Archive - Page 50 of 213

Sympathy for the deadline

August 7, 2023August 6, 2023 by John Bejakovic

Please allow me to introduce you to someone:

She’s a woman of great beauty and fame.

She’s been around for a long long year, and stole many a man’s chance at happiness, wealth, and even life.

She was there on the bridge of the Titanic, smiling sadly while the warnings of oncoming icebergs, which had long reached the radio operators on the ship, failed to catch the captain’s attention.

She was in the royal palace in Belgrade in the summer of 1914, watching with glee as the crown prince pulled at his hair and yelled “I can’t make up my mind!” and the clock ticked down on the ultimatum from the furious and threatening Austrians.

She stuck around Moscow in late October of 1812, wearing a great big fur, as Napoleon kept waiting and waiting in the abandoned city for a peace offer that never came, while the days flew away, the food supplies dwindled, and the temperature dropped below freezing.

Perhaps you’ve guessed this beautiful woman’s name. But even if not, she’s pleased to meet you.

And now:

If you’d like to sign up for my 9 Deadly Email Sins training, the last moment to do so is just three short hours from now, at 8:31pm CET/2:31pm EST/11:31am PST.

After that I will close the cart down, and no amount of screaming, pleading, or clawing on the doors will make it open up again.

This is the last email I will send before then. To get in while there’s still time:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

Direct marketing scandal erupts as… Gary Bencivenga-endorsed swipe file spills out onto the Internet

August 5, 2023 by John Bejakovic

I started a new daily habit a few weeks ago. It’s called the one-a-day marketing vitamin.

This habit was recommended by the man most insiders call the greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga.

Gary’s advice was to read a good ad each day… figure out what made it good… and ask yourself how you might possibly make it still better.

To get my daily marketing vitamin, I find myself going back over and over to a specific “swipe file.”

This swipe file is more than just a collection of random old ads, the way many people are peddling now.

It has information I have never found anywhere else.

It features ads for a variety of offers, products, businesses — rather than being just a cultish selection of ads written by familiar copywriters who for whatever reason reached star status in this little industry.

This swipe file features actual controls — winning ads that ran repeatedly, year after year, with dozens of different placements in different magazines or newsletters.

And best of all, this swipe file has not just ads, but interesting stories of the people behind the ads and business, and expert insights into what made the ads work.

This particular swipe file, or rather the person who keeps curating it, was endorsed by Gary Bencivenga himself, on the last day of his famous farewell seminar, which cost $5k to attend, and brought together the greatest collection of direct marketing talent ever assembled in one room.

Two days ago, I reached into said swipe file and pulled up an ad. It was an advertorial, from the 1980s, selling some kind of anti-aging skin offer. The headline ran:

“HOLLYWOOD SCANDAL ERUPTS AS… Former Dynasty Make-up Artist Reveals TV’s Best Kept Beauty Secret!”

I’ve written dozens of advertorials that scaled on cold traffic. I’ve also managed a couple of large email lists where we regularly promoted dozens of other offers sold via advertorials.

That’s to say, I’ve been exposed to lots of advertorials that work, and even more that don’t work.

In fact, I can tell you that most advertorials don’t work. In large part, that’s because they are really a combination of ad + boring article. Because they don’t follow the basics of direct response advertising as evident in that swipe file headline above:

Hollywood… scandal… beauty… secret.

That’s not really an advertorial. It’s not advertisement + editorial. It’s really an advertabloid, at least as far as the headline goes.

But back to that Gary Bencivenga-endorsed swipe file, and the man behind it.

The guy’s name is Lawrence Bernstein, and he runs, among his other ventures, a website called Info Marketing Blog.

Lawrence’s services were a secret weapon for top direct response marketers before Lawrence got endorsed by Gary Bencivenga. They were even more in demand after… and they continue to be in demand today.

I happen to know this because I got on a call with Lawrence a few days ago, and he told me a bit of his story.

