job of translating a message into language his reader cares about, or at least understands.

I gave an example of this in yesterday’s post. In 1983, President Reagan got convinced of the importance of cyber security. A part of how this happened was the format of that persuasive message — a story, as told in the movie WarGames.

But another part of this persuasive message was that cyber security — a non-issue in 1983 — was translated into the threat of nuclear war.

Think about this for a moment. Another story probably wouldn’t have worked. A movie in which a hacker controls a weather satellite for a business man’s evil plans (Superman III, also from 1983) probably wouldn’t have gotten Reagan to take action on cyber security.

So what’s that point here?

It’s the old story. It was financier Bernard Baruch who, according to copywriting legend, summed up what it means to persuade:

“Find out what people want, and show them how to get it.”

Except, there are many situations in today’s sophisticated market where you don’t want to make overt promises. So instead of focusing on the positive outcome, you focus on the negative present. In that case, the real translation problem of persuasion becomes:

“Find out what people are afraid of, and show them how to avoid it.”

But whatever you do, don’t put out a message and hope your reader will translate it into terms he cares about. That’s your job. As copywriting coach David Garfinkel likes to say, “Either you work and get paid, or your reader works and gets paid.”

Do you want more of these kinds of persuasion lessons? I’ve got an email newsletter, where I send out one such essay each day. If you find that it’s not for you, you can always unsubscribe. To sign up, click here.

Persuasion WarGames

by

In 1983, nobody cared much about the Internet. The web hadn’t been invented yet. There was no AOL. And 99.9% of Americans had never heard the word modem.

Back then, not even sci-fi movies had a conception of anything like Facebook or amazondating.co. It took a special kind of visionary to see the big future of this new technology — and the possible risks it could bring.

Among these rare visionaries was then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

​​One evening at Camp David, Reagan watched a recently released film starring Matthew Broderick, called WarGames. Broderick plays a teenage computer hacker who hacks into NORAD’s missle control systems, and almost sets off WWIII by accident.

A few days after watching the movie, Reagan talked to his generals. He wanted some answers. Is this kind of scenario really possible?

The generals and their minions got to work investigating the topic. After some furious paper folding and shuffling, they came back with a report. “Mr. President, the situation is much worse than you might think.”

To make short tale, Reagan ordered this situation fixed immediately. So the U.S. government and military tightened up their cyber security. Several months later, Congress passed a comprehensive cyber crime bill. It’s still the centerpiece of Internet security law today.

This Reagan anecdote shows the power of a story in persuading. But it’s also an illustration of something more subtle — but just as powerful.

I’m talking about a way to persuade people who don’t currently see any problem with the status quo. This can be used widely to reach unaware audiences, and is a clever way to stir up interest and action, without triggering the brain’s anti-persuasion radar.

But today’s post is already getting as long as the script to WarGames. Interesting note about that script:

It was written by Lawrence Lasker, a family friend of Reagan’s and grandson to Albert Lasker, the “father of modern advertising.” The elder Lasker was the owner of the Lord & Thomas advertising agency, which employed such legendary copywriters as John E. Kennedy and Claude Hopkins.

But like I said, today’s post is already getting long. So I’ll tell you about this important persuasion principle in more detail tomorrow.

But do you want me to send you an email with that update tomorrow? If so, sign up for my daily email newsletter here.

Ramen and the art of good storytelling

by

As the detective takes out the handcuffed con artist from the restaurant, a man passes by, running at full speed.

The running man knocks over a passerby but keeps running, all the way home.

His wife is dying. The doctor is there.

The man jumps onto his wife and tries to shake her alive. “Don’t die! We need you! Do something! Sing!”

But the woman doesn’t respond.

“Get up!” the man shouts. “Cook dinner!”

Sure enough, the woman struggles up and stumbles into the kitchen. She starts chopping onions. Meanwhile, a train passes by outside, signaling another story transition.

I’m rewatching a Japanese movie called Tampopo.

The entire movie is about food. There’s a cute central storyline about a woman’s quest to become a great ramen chef. But what really makes the movie sparkle are little vignettes like the dying woman’s last dinner.

