The Red Shoe Diaries advertorial structure

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A man, his heart broken after a tragic love affair, is searching for answers.

So he puts out an ad in the newspaper:

“Looking for women who keep a secret diary. I want to know your stories of love, passion, and betrayal. Write me at PO Box 903, New York, NY, 10276.”

For some reason, week after week, a new letter arrives in response to this ad.

The man goes to the postal box, picks up the letter, and then, walking along desolate train tracks with his dog, he starts to read a new story of love, passion, and betrayal.

So opens each episode of the 90s erotic TV show Red Shoe Diaries. (The forlorn man was played by a young David Duchovny, before he starred in the X-Files and Californication.)

I bring this up not because I am reminiscing about my adolescent days and the significance that an occasional TV nipple had in my life.

Instead, I want to tell you about a successful advertorial I wrote recently.

This advertorial is for a pet safety product (I won’t say exactly what as a courtesy to my clients, because the campaign is still running profitably).

While I was doing research for this advertorial, I came across lots of horror stories that all tied into the product.

Any one of these stories would have made a good lead for the advertorial.

And I was sorry to let any of the stories go.

So what I did was a kind of Red Shoe Diaries structure.

I opened with one horror story, told in the first person by the purported author of the advertorial.

But then, rather than moving into other sales arguments, I told other horror stories, one after the other.

And to do this, I brought in a kind of David Duchovny narrator (in this case, a police officer who showed up to the scene of the original horror story).

This narrator reeled off 2 or 3 more horror stories.

Now, I can’t say for certain, but I believe this multi-story structure is one of the main reasons this advertorial has been so successful to cold Facebook traffic.

In case you are selling something that lends itself to lots of good — i.e. chilling — stories, maybe you’ll find this approach valuable.

And if you want to get me to research and write up such an advertorial for your product, then hit reply, write me a sultry yet short email, and we can take it from there.

You’re okay, I’m about to stew in Old Bay

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I got myself in a bit of a pickle today.

That’s because yesterday, I wrote about smart and effective ways that marketers can use reciprocity to get their prospects’ trust.

I didn’t spell out what those ways were, so I invited people to write in if they wanted to know what I had in mind.

And a few people did exactly that.

Only one problem.

While I had vague ideas of effective reciprocity that I’ve seen in marketing, I hadn’t really thought deeply about this issue.

And I certainly didn’t have a list of such strategies prepared and ready to share.

This was weighing on me earlier today.

I was starting to get more nervous than a crab next to a pot of boiling water and a can of Old Bay Seasoning.

So to take my mind off this troubling situation, I put on a lesson from a course by negotiation expert Jim Camp.

This lesson talked about one of the pillars of Jim Camp’s negotiation philosophy:

The idea that everybody wants to “be okay.”

This means feeling comfortable.

And the main way we humans do this is by being a little more okay than the other person.

So if you want to make people feel okay, you can do so by being “unokay” — by revealing your mistakes, uncertainties, or foibles.

Once you trust your adversaries — or prospects — in this way, they will begin to let their guard down…

Start to trust you a little more in turn…

And look for ways to help you out.

This is powerful stuff. And in my experience, it works very well.

Unfortunately, it’s also something I have to constantly remind myself of.

Because my first instinct is to try to impress everyone with my smarts, my preparedness, or my skills.

Anyways, perhaps you can see where I’m going with this. And maybe you will get some use out of it.

For now, if you want to get some copy written, and you’re not too bothered by my occasional unpreparedness, then write me an email and we can talk.

Are you Joe Hepp to the real con game?

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Yesterday, a friend and I spent a lot of time tracking down the phrase “Joe Hepp.”

It appears in A House of Games, a David Mamet film about con men.

“Are you Joe Hepp?” is apparently an old circus saying that means, “Are you a know-it-all?” It later morphed into, “Are you hep?” — meaning “are you in the know?” — and later hip, hippy, hipster, etc.

But here’s something you might find more interesting.

It’s the etymology of another phrase from A House of Games. It comes up when the main con man, Mike, talks about what a con game really is.

It’s short for confidence game, says Mike.

You might have already known that.

But do you know why it’s called a confidence game?

Not because the con man gains your confidence in order to cheat you. Instead, it’s because he gives you his confidence. And this makes you trust him, and makes you susceptible for manipulation and persuasion.

In other words, it’s the old reciprocity principle from Robert Cialdini’s book Influence.

Except, not as it’s applied in the lame and ineffective way of most marketers (“If I bombard my prospects with free pdfs and hard-teaching emails, then they will feel obliged to eventually buy from me”).

No.