And though Lawrence didn’t say it, I bet his long-running clients wince and maybe even curse a bit when they see Lawrence highlight some ad on his blog which was until now their private and profitable inside knowledge.

So that’s my public service announcement for today:

If you want to get better at marketing, and maybe even want to repurpose time-tested appeals into your copy today, then start the one-a-day marketing vitamin habit.

And in my opinion, there’s no better place to get your vitamin fix than Lawrence’s Info Marketing Blog. You can find it easily via a service called Google.

But this is a commercial newsletter, and so I must also advert to the fact that the deadline for my current offer, 9 Deadly Email Sins, is approaching with terrifying speed.

This offer will close down tomorrow, Sunday August 6, at 8:31 CET.

Disclaimer:

This 9 Deadly Email Sins training has practically nothing to do with the content of today’s email. In particular, Sin #4 will not be a more detailed treatment of the core point I shared with you today… nor will it include multiple examples of offending emails I have reviewed in the past… nor will it be an opportunity to reveal my simple, congruent, and non-sensationalist ways to introduce drama or intrigue into any email, even in the most conservative and sales-averse markets.

That said, you might still want to attend the 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation, for reasons of your own. In case you’d like to get in before the doors close:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

I challenge you to figure out what’s really going on in this email

August 4, 2023 by John Bejakovic

I wrote up the following email in a deliberate way.

If you can figure out what I did, and do the same regularly, it’s likely to be very valuable for you.

I challenge you to try and figure it out:

This past Sunday, I did my Simple Money Emails giveaway via Josh Spector’s newsletter. I also opened up the paid and related 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation for sign up.

One of first people to take me up on both offers was Dr. Stuart Marmorstein.

Stuart is the founder and developer of the Assisted Self Alignment Protocol™. He teaches Applied Kinesiology/Muscle Testing classes to people with doctorates in various healing arts. He also runs a thriving chiropractic business in Houston, and he writes a newsletter to his patients both to keep in touch and to keep future business flowing.

And right after deciding to buy a ticket for the 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation, Stuart wrote me to say:

===

Thank you again for your generous offers. I took you up on the free ones AND the paid one that will help you recoup your ad spend and keep me from wasting mine later!

I’m not sure when your class is next Monday (I’m still currently in Central Time, U.S. and dreaming of being in Portugal). If the timing is right, I’ll be in the class live, otherwise I’ll catch you on the replay. I always get value from anything you write.

===

You might think the point of this email is Stuart’s nice endorsement of me, and showing off his vote of confidence for the upcoming 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation.

And it absolutely is that. But there’s also something more going on in this email.

I’m also previewing some of the content I will cover in that 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation, specifically in Sin #7.

Because, like I promised you at the start, this email you’re reading does something specific and deliberate.

You might think it’s using the hypnotic word “try” above in my challenge.

But that’s not what I have in mind.

You might think it’s just shameless teasing.

But that ain’t it either.

Maybe what I’m doing is obvious. Maybe it’s not.

Either way, it’s something I frequently see business owners, marketers, and professional copywriter not doing in their own emails, even though it’s directly tied to making sales more regularly, more easily, with fewer questions or objections about price, content, exceptions etc.

If you want to find out what I have in mind, then the deadline to sign up for 9 Deadly Email Sins is just two days from now, Sunday Aug 6, 2023 at 8:31pm.

The presentation will happen live, next Monday, Aug 7, at 8pm CET (Barcelona). That’s 7pm if you’re in Portugal, or dreaming of it… 2pm EST (New York)… and 11am PST (LA).

Some time after this 9 Deadly Email Sins presentation is over, I will bundle it up with Simple Money Emails, and sell it for $197, almost double what it costs now.

So if you want to keep yourself from pointlessly wasting your ad spend as well as your education budget… and if you want to confirm to yourself that you bested my challenge and figured out what I did deliberately in this email… then here’s where to get your ticket in time:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

How to become a millionaire on Five-grand-err

August 3, 2023 by John Bejakovic

I read something mindblogging via Codie Sanchez’s newsletter:

A freelance designer by the name of Brett Williams is making $120,000 per month. Not per year. Per month. All from client work.

