8 heart-piercing fence posts of your customers’ emotional ranch

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I’ve been listening to a talk Perry Marshall gave about his “Swiss Army knife.”

This is Perry’s method for writing novel and effective pay-per-click ads (or really, any kind of copy).

The first step — or blade — of Perry’s Swiss Army knife is all about your customer’s big and broad emotional ranch.

As a marketer, you need to know the ambit of this ranch. And you do so by focusing on the 8 fence posts below. This helps you map the ranch out, so you can get to work writing the ads.

Let me give you an illustration using a market I’ve been researching lately, and that’s people with IBS:

Fence post #1: Your customer

My example market is a person suffering with IBS. Getting regular attacks of stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhea… Fatigued, anxious, and suffering from related problems such as lack of nutrients. Tried recommended solutions but hasn’t found a way to stop IBS.

Fence post #2: A negative force or belief

People in this market believe nobody can understand their problems. They are alone in having this issue. They can’t live a normal life. They think it’s embarrassing. They worry they will live with IBS for the rest of their lives.

Fence post #3: A thing your customer loves

These folks love the times that they don’t have IBS attacks. They love having normal bowel movements. Being able to go about their lives normally (dating, meeting friends, traveling…).

Fence post #4: A thing your customer hates

Of course, they hate IBS attacks. But many of them also hate eating. Or having to use public bathrooms. Or jokes about digestive problems or issues. Or claims that IBS is not a real disease or a big deal. Bullshit treatments or advice.

Fence post #5: A positive force or belief

They keep hoping that maybe somebody will invent a cure for IBS. Or that they will figure out what causes their own IBS.

Fence post #6: You (the advertiser)

Let’s say I’m a website providing info on various IBS treatments. And let’s say my offers include articles, newsletters, product recommendations, webinars, ebooks. The site is helpful, truthful, and supportive.

Fence post #7: Your customer’s best friend

Their actual friends. Their spouse. Their kids. Their dog. Other anonymous people online who also suffer from IBS.

Fence post #8: Your customer’s worst enemy

Their own digestive system. Trigger foods (onions, garlic…). Unsupportive doctors.

All right, we’ve just driven the emotional fence posts into the ground.

The next thing is to pick two of these fence posts and see if they jog any copy ideas in your mind. So for example, #4 and #8:

Is your doctor making jokes about IBS?
Don’t allow him to dismiss you
Free info on real IBS treatments

Or here’s another, with #2 and #7:

IBS Attack = Ruined Travel Plans
It doesn’t have to be embarrassing
How to help your friends understand

You get the idea. The more info you can pile on in each of the above categories, the easier the writing of the ads becomes.

Like I said, I’m doing a lot of research on this market and mapping these fence posts out — because I intend to make that website described in #6. But more about this later.

For now, if you want my help writing emotional and effective copy, send me an email, and we can find a time to talk.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of a large, aggressive dog

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I really love dogs but that would have helped me little last night, when a territorial black monster named Tony cornered me with apparent intent to tear out my liver.

Tony is the dog of a friend I’m visiting and is supposedly a German shepherd. I have my doubts about this lineage because

1) as mentioned, Tony is all black and not brown, and

2) Tony is about 50% larger than any German shepherd I’ve ever seen (he weighs around 100 lbs). In fact, if I ever ran into Tony in a dark forest, my first thought would be I’m seeing a wolf and I’m about to become a cautionary tale for naughty children.

Fortunately, I survived last night’s Tony attack because my friend, knowing Tony’s territorial tendencies, put a muzzle on Tony’s snout ahead of time.

So even though Tony charged at me repeatedly and got so close I could hear his jaws snapping, I was safe.

As I was lying in bed later, going over this exciting evening and trying to fall asleep, I summed it up as,

“Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” (suck it Tony)

This in turn reminded me of a great subject line technique I call inversion (others might have different names for it).

It’s when you take a saying, a well-known phrase, or a cliche and either turn it around (as with the “defeat” phrase) or take a key word and negate it (as in the Ben Settle subject line, “Why the customer is always wrong”).

This inversion style of subject lines works for two reasons:

First, it catches your reader off guard and it causes dissonance that the reader will probably want to resolve.

Second, it gives you an interesting angle to write about — assuming you write the subject line ahead of the email body.

Anyways, I’ll be staying with my friend — and Tony — for the next few days. And assuming Tony’s muzzle doesn’t slip off and I wind up in the ER, I’ll even try to get a bit of copywriting done. Specifically, some emails for a new health offer I will be promoting.