There are much better, more subtle, and more effective ways to apply reciprocity — AKA the con game — to copywriting and marketing.

I won’t lay them out here.

But if you’d like to know what I have in mind, you might find some answers here:

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

7 reasons NOT to date your copywriting clients

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I saw the following thread today in the Ask Men subreddit:

“If you really like a girl, what are some reasons you wouldn’t date her?”

Reading through the top responses, I realized many of these reasons apply, in slightly modified form, to dating your copywriting clients as well:

#1. “Not willing to discuss issues we’ve had”

Some clients I’ve had never shared the results of campaigns I worked on for them. Was a time, when I happily kept working for these clients, just for the money.

Not so any more.

Today, a big part of what I get from any new copywriting project is the opportunity to learn and improve — and getting feedback in the form of sales results is a major part of that.

#2. “Different stages in life”

I’m in a kind of settled, “middle age” period in my little copywriting career.

This means I prefer to work with boring, established, successful businesses that are already making sales.

I would be unlikely to get involved with the uncertainty and stress — or if you prefer, excitement — that comes with most young, hungry, no-name startups.

#3. “Deep debt, unwillingness to work”

If a client is not doing well financially, and if they are hoping my copywriting will save the day, I silently pivot on my heel and run in the opposite direction.

#4. “She lives 8 hours away. By airplane”

I’ve had long-term clients from all over the world, from New Zealand to Thailand to the UK to California.

So physical distance in a client relationship doesn’t bother me.

But I do still need a bit of love and regular interaction, at least in the form of timely replies to questions I send and requests for info I make.

#5. “She doesn’t want to date me”

Why chase clients who don’t want to work with me — when there’s so much demand for good copywriting out there?

#6. “My wife would be pissed”

There were times when I was working with several clients at the same time who could be considered competition to each other.

None of them has ever been jealous or tried to keep me all to themselves.

That said, if I did date a copywriting client long-term, and they asked me not to work with a specific competitor of theirs, it’s something I would consider doing.

#7. “Mismatch of core values: religion, etc.”

Some businesses out there are outright scams, selling shoddy or harmful products.

Others prey on segments of the population — gambling addicts, for example — who cannot make anything close to a rational decision.

I don’t work with these kinds of clients, because I feel that there are plenty of ways to get rich by selling something that gives value to the buyer instead of making them worse off.

And there you have it:

7 reasons NOT to date an otherwise attractive girl…

And 7 reasons I choose NOT to write copy for some otherwise attractive clients.

Now, if you have a business and you found yourself on the list above, then odds are slim we will work together.

And if you did not recognize yourself on the list above, but you are looking for sales copy and you think you might want to work with me, then write me an email and we can schedule a lightning-fast first date to get to know each other a bit better.

Why you should ignore your competition

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True story:

Two entrepreneurs started two similar businesses, selling cubic zirconia (aka synthetic diamonds) by mail.

The first guy ran a well-written ad in the LA Times and sold a bunch of one-karat fake diamonds.

After all expenses were covered, he made a profit of around $3,000.

Disgusted with this small payout, guy number one folded shop and moved on to a new opportunity.

Guy two also ran an ad in the LA Times.

His ad was not as well written, and though it pulled some sales, the end result was about a $10,000 loss once all the expenses were counted.

However, guy two did not exit the market.

Instead, he mailed out his fake diamonds in a fancy wooden box with a letter that said (I’m paraphrasing),

“Look at your beautiful one-karat diamond in its beautiful box. Doesn’t it have a fiery brilliance? Oh and by the way, in case it’s smaller than you expected, we do also offer five- and ten-karat stones. And if you like, just return this beautiful but tiny diamond and we will credit its value to your purchase of a bigger rock.”

Guy two rode this fancy-wooden-box-plus-upsell-letter approach to a $25 million business — in the first year alone.

I heard this story in a talk given by Jay Abraham. And I was reminded of it today, when I read an article written by marketer Sean D’Souza.

I think Sean’s article is valuable reading for anybody who’s interested in building a successful and lasting building online — rather than just looking for a one-time opportunity with a quick payout. It might also be valuable reading for copywriters who put a lot of stock in swipe files.

In case either of these sounds like you, then here’s the link to read the full story:

https://www.psychotactics.com/ignore-your-competition/

Silent stories run deep

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Yesterday, I walked into an unfamiliar room and got naked.

I took a warm shower, tiptoed over to a large, clam-like apparatus, and climbed in.

I closed the clam shell behind myself.

All around me was warm, salty water and complete darkness and silence.

I was in an isolation (or sensory deprivation) tank.

For the next hour or so, I lay there in the darkness, waiting for the visions to start.