How?

Williams has a unique business model. He charges all his clients a flat fee, $5k per client per month. Clients can quit or pause their “design-as-a-subscription” at any time. They can only make one request at a time, but as soon that is fulfilled — usually within 30 minutes to 48 hours — they can make another.

It might sound impossible that this could work. But Williams has ~20 clients at any time. He seems to be alive. He doesn’t seem to be working superhuman hours.

Again, how?

My guess is he works with good clients, does good work, and delivers it in a reasonable timeframe.

Clients are happy with what they get, and happy with what they don’t get — no full-time payroll burden, no hassle of finding a new freelancer, no opportunity cost of reaching a new agreement with a known freelancer, each time they have some niggling design request to make.

Do you think you might do something similar?

Of course not. It’s outlandish. But just pretend.

Think of a Fiverr-able skill you have. And instead of offering it for $5 on Fiverr, imagine offering it for $5k on your own site.

If you have Williams’s kind of luck, you will be able to make a cool million in under a year. If you’re less lucky, it might take you two or even three years to get there.

But still, what else you got right now? If that’s not so hot, might as well start moving towards that million-dollar service business today.

In related news, the deadline for my 9 Deadly Email Sins training is nearing. The training happens next Monday, August 7, the deadline is the day before, Sunday the 6th.

I’ve given away a lot of valuable info over the past few days, in the form of hundreds of copies of my new Simple Money Emails course.

Simple Money Emails shows you how to write effective sales emails.

9 Deadly Email Sins shows you… how to avoid writing ineffective no-sales emails.

I realize that might sound like a promise nobody wants. The only thing I can say in my defense is that I have been paid to critique 100+ emails over past year. Including by people who have had all the email marketing and copywriting education in the world… including pro copywriters… including people whose entire businesses run on email.

And yet I find these people, who should know better, repeatedly commit these sins, and repeatedly pay for it, in the form of lower sales, bored readers, and shrinking engagement.

You might wonder how this 9 Deadly Email Sins offer is possibly related to the Brett Williams thing I told you above.

I can think of two ways:

You can use Simple Money Emails + 9 Deadly Email Sins to actually learn how to write effective sales emails, and avoid the mistakes that plague others. There’s plenty of demand for that at Fiverr, and might be legit demand for it on Five-grand-err. I’ve personally been paid much more than five grand per month by some clients, just to write effective daily emails for them.

Or if you have no interest in selling email copywriting services, but you have another skill that clients might want, then you can use daily emails to sell that. The only real difference I imagine between Fiverr and Five-grand-err is the Five-grand-err clients are likely to need a bit more trust and softening up, and daily email is the perfect format for that.

But you make the choice. If you decide that effective daily emails are something that’s worth knowing, and knowing well, then here’s where you can sign up for my training next Monday:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

A splash of ‘expensive’ and ‘exclusive’

August 2, 2023 by John Bejakovic

Yesterday, I was exchanging emails with a low-profile email marketer who is quietly doing some big things.

He only has three clients. But two of those three clients are 8-figure businesses, and the third is a 9-figure business. Since he gets performance bonuses and equity for his work, I imagine he does very well.

Yeah yeah, good for him. But what about me?

Even though the above email marketer does very well, he decided not to spend $100 on my upcoming 9 Deadly Email Sins training, set to happen next Monday. He wrote me to explain:

“Personally, the training didn’t seem that interesting (I felt I would never pay for a ‘mistakes to avoid’ training, not sure why).”

It’s a fair point. The “9 Deadly Email Sins” angle was something that popped up in my head a few weeks back. I used it once in an email as a kind of placeholder, and then I just stuck with it just to git ‘er done.

The fact is, a good number of people on my list have already signed up for this 9 Deadly Email Sins training. But those are people who generally trust me and figure I make all my offers worthwhile.