There are about a dozen such vignettes throughout the movie, and they transition from one to the other with a light touch.

I think this makes for a good show. And that has something to do with copywriting.

A few days ago, I read an email by copywriter Donnie Bryant. Donnie has a problem with the phrase, “salesmanship in print,” which has been used for, oh, about a century to explain what good advertising is.

That time has passed, says Donnie. Advertising today, copywriting included, is no longer about salesmanship.

Rather, advertising has become “showmanship in print.”

Sure, you need to know the salesmanship basics, going all the way back to John E. Kennedy. But that’s not enough any more.

Instead, look at great films, books, TV shows. See how they engage people and how they tell stories. Start including elements of that showmanship in your own marketing and copy.

If you need a place to start, I recommend watching Tampopo. It might teach you something about storytelling, and you’ll never look at ramen the same way again.

But what if you don’t wanna watch movies with a critical eye? Well, another option is to sign up to my daily email newsletter. I watch lots of movies, and whenever I find a good lesson about storytelling, persuasion, or marketing, I make sure to share it with my readers.

How to agitate any market’s problem

by

I kept glancing left and right. Each time I spotted another bicyclist, my fears were confirmed.

I went for a bike ride today.

It was hot. It was smoggy. I had to compete for roadspace with tons of cars and trucks.

But that’s not what really cooked my liver.

I kept glancing around. I soon realized that, out of all the other bikers I passed, I was the only one wearing a helmet.

Food delivery guys… little kids on oversized mountain bikes… pretty girls in big pantaloons on “classic” bikes…

Nobody had a helmet. I was the only one dorky enough to be concerned with my safety in this way.

This growing realization put me in a state of mild panic. Which is pretty strange. If anything, I should have felt safer and superior wearing my protective pudding padding.

But here’s the thing:

Loneliness, which is a horrible physiological reaction involving tightened blood vessels and gurgling in the gut, has two forms.

One form is the familiar one, when you’re literally alone, in your house, like during lockdown.

The other form is when you’re surrounded by lots of people — but in some significant way, they are all strangers. You’re in a crowd, but you don’t belong.

As you can probably guess, this human instinct can be used to “guide” your prospects in the direction you want.

“I really sucked at the piano and it seemed hopeless…”

That’s the level at which most headlines stop. It works.

But could we do better? John Caples could:

“They laughed when I sat down at the piano…”

In short, the vast majority of people, myself included, want to be consistent with the herd. If you’re lagging in some noticeable way behind the others, you’re liable to start feeling lonely, and to wind up in a state of mild panic.

So when you write your sales copy, remember this:

An easy way to agitate any market’s problem is simply to introduce an audience.

You know how sometimes you feel lonely? Getting an email from me at that point won’t fix that. But it might help, just a tiny bit. So if you want to get a bit of protection against loneliness, and maybe get some lessons about persuasion and marketing in the process, sign up for my daily email newsletter here.

The beautiful future of text sales letters

by

“All train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don’t mind it.”
— Ricky Roma, Glengarry Glen Ross

Right now, everybody’s so in love with copy.

In certain circles, this love even goes further, to a certain pride about ugly websites and ugly emails and ugly sales letters. “Who cares? If you’re interesting, if you write well, people will read your message even if it’s written on used toilet paper!”

There are even people who claim they’ve tested this. They claim that ugly, because it stands out, outperforms beautiful.

I can believe this. But here’s the thing:

If everybody’s making an ugly website in the hope of shocking people into handing over their attention… then ugly stops being different.

It gets so you don’t mind it, like Ricky Roma says in the quote above. And at that point, ugly loses its selling power.

I bring this up because I’m listening to an interview right now that Rich Schefren did with a marketer named Sean Vosler.

Rich spends the first five minutes of the interview enthusing about Sean and his work. Rich thinks this is the future of marketing.

He even gets so excited that he pulls up his text messages on screen, to prove how he just had an exchange with Jay Abraham, and how he invited Jay to join this interview. Rich thinks Sean’s stuff is so revolutionary that even Jay needs to see it.