At least, that’s what I’d read would happen. I got this idea from Paddy Chayefsky’s novel Altered States, in which a scientist starts experimenting with sensory deprivation and psychedelic drugs, and winds up transforming into an ape-like creature who runs amok in Central Park.

The story in the book is less kooky than this quick summary makes it sound.

And kooky or not, this story was enough to make “sensory deprivation” something I very much wanted to try.

Which is a lesson to keep in mind if you are trying to convince people of anything — particularly anything unusual, or something they might not know they want.

Just consider:

Had I read a sales letter, an advertorial, or a blog post with a headline like, “How to induce safe, drug-free hallucinations,” odds are the message would have just bounced off me.

In the best case, it might have gotten me interested, but it would have caused all sorts of objections and doubts to pop up as well.

But a story, in an obscure novel from 40 years ago, was enough to get me to seek out a “float” halfway around the world, without inquiring about the price, safety, or effectiveness of this experience.

And this all happened without even a call to action. Speaking of which:

If you are selling something to an “unaware” audience, and you want to try a story-based approach in your sales emails, then you might find some valuable pointers here:

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

How to outguess “America’s greatest copywriter” for $100

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During his famous farewell seminar in 2006, Gary Bencivenga ran a “Pick The Winner” contest.

He’d show two different headlines or magalog covers and ask the audience to choose which one did better in a direct test. (Example: “HE PROVED IT to millions on PBS television…” vs. “Deadly artery plaque dissolved!”)

The interesting thing was that Gary himself admitted he wasn’t good at picking among these competing headlines.

Let me repeat this:

Gary Bencivenga, who has been called “America’s greatest copywriter,” admitted he can’t pick a winning headline from two solid but very different appeals.

​​So what hope do you have?

And if you can’t even hope to pick out a winning headline, how can you write a good ad?

After all, the headline often determines whether the rest of your ad will get a reading at all.

Before I answer this, let me switch gears for a second. And let me tell you about an interesting bit of research I came across in psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Kahneman and another psychologist, Gary Klein, had very different attitudes about expert intuitions (such as the ability of a top copywriter to pick a winning headline).

Gary Klein was all for expert intuition.

He studied decision making among firefighters, and he had many reports of how firefighters would make gut calls that turned out to be the right call.

Kahneman, on the other hand, didn’t believe much in the power of expert intuition.

That’s because he spent his time looking at decision making in fields such as finance, where he found that expert intuition was often negatively correlated to the actual outcome. (In other words, once you hear what an expert stock broker advises, you should do the exact opposite.)

So Kahneman and Klein decided to collaborate and answer the following:

When can you trust experts? And how can you develop expert intuition that you can rely on?

It turns out there are two conditions.

First, the domain needs to be predictable enough. Emergency room cases are predictable — but the stock market is not.

Second, you need an opportunity to get feedback, and preferably a lot of feedback, relatively quickly.

So let’s get back to writing copy.

Looking at the two criteria above, you can see why even a top copywriter like Gary B. might not have great intuition when it comes to picking headline winners.

Even if you think an individual market (say, the market for weight loss advice in 2019) is more or less predictable…

It’s hard to get enough feedback on what the market would respond to if all you’ve got is one direct mailing every six months, like Gary used to have.

Fortunately, that’s not the situation we’re in any longer.

With $100, you can promote an offer on a PPC network like Google display, and perform dozens of different (and statistically valid) copy tests.

This way, you can get almost immediate feedback.

You can learn which appeals work.

Plus you will start to develop a world-class copy intuition, which will soon outstrip even great copy masters from earlier generations.

Which goes back to something I read from another top copywriter, Dan Ferrari:

“Winning at direct response is mostly a matter of taking as many swings as possible. The C-level marketers that test 50 promos per year will beat the A-list marketers that test 5. Over longer periods of time, as variability compounds, this will become even more pronounced.”

Anyways, maybe this is valuable if you’re looking to write good copy.

And if you want to see some “Pick The Winner” contests I’ve run with several email lists I manage, you might like the following:

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

The dangers of premature O

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Today I heard a talk by Perry Marshall about a topic dear to many marketers:

The 80/20 rule.

The basic idea is that 20% of your causes are responsible for 80% of your effects.

So 80% of the grunting at your local gym is caused by 20% of gym rats…

While just 20% of Seinfeld episodes will produce 80% of the most memorable jokes.

More seriously, if you’re doing any kind of creative or productive work, this rule says you can get more done than a romp of otters by focusing on that small part of your business where you are most valuable, and ignoring all the rest.