But a different positioning might have attracted more people. Specifically, it might have attracted more people who joined my list via the classified ad I ran last weekend, people who don’t know me well yet.

For example, rather than talking about deadly email sins, I could have said something about private lessons… only given out in expensive and exclusive coaching to successful clients… which is how the content of the training came about.

I floated that idea to that email marketer above. He wrote back right away to say:

“See? That’s more attractive to me already. ‘Costly email mistakes’ that you’ve only revealed during your ‘expensive and exclusive coaching to successful clients’. Sounds like something I’d personally consider. Maybe that’s the issue I had. The ‘9 deadly email sins’ angle seems too broad and I’m not sure whether its contents will be valuable for me specifically. A splash of ‘expensive’ and ‘exclusive’, and I’m considering it!”

So there you go:

If you want people to at least consider your offer rather that dismissing it on first sight, give it a splash of expensive and exclusive. You’re likely to sell more, at least to rich and successful customers.

But there’s actually a bigger, rarer, more valuable point I want to make about this whole story.

I will reserve that for Monday’s training, which is unfortunately named 9 Deadly Email Sins. When I say, “9 Deadly Email Sins,” you hear, “expensive and exclusive.” Because that really is how this training came to be.

The deadline is slowly but surely nearing. If you want to sign up in time:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

The George Costanza school of formulaic but effective emails

August 1, 2023 by John Bejakovic

In the new course I just released, Simple Money Emails, I gave the example of an effective “George Costanza school” email I wrote five years ago.

That email used “The Opposite” storyline from Seinfeld. George realizes every decision he has ever made in life has been a mistake, and decides to start doing the opposite from now on. Good things follow.

I used this story to open an email for my old aromatherapy list (I used to be a low-grade aromatherapy influencer once). Sure enough, I sold some copies of my aromatherapy book via that George Constanza trope. And I’m not the only one…

… and not in the aromatherapy niche only.

Yesterday, I got an email from a long-time customer and reader (not sure he wants me to share his name), who wrote me after getting SME to say:

===

Hey John! Loving the course so far, and very interested in the “9 sins” offer.

One thing that made me laugh while reading it is that I used this same episode and story about George Constanza twice in different emails for different lists to sell some courses, successfully.

===

I don’t know which lists and which courses he made sales to with this story. But the smaller point is clear. If you ever need a formulaic but effective way to open your email:

Use “The Opposite” storyline from Seinfeld. It can fly in pretty much any market.

Bigger point:

It might seem obvious that you want to open your emails with stories that help you make the sale. But it’s not obvious at all, at least based on the 100+ emails I’ve been paid to critique and review over the past year.

All the time, I see people who open their sales emails with cute or interesting stories that go nowhere, or at least nowhere near the offer they are promoting.

And then these same people wonder why they’re not making any sales — the email marketing equivalent of being unemployed and living with your parents.

And on that note, I’m putting on a live training next Monday, 9 Deadly Email Sins.

The above is one of the 9 sins. The others are equally as simple, equally as widespread, and equally as deadly.

If you’d like find out what these sins are, so you can take a 180-degree turn away from them and towards a new, more successful episode in your life:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

Emily tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen

July 31, 2023 by John Bejakovic

Last Monday, Josh Spector’s assistant Emily sent me an email with an alarmist subject line:

“TIMELY: For The Interested Classified Ad Copy Needed”

I was annoyed Emily was pushing me for the ad copy, since there was still a week to go. But I wrote it up and sent it over, along with the link I wanted the ad to go to.

A message immediately shot back. Emily again:

“Thanks for sending your copy and link over. Unfortunately, I’m getting an error message when I click on your link:” — and then a screenshot of an error page on my site.

I rolled my eyes at Emily’s pickiness. Of course it takes you to an error page — I’m still working on it, it’s in draft status!

I took a deep breath and collected myself. I politely replied to Emily and explained the situation. The landing page was still under development. “I will have it ready by the time the ad runs,” I said at the end.