If you want to get a good idea of how I write such emails — and you can, too — then check out the following page:

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

How to turn your business into a cult or a clan

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I’m currently passing through Budapest, Hungary.

Budapest used to be my home base, and so, for nostalgia’s sake, I sat down in my former number-one cafe.

It’s a bright, wood-paneled place right in the center of the city. And it’s called Madal, after an Indian spiritual teacher who for some reason was very popular in Hungary.

As you might suspect, the whole place has a kind of cultish feel. There’s light, chanting music playing in the background. A selection of books is there for customers to read, with titles such as “My life’s soul journey.” And a large picture of Madal himself is smiling beatifically at me from the opposite wall.

And yet, in spite of all this mind massage, the cafe is extremely popular. I suspect, more so than if they simply had the same offer (good coffee, decent croissants) and a more neutral decor.

And this reminded me of another, less beatific and peaceful business.

I’m talking about the Wu Tang Clan, a bunch of rappers from Staten Island who adopted slang and imagery from old kung fu movies.

Yes, they had good beats and good rhymes.

And yet, I doubt they would have been such a worldwide sensation over the past 25 years‚ had it not been for the mystique of the Wu and the Shaolin behind the music.

That’s something to keep in mind if you have a fairly vanilla business.

Could you take your ordinary product and make it into a cult — or a clan — simply by weaving in elements of some little-known, mystical, or ancient ideology?

It’s something I keep thinking about for my own projects. And that’s why I’m always paying attention to news items involving archeologists, conspiracy theorists, and new age kooks.

Anyways, if you need some mystical copy written for your business, write me and get in touch. I’m traveling over the next few days (in fact, next few weeks), but we can still find a time to talk.

My mommy blogger envy

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Today I read an article about Heather Armstrong, the former “queen of the mommy bloggers.”

At one point, Heather’s blog was getting 8 million views a month and was pulling in $40k a month, mostly from banner ads.

This made me a bit envious. It also reminded me of something Mark Ford once wrote — that there are two ways to sell.

One is the traditional way, talking about benefits the prospect might care about.

The other is the charismatic way to sell. In other words, you make the sale based on your own personality.

This way, according to Mark, is the more powerful of the two.

Unfortunately, it’s not something that’s easy for me, because I’ve got as much personality as an ironing board.

Or maybe a sponge.

Which might mean I will never get to 8 million subscribers to this little email newsletter…

But it does have its advantages.

Such as for example, allowing me to imitate my client’s personality on demand in copy. If you want to see some examples of how I’ve done this — including examples that were very successful for some big-name health businesses — you might like the following offer:

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

The limits of good copy

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“You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time”
— Peter Tosh

I was approached by a potential client a few days ago. He wanted me to write some sales copy for a cryptocurrency mining company.

This company is trying to raise funds through a crowd sale, known as an ICO in crypto land.

The trouble, said the potential client, is that there have already been about 20 mining companies with ICOs. And they’ve all failed in various ways, taking investor funds with them.

So he wanted to know how I would deal with this poor reputation when trying to sell this new mining ICO. I gave him a simple 3-part plan:

1. Acknowledge the poor reputation of previous mining ICOs
2. List all the ways this new mining company would be different
3. Give reasons why this is true

As far as I can see, that’s about the limit of what sales copy can do in this case.

If this new ICO isn’t different enough from previous failed ICOs…

Or if there aren’t any tangible reasons to prove that it’s different…

Then no copy magic will fix this issue, just like Peter Tosh says at the top.

The thing is, I can think of several ways to deal with extreme market skepticism.

But these ways would require improving the actual product, or taking novel marketing approaches (rather than just relying on good copywriting).

Unfortunately, having me influence the product or change the overall marketing strategy is not something most of my clients are open to.

That’s one of the reasons I’m always working on my own side projects where I do have complete control.

And it’s also why I’m on the lookout for a profitable business, selling good products, that I could join as a long-term marketing partner.

If that’s a prospect that might be attractive to you and your business, then write me an email, and we can talk.

Let me steal your underwear

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One afternoon in October 2018, a strange man showed up at an open house in Michigan.

He trailed around the house for a bit, pretending to be checking it out.

He then walked down to the basement. That’s where the washer and dryer were.