So what exactly is Sean doing?

Well, he is selling a book about copywriting. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is that the book and its sales page are very professionally and beautifully designed (by Sean himself, who has a a background in design).

The point, as Rich puts it, is that “different is better than better.”

And in a world where many marketers are taking pride in making garish-looking sales pages… or sending boring and plain-looking emails (like the ones I send out in my email newsletter)… in that world, a beautiful design like Sean’s looks different. It gets attention. And that’s half the sale.

By the way, this is part of a bigger trend.

Last autumn, I wrote about a similar move to higher production values in VSLs. And now text sales letters seem to be headed in the same direction.

So if you are a marketer or business owner, this beautiful design stuff is something to keep in mind.

And if you are a copywriter, this is something you can bring up to your clients, and make yourself seem well-informed and cutting-edge.

But wait, you might say.

What exactly makes for beautiful design in a marketing context?

I can’t say. I’m not a designer. But if you want to see Sean’s sales page, the one Rich Schefren was so enthusiastic about, here’s the link so you can judge for yourself:

https://bejakovic.com/sean-vosler

“He could never defeat the second-guessing”

by

Imagine for just a moment you are an MMA fighter, stepping into the octagon. The door locks behind you. Across from you is a guy who has been trained to kick your head clean off your shoulders.

Suddenly, the ref waves you both on. Your opponent starts to charge towards you, ready to kill.

And then, instead of feeling your own killer instinct taking over, you hear a voice in your head that says, “Oh God. I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be here. Everybody’s gonna see I shouldn’t be here.”

I’ve read various copywriters say they feel like a fraud or an impostor. You might think this fear is unique to this sensitive, snowflakey profession. But no. Even much tougher people get struck by the same panic.

For example, I watched a short clip today in which Chael Sonnen and Uriah Hall, two of the world’s best mixed martial artists, talk about self-doubt and lack of confidence.

Sonnen, the more experienced of the two, has this to say:

“One of the huge things I realized is that everybody’s going through it. I used to think there’s something wrong with me. I used to be really embarrassed about it. And I talked to Randy Couture [a legendary MMA fighter] about it. And Randy said that the one thing he learned is, he could never defeat it. He could never defeat the second-guessing or the negative voice in his head. And he just learned, I just gotta compete with it.”​

Here’s my point:​​

It’s worthwhile looking at your inner demons now and then, and putting in some work to cast them out. Maybe you will be successful in your exorcism one day. But don’t count on it.

The good news is, it’s possible to be plenty successful even with a lot of self-doubt. Others have done it before you. You can too.

You just have to accept that the “I can’t do this” demon will probably continue to sit on your shoulder, whispering panic-inducing thoughts to you, while you act regardless.

“Yes, you’re right,” you can tell him. “I can’t do this. Just give me a second. I need to punch this guy in the face.”

Here’s another demon you might hear whispering to you:

At first you think he’s saying, “Email newsletter.” So you lean in closer.

The demon says, “A new email each day, about persuasion and marketing.”

You lean in still closer. Suddenly, the demon grabs you by the ear. “Sign up here,” he whispers.

Being authentic is overrated

by

In 1976, David Bowie got accused of supporting fascism. How could anybody say that of Bowie?

After all, a few years earlier, Bowie claimed he was gay. Then he was an alien. Then he became one of the few white singers to perform on Soul Train.

This certainly doesn’t sound like your typical fascist. Why would anybody think different? Well, there is the following quote:

“I believe very strongly in fascism,” Bowie said in a 1976 interview with Playboy magazine. “Rock stars are fascists, too. Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.”

People are always telling you, be authentic, be authentic. That’s how you will connect to others. Share your geeky stories. Be vulnerable. Be true to yourself.

And yet there’s David Bowie, who became a huge star by striving to be plastic, artificial, and impossible to pin down. He made up stuff and he lied for his own amusement and profit. He provoked and played the media. Bowie again:

“The only thing that shocks now is an extreme. Like me running my mouth off, jacking myself off. Unless you do that, nobody will pay attention to you. Not for long. You have to hit them on the head.”