(Cue ominous music. Clouds gather on the horizon, and a sudden gust of cold wind blows the window open in my office, scattering papers everywhere.)

Fast forward to yesterday.

In the eleventh hour before my ad in Josh Spector’s newsletter, I finished all the stuff I needed for it, including that landing page.

I could finally take a break. I decided to set work aside completely for the rest of the day.

I was in the mountains with friends yesterday, so we went for a walk. We had lunch. I packed, and got ready for five-hour ride from the Pyrenees back to Barcelona.

(The dark clouds on the horizon have fully built up now, and they flash with lightning every few seconds. Ominous music swells to unbearably tense levels.)

It was almost time to get in the car and drive home. But even though I’d decided to ignore any work-related stuff for the rest of the day, my resolve broke down.

I impulsively checked my email.

It had been about a half hour since the ad in Josh’s newsletter went out — plenty of time for a bunch of new people to get on my list.

I opened my inbox. But instead of dozens or hundreds of “new subscriber” notifications, I saw…

“Aww dude, clicked that FTI link and it leads to an error page 😳“

“John, I took your offer on Josh’s newsletter but the link is throwing an error.”

“Just tried to get the course. It says that I dont have access to the page”

… plus a dozen or more such messages from existing subscribers, who I’d routed to Josh’s newsletter to get a free copy of my new course via the classified ad.

There’s no knowing how many potential new subscribers, who weren’t yet on my list, clicked on the ad and were taken to the wrong page, with no chance to opt in.

In my daily email yesterday, I jokingly predicted crippling electrical storms or perhaps a meteorite strike to sink my ad in Josh’s newsletter.

But I didn’t account for the real danger:

My own mule-like ability to run a $350 classified ad and genuinely include a wrong link inside of it, which is indeed what happened.

Emily tried to warn me. But I wouldn’t listen.

I double-checked my own link when I submitted the ad.

I checked it again when Emily told me it was taking her to the wrong page.

The link was wrong both times, and yet I hypnotized myself into believing it wasn’t.

What’s more, when I clicked on the link myself to test it, it took me to the wrong page. I saw that, but I told myself it was was a website caching issue. “No problem here. It will be ready in time!”

Conclusion:

Too blind… too self-assured… too ready to rationalize away any conflicting evidence.

(Finally, violent storm over, the clouds break. A single ray of sunlight shines through to the soaked and ravaged countryside.)

Almost miraculously, my colossal mistake turned out to be salvageable.

It took me all of two seconds to create a website redirect from the wrong page to the right page. Anybody who clicked on the ad after that would now be taken to the right landing page.

Sure enough, people immediately started signing up for the free course I am giving away via the ad.

And some also signed up for the paid upsell I am offering, 9 Deadly Email Sins. One person who signed up was Shawn Cartwright, the owner of TCCII, an online martial arts academy. Shawn wrote to say:

===

Killer subject line and nice flex on the Pyrenees…

Also, killer offer… and something of real value to the business owners like me who love the idea of being copywriting experts but would rather create their products than perfect a sales page or email.

===

Here’s why this 9 Deadly Sins training could be of real value to business owners like Shawn:

It’s the email equivalent of Emily writing to me and saying, “Uhhh, your link doesn’t work. Do you want to double check that?”

Over the past year, I’ve coached, taught, and consulted a few dozen business owners, course creators, coaches, marketers, and copywriters on their email marketing and email copy.

I’ve found that my feedback keeps coming back to 9 persistent mistakes. All 9 of these mistakes are easy and quick to fix. And yet they are widespread, costing people sales day after day.

Perhaps you’re sure that you could never write emails which blatantly violate the laws of good sense and effective salesmanship.

You’re probably right. You are probably not as ready to hypnotize yourself as I am… to dismiss conflicting evidence like I did… or to be over-confident that what you’re doing right now is just perfect, with zero chance of being improved.