The underlying idea here is optimization. Of your time. Of your efforts. And of your assets. It’s an idea that’s popular with guys like Perry who have a background in engineering but have since moved into marketing.

The thing is, I also have an engineering background. And I know another optimization rule-of-thumb besides the famous 80/20 rule.

This rule comes from Donald Knuth, a legendary professor of computer science from Stanford University. Prof. Knuth had the following to say on the topic of optimization:

“We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

In other words…

Optimize too early, and you might end up wasting time and resources focusing on irrelevant things…

And more importantly, you might get stuck with a sub-optimal solution.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

In my own copywriting business, I’ve had several ongoing clients over the past several years. This 20% of my clients has represented steady, well-paid work — probably 80% of my total income.

And yet, I have not focused on getting more than my usual share of work from these same clients…

And I have not gone out looking for more of the same kind of client.

That’s because I believe these particular clients — though they have been good to me so far — are not the kinds of businesses that will get the highest value out of the copy I write.

And that’s why I spend a lot of time and effort courting different clients, who at this point might be more difficult, fickle, and demanding, but present a bigger opportunity long term.

So am I saying you should ignore the 80/20 rule altogether?

Not at all. Instead, just consider whether you really need to optimize your business at this point — or simply work a bit harder.

Anyways, if you are looking for a sales copywriter and you’re wondering whether you could get a lot of value out of the kind of copy that I write, then here’s something that might help you decide:

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

Fear and loathing in Facebook advertising

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I listened to a webinar a few days ago put on by two big name marketers.

The webinar was all about how to squeak more out of your marketing on Facebook, now that Facebook is cracking down on direct response ads.

The answer that these two big marketing guns had was to water down your copy. To change the main triggering words. To replace disgusting images with generic ones.

To me, this was code for more of the same, disguised in a way to make it palatable to Facebook.

And, again to my mind, underlying this new marketing approach was a continued emphasis on the emotions of fear and greed — and a bit of contempt for the customer.

Don’t get me wrong.

This marketing approach obviously works, and it’s definitely one way to get rich as a marketer. It’s also something I’ve been guilty of myself as a copywriter.

And yet, this is not the only way to succeed.

You can appeal to other emotions than fear and greed.

You can choose to make a good product rather than hyperactive marketing the core of your business.

You can look out for your customers rather than treat them with contempt.

And none of this has to be driven by altruism. As Mark Ford has written:

“Proponents of the fear-and-greed approach often argue that the smart thing to do is to follow a fear-based lead with an appeal to the prospect’s greed.

“But I have found that if you do that, you wind up attracting the kind of customer you don’t want: someone who is gullible and greedy.

“You can’t build a business by selling to the gullible and greedy. You can make scores, sometimes big scores. But you will never have a sustainably profitable business.”

This quote of Mark’s is something I keep coming back to often recently, and a kind of sign post I keep working my way towards.

And if you are a business owner or a copywriter, I think it’s a worthwhile idea to consider.

Anyways, if you have a business selling a good product and you want some help in marketing it — using copy that works in the interest of your customers — then you might like the following:

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

Dread Pirate Leonardo’s to-do list

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Leonardo Da Vinci used to keep many notebooks and in some of them, he entered his daily to-do items. It’s not your typical laundry list:

– Examine the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto
– Ask about the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese
– Draw Milan

When did Leonardo find time to do all this plus paint the Mona Lisa plus design the first tank plus make important anatomical discoveries?

I don’t know.

But I suspect he had the same attitude as Westley from The Princess Bride.

Westley is just a poor stable boy when he sets off into the world to make his fortune.

But before he gets anywhere, his ship is captured by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who never takes prisoners. So when Westley offers to become Roberts’ valet, the Dread Pirate agrees, but just for that one day.

In the evening, Roberts says, “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

This goes on each day. Westley learns as much as he can in that one day. He makes himself as useful as he can aboard the Revenge, DPR’s fearsome ship.

And each night, he hears the same. “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

In time, Westley becomes a master of fencing, he learns how to run a pirate ship, and he even inherits the title of “Dread Pirate Roberts” when the current Dread Pirate Roberts decides to retire.

And he does it all done one day at a time.

With the threat of imminent death hanging over him.

Which is basically the situation we all find ourselves in.

So personally, when I get overwhelmed with future plans and goals and things I’d like to accomplish but I haven’t even started on yet…

I just remember the encouraging words of the Dread Pirate Roberts — “I’ll most likely kill you in the morning” — and resolve to learn and do as much as I can for today.

That might be something to consider if you’re feeling overwhelmed with your own to-dos. And if learning how to write effective sales emails is among your to-dos, then check out the following:

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