He walked over to the dryer, took one quick look around, and reached in. He pulled out a pair of men’s underwear, then another. He stuffed both pairs of underwear down his own pants, walked back upstairs, and left the house.

We know all this because it was captured on a security camera. In spite of the recording, the man was never identified — and the stolen underwear never recovered.

The lesson being, be careful who you let into your house to wander around…

Or, when you hire a copywriter — and allow him to wander around your business.

After all, in order to have a copywriter write effective copy for you, you often have to show him how your business works from the inside out, in complete detail.

For example, in my time working with various clients, I’ve had access to entire back-end funnels… Names and addresses of all customers… Profitable lead-gen sequences… Secret lists of JV partners… And complete product lines of books, videos, and courses.

If I were the pilfering type, I could have taken this information and cloned these clients’ businesses — or at least portions of them.

And in fact, I’ve heard stories from business owners who have had exactly this happen to them.

I’d like to tell you there’s a simple way to avoid this in your own business.

But I’m not sure there’s any better thing to do than to go by a copywriter’s reputation, or your own gut feeling about who is trustworthy.

Like I said, I’ve been given access to a ton of business underwear in my life. I haven’t stolen a single pair.

And even if you let me steal your underwear, I promise I won’t.

Maybe you don’t find that convincing enough. So  if you prefer to write your own copy for now, I can understand. In that case, you might get some good ideas in the following book — which is based on my work with lots of other clients:

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

The Ultimate Funnel

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Back in 2005, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, looked like it might have to fold.

The mixed martial arts promotion had already had several big fights that did well on pay-per-view. And yet, financially, it was not successful enough as a business.

Fast forward to today.

Mixed martial arts has become a mainstream sport. UFC fights show on ESPN and sell millions of tickets on pay-per-view. And the company itself is worth multiple billions of dollars.

So what happened?

It’s a good question. And before I give you the answer, it’s worth thinking about what you yourself — as a marketer, or a business owner — might do in the situation that the UFC was in back in 2005.

Would you run ads on TV hyping up upcoming PPV fights?

Would you send direct mail to people who subscribe to martial arts magazines, telling them about the new sport and asking them to respond in some way?

Would you hire celebrities to come sit cageside?

In fact, none of these things were what the UFC did, or at least none were responsible for saving the UFC from ruin.

So what did happen?

Well, the owners of the UFC did a very smart thing.

They didn’t try to sell their core product at all.

Instead, they created another product, and they sold that.

Specifically, they created a reality TV show, called The Ultimate Fighter. It showed a bunch of guys, living together in a house, training and competing with each other for the right to get a six-figure contract for the regular UFC promotion.

And boy did it work. The Ultimate Fighter drew a lot of viewers, became profitable in itself, popularized mixed arts, and saved the UFC.

Because of all this, it offers a very valuable marketing lesson.

Off the top of my head, I can think of six separate marketing fundamentals that underlie this very clever move into reality TV.

But I won’t bore you by listing them here.

Instead, I just want to say that this kind of a funnel — coming up with a second, ancillary product to promote your core product — does not have to be limited to cage fights between two half-naked guys.

With a bit of thought, it can also work for many different offers and many different businesses.

For example, I’ve personally done this with a book I was selling once. And if you’d like to know the full story of how and what I did, you’ll be able to find the answer by going here:

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

How to become a multimillionaire if you’re not smart or lucky

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Yesterday, I watched a video by Mark Ford in which he shares his 7 essential elements for wealth building.

If you know about direct response marketing, odds are you’ve heard of Mark or his work.

He’s one of the guys who built up Agora into a $500 million (soon to be $1 billion?) business.

He also started AWAI, a training school for copywriters.

He’s got stakes in other multi-million dollar companies, owns dozens of real estate developments, and — as if all his other activities aren’t enough — he is also a broker of fine art from Latin America.

Mark’s personal wealth is not public, but based on hints he drops, I assume it’s in the tens-of-millions to hundreds-of-millions range. In spite of this, he will flatly claim he is not smarter or luckier than other people. When a guy like this decides to share his advice on wealth building, it makes sense to listen.

So, according to Mark Ford, here are the 7 elements you should have to become almost as rich as he is:

1. Time
2. Financially valuable skills (one or more of marketing, selling, creating, managing, and buying)
3. A high net investable income
4. Knowledge of how individual businesses create profits in individual industries
5. Seeking average returns for each asset class
6. Diversity among 4-5 asset classes
7. Risk aversion

In the video, Mark admits this list isn’t sexy. But, he says, he’s discovered (along with Bill Bonner, the founder of Agora) that…

“…there is an inverse relationship between the value of knowledge and what people are willing to pay for it. The most important things in life you’ve probably heard a hundred times before, but you’re not paying attention. When you’re in the right place and you hear it, you have that ‘aha’ moment and everything changes.”