But isn’t it worth finding out what these most common 9 Deadly Email Sins are, to be 100% sure you yourself are not falling prey to them?

In case that’s got you wondering, here are the full details of this training, which will happen live, next Monday, August 7:

https://bejakovic.com/sme-classified-ty/

FREE: Get my new course for free by simply getting on Josh Spector’s list by Sunday and promptly following the instructions in the ad (also free)

July 29, 2023 by John Bejakovic

The past two days, I’ve been promoting Josh Spector’s newsletter, because tomorrow I will run an ad there, which will offer a free copy of my new course, Simple Money Emails.

Several readers wrote in to tell me they got on Josh’s list and are waiting eagerly for Josh’s email tomorrow to take advantage of my free offer.

Others wrote in to tell me they have already been on Josh’s list since the first time I wrote about it, several weeks back. They had glowing things to say about Josh himself. For example, reader Anthony La Tour wrote to say:

===

Dude, I’ve already unsubscribed from a few daily emails and yours is the only one I’ve read religiously. I even signed up to Josh’s newsletter a little while ago when you spoke about his newsletter and how to borrow the idea of a one paragraph newsletter.

Josh and I have already exchange some emails back and forth and he’s seriously a cool guy.

I’m proud to say that I’m also going to be launching a “Spector-style” newsletter, following the advice you gave in one of the emails you sent.

I own a couple of your offers and everything you’ve done is top-notch.

Thanks John!

===

On the other hand…

I also had one long-time reader and customer write in to ask about my new Simple Money Emails course — which I am offering for free, if you simply get on Josh Spector’s list by Sunday and promptly follow the instructions in the ad — with the following:

===

Will the people who bought any of your previous courses get the course as an add on or do we need to buy it separately?

===

This reader wrote this in reply to an email in which I had said, “if you are on Josh’s list by Sunday, and you take me up on the offer inside the ad before the deadline, you will get Simple Money Emails for free.”

You might think I am shaming this reader for missing an obvious point. But though I did learn email marketing via Ben Settle, shaming is not what I am doing.

My point is just to illustrate that you rarely have your readers’ full attention — even of the readers who like you, who buy from you regularly, and who read your emails eagerly.

Which is something I address in Simple Money Emails, specifically in Rule #11 of the 12 Rules of Simple Money Emails. And I tell you how to deal with it.

Incidentally, you can get Simple Money Emails for free. By signing up to Josh Spector’s newsletter at the link below. And reading Josh’s email tomorrow, which will have my ad in it.

I won’t be sending out more emails to push you towards this free offer.

In case you want something for free, click on the link below, sign up for free, and you will be rewarded:

https://bejakovic.com/fti

3 great reasons to sign up to Josh Spector’s newsletter before Sunday

July 27, 2023 by John Bejakovic

Today I’d like to invite you to sign up to Josh Spector’s newsletter For The Interested.

Signing up is free, and I can think of no fewer than three great reasons to do so:

First, Josh writes both a weekly newsletter on Sundays (long, similar to what many others are doing) and a short daily newsletter in a different format on all the other days.

What Josh is doing with daily emails is innovative and it works. So much so I already wrote an email about it just a couple weeks ago. It might be something you want to keep an eye on and model yourself.

Second, if you ever find yourself crying “Value! More value!!!” and you want marketers to bombard you with non-stop, practical, how-to info and inspiration, without any teasing, guru-like grandstanding, or endless personal stories, then Josh is your man.

His newsletter is all value, zero charismatic manipulation, all day long.

Third, I will be running a classified ad in Josh’s newsletter this Sunday.

This ad will have a special offer to get my new Simple Money Emails course. I will sell this course after the promo in Josh’s newsletter ends, but if you are on Josh’s list by Sunday, and you take me up on the offer inside the ad before the deadline, you will get Simple Money Emails for free.

So are you… interested?

If you are (maybe you can sense where this is going) then here is Josh’s For The Interested:

https://bejakovic.com/fti