And it’s not just Bowie or his rock star spawn like Madonna and Lady Gaga who get away with this. Look at the world of online marketing.

​​Ben Settle has admitted he consciously plays up his crotchety persona online. ​​Matt Stone has an oversexed alter ego he writes under, named Buck Flogging. The greatest copywriter of all time, Ross Manly, is not even a real person.

Fact is, authenticity is overrated. It’s much better to be entertaining, or at least interesting. If you are boring or unpleasant by nature, there’s no need to push that pollution out into the world.

​​Rather than being consistent with your “authentic self,” assume a new, more exciting viewpoint and unflinchingly defend it — for as long as you find it amusing or valuable to do so. ​​As Bowie put it:

“The only way I can be effective as a person is to be this confoundedly arrogant and forthright with my point of view. […] Nothing matters except whatever it is I’m doing at the moment. I can’t keep track of everything I say. I don’t give a shit. I can’t even remember how much I believe and how much I don’t believe. The point is to grow into the person you grow into. I haven’t a clue where I’m gonna be in a year.”

Email newsletter. I have one. Every day I write an email and share ideas that are not consistent with each other. But you might find it interesting anyhow. It’s available here.

10 tiny marketing projects you could complete in a week

by

A guy named Ben Stokes just published a free tool to help you build a one-item online store. I’m letting you know this for two reasons:

1) Maybe you want to build a simple store for a product you have in mind. In that case, you can try Ben’s free store builder instead of paying for Shopify or fussing with WordPress.

2) Ben also has a unique blog at tinyprojects.dev. He does a tiny new programming project each week. He tracks what he did and how it went. The one-item store builder is Ben’s most recent entry.

All of which got me thinking:

​Somebody could make a similar site about marketing. Just pick a tiny project you could complete in under a week. Do it. Write up how it went, what you learned, and show off the results.

You’d learn something. You’d build a portfolio. You’d make connections. Maybe you’d even make some money.

I at least would love to read it. I really hope somebody will do this — maybe that somebody will be you.

So to help you get started, here are 10 possible tiny marketing projects I came up with just now.

​​I’m not saying these projects are great. But they don’t have to be a success in order to be a success, if you’re hepp to what I mean. Here’s the list:

#1. Get booked on a podcast
​
​Make an inventory of your skills, interests, and experiences. Go on listennotes.com and search for podcasts that might be interested in hearing what you have to say.

​​Send the podcast hosts an email explaining what valuable info you can share with their audience. If you have zero upon zero valuable experience or skills, then find a travel blog and talk about where you live. Any place can become interesting with a bit of research.

#2. Promote an affiliate product
​
​Go on Clickbank. Pick a top 15 Clickbank offer. Find a subniche you could promote it to (eg. weight loss for people with PTSD).

​​Create a tiny lead magnet that answers a specific, curiosity-inducing question in 4 paragraphs max. Create a landing page offering this lead magnet as a PDF.

​​Write a soap opera sequence for people who sign up, promoting the affiliate product. Create 3 Facebook ads and run $5 worth of Facebook traffic to your page each day for 3 days.

#3. Work on getting a story to the front page of Reddit
​
​Search the Internet for a sufficiently shareable/outrageous/inflammatory story that hasn’t blown up yet. Or use your own content. Figure out which subreddits might go for it. Put it out there. Go on Fiverr and pay for 5 people $5 to upvote it using a bunch of different accounts, and try to make it reach the front page.

#4. Publish a Kindle book out of repurposed materials

​
​Blog posts you’ve written, articles, emails, your personal diary, letters to your mom, or your high school term papers. Whatever you’ve got. Put it together. Figure out a hot title. Research how to make a Kindle book. Create a cover using Canva. Write an Amazon listing for it. Publish it on Amazon KDP.

#5. Start a blog where each week, you post a profile of a different successful marketer

​​Dig around on the Internet and collect info on this marketer. Then reach out to the marketer, explain what you’re doing, and ask one or two in-depth questions to make your piece unique and more than just a rehash what’s out there. If you don’t hear back, that’s content too. ​​Write it all up. Link to the marketer’s offers and his site.