Like I said, when a guy like Mark Ford speaks, it makes sense to listen.

At least that’s what I’m doing. I guess I’m on a decent path because I’m well along in developing a financially valuable skill — marketing.

In case you’re more of the creating or managing type, then we might be able to help each other out. Get in touch with me, and we can discuss how to get richer together.

Why it pays to be a four-legged whale

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Earlier this year, paleontologists working in Peru discovered the fossil of a prehistoric four-legged whale.

This beast lived around 40 million years ago. It was about 15 feet long, looked something like a giant otter, and could both walk on land and swim in water.

While I was meditating on this prehistoric monster, I realized it’s a good metaphor for a real problem that many marketers, copywriters, and entrepreneurs face.

In fact, I heard a very famous and successful marketer, copywriter, and entrepreneur talk about this very issue.

The man I have in mind is the late and great Gene Schwartz. And the problem Gene was discussing was this:

As you become more successful, you lose touch with your customers — and that’s terrible.

Becoming successful requires certain things — discipline, hard work, optimism. It also brings certain things — money, freedom, a sense of achievement.

The thing is, unless you’re specifically catering to other successful entrepreneurs… then these are not characteristics that your market will share.

And as you become more successful, it will become harder and harder for you to connect with people in your market, to understand them, and to get them to buy whatever you’re selling.

In other words, you will become a sleek, powerful, self-contented whale, swimming gracefully under water and gorging on tons of freely available plankton each day…

While all your monkey and squirrel customers still live in fear, anger, and scarcity on dry land.

So what’s the fix for this?

Well, Gene advised immersing yourself in trash pop culture and constantly talking to your prospects.

I’d personally take it a step further.

I’d advise growing a set of hairy whale legs and using them to crawl around on land every now and then.

So for example…

Allowing yourself to waste time…

Wallowing in controlled negativity…

Making an occasional impulsive decision…

Or blaming others for your problems instead of taking responsibility for yourself.

Of course, these aren’t good behaviors. They will not in themselves lead you to success.

But indulged carefully and sporadically, they can help you understand how most people live, what they want, and how you can give it to them.

At least that’s how I justify my own whale legs.

And if you want to take advantage of all of the time I spend reading trash pop culture and making impulsive decisions — so you can have more effective marketing for your successful business — then you might like the following offer:

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

My number one productivity tip for fellow white rabbits

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Major Valerie “Twitch” Wetzbarger is an instructor pilot with the 56th Fighter Wing of the US Air Force.

She is also one of the very few pilots who get to fly the F-35, the multi-billion-dollar stealth fighter that Lockheed Martin has been developing over the past decade or so.

Asked what lessons she has drawn from flying the F-35 (which is essentially a sentient death rocket that melds with the pilot’s body and shoots her into the clouds at 1,200 miles per hour), Major Wetzbarger commented:

“Some of my favorite advice is, ‘Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.’ This means slow down, do your part right the first time, and that will be quicker in the end.”

I read the above quote a few weeks ago, and it resonated with me. So I’ve taken Major Wetzbarger’s advice and I’ve refashioned it for myself:

“Go slow, and do one thing at a time.”

It’s been working very well. I’ve been getting more done by slowing down, plus I feel much better during the day. But here’s an important disclaimer:

This productivity tip works for me.

That’s because my brain is like a skittish white rabbit that makes its home in the future and only rarely and briefly comes into the present.

In other words, I’m always thinking about things that are coming up — and never things that are here.

Not only is this a recipe for being inefficient with whatever I’m working on, it’s also a recipe for needless worry and stress (“Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!”)

And that’s why, if you do NOT have the problem of constantly living in the future, I won’t presume to give you productivity advice.

On the other hand, if you have the same white rabbit tendency as I do, then try slowing down instead of hurrying up. It might make a lot of difference in what you get done.

And finally, if you want some profitable info on email marketing and copywriting, specifically for the health space, then take the following steps very slowly and one at a time:

1. Click on the link below
2. Read over the short offer that’s described there
3. If it suits you, sign up with your email
4. And witness how good and productive you feel

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