​​ If you don’t know any successful marketers, here’s a random list to get you started: Michael Senoff, Brian Kurtz, Todd Brown, Matt Furey, Hollis Carter.

#6. Same as #1 but with guest posts

​​This can be better if you’re starting out and you can’t claim to be any kind of expert, or even pretend-expert. Simply make it your goal to get somebody somewhere to accept your guest post.

​​Look at a bunch of blogs or sites. Select the most promising ones according to your own interests and how good/accessible they look. Come up with a headline or two or three, and write the blog owner an email pitching your post. Do it over and over for a week, or until you get a yes.

#7. Create a micro dropshipping site

​​Go on Amazon and dig around for ecommerce products. Look for a product that 1) has 200+ reviews, 2) makes you say, I can’t believe this is a thing and 3) sells for under $20. Then go on Ali Express and find the closest thing to it. Create a one-product store with Ben Stokes’s one product store builder. Connect it to your Ali Express supplier and make it ready to do business.

#8. Create a personal ad for your own service business

​​Find Gary Halbert’s personal ad. Model it to describe your ideal client, and to promote yourself as a copywriter or whatever it is that you want to do.

​​If you think your ad is great and you’ve got a bunch of money, buy some space in the Los Angeles Times and run it, just like Gary did. ​​If you’re not confident about your ad or you ain’t got money, put your ad in a Google Doc. Make it publicly visible. Link to it from Facebook and post it in Facebook groups, while sharing your learning lessons from the exercise.

#9. Recreate the Significant Objects project

​​Go to a local thrift shop, antiques store, or flea market. Buy 5 quirky objects, all under $5. Then go on Reddit and search around in various subreddits (r/relationships, r/letsnotmeet, r/askreddit) for personal stories that went viral or got lots of upvotes.

​​Figure out a way to tie some of those stories up with your thrift store products. Retell the story in a tight, condensed version, tie in your product, and make this into an eBay listing for the product.

#10. Create a blog about about tiny marketing projects that you complete in under a week

​​Make a list of 10 projects you will tackle over the coming 10 weeks. Write up a week 0 post about your motivation, the steps you took to create the actual blog, and hint at the first project you will handle the following week. ​​Then send me a link to it, and I will be your first reader.

​​And if you’re strapped for cash, just write up the initial post in a Google Doc and send me that. I’ll pay the $10.17 for registering the tinyprojects.marketing domain for you, and I’ll let you use my hosting for the blog itself until you make your first $1k online.

Social proof concentration and when not to use it

by

It all happened within three or four days. Ben Settle, Brian Kurtz, Abbey Woodcock, Kevin Rogers, and David Deutsch all emailed about the same topic:

Reclusive A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos was finally offering a training. He would reveal his best-kept, most profitable secrets to raise funds for his cousin’s cancer treatment.

The first email I got on the topic, I thought, this is interesting — but I’ve already got plenty of copywriting trainings as is. Second email, I thought, another email about that same thing. Third email, maybe I should get this. Fourth email, I better get this now while I still can.

This experience was an illustration of a persuasion principle I read about in a book called The Catalyst. The principle is called concentration.

In a nutshell, all instances of social proof are not the same. If you can get a bunch of people to independently recommend your thing, and they do it in real quick succession, it’s much more powerful than having it all spread out. If it’s spread out, then your prospect can forget about each individual piece of social proof, or rationalize it away. If it’s concentrated, he cannot.

This idea might might or might not be useful if you’re writing a piece of direct response copy. (You’ll have to think about it and make up your own mind.)

But if you’re interested in persuasion more broadly, then the principle of concentration definitely has immediate application. If you’re marshaling an army of lieutenants who will all fight for your cause, it makes sense to focus their attack on one specific point, at one specific time.

But here’s a question to leave you thinking:

Concentration clearly worked on me and got me to pay Parris some $300 for his very valuable training.

But are there situations where concentrating your message might be a less efficient use of your resources?

​​I personally think so. If you agree with me, and you can name some specific situations, I’d love to hear from you. Write in and let me know.