Pricing

Going where no one has gone before?

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I have this unfortunate flaw in that I wake up every day, thanks to some internal alarm clock, which always rings earlier than I want.

Today it was 6am. I sat around in the dark for a while and then, at around 7, I went out for my morning walk.

At 7am on a Saturday in Barcelona, two worlds overlap.

I walked down the street, turned a corner, and saw a flash of naked ass. A girl was pulling up her leather pants, on the curb next to a small tree and some recycling containers. I guess she had just peed. Her friend stood guard but was facing in the wrong direction, away from where I and a few other people were coming and witnessing the shame. Pants up, the two oblivious girls staggered off drunkenly towards home.

That world, of people who hadn’t yet gone to bed by 7am, is one world.

I kept walking and the beach opened up before me. And the second world, the world of early-rising people, was already busy at work there.

A woman was holding her dog on a leash and yelling at her other dog to stop fooling around because it was time to go home. Two boys were kicking around a ball in the sand. And in the water, thanks to the large and rolling waves — not a common sight in Barcelona — there were some surfers.

Maybe you’re wondering whether there will be any hard “point” to today’s email. The point is this:

Down by the concrete pier that juts out into the Mediterranean, there was a clump of maybe a half dozen surfers. They were all bunched up. The waves were steady there and every 30 or so seconds, one of the surfers would catch a wave.

Meanwhile, further away from the pier, there was another surfer by himself. Every few minutes a small wave crested where he was waiting. The surfer would make an effort at catching it, but it was too small. As far as I saw, he never caught a wave, but he made a show at it.

And then further still, in the middle of the beach, there was yet another solitary surfer. He was bobbing up and down as the sea swelled underneath him. But he didn’t even have a wave to pretend to catch.

I think my point is clear, but if not:

It’s good to be different and distinct. It helps people make up their minds quickly about you. But if you rely on natural forces for motion — waves, money, desire — then you want to put yourself in a place where those things are moving.

It might seem clever and easy to go where nobody else has thought to go. Maybe you will get lucky. More likely, you will just bob around stubbornly in the cold water, while others, just a few feet away from you, have all the fun.

That’s most of my motivational message for you for today. And then there’s still the following promotional material:

My offer for you today is my Copy Riddles program. As I have said before, this program is really about going where the waves are:

– It’s about a proven way to write winning copy that’s been endorsed by A-list copywriters like Gary Halbert, Parris Lampropoulos, and Gary Bencivenga

– It features a bunch of examples from sales letters written to perennial markets, including finance, health, and personal development

– It gets you working alongside some of the top copywriters of all time who, whether by instinct or by design, knew how to tap into human desire where it was flowing

If any of that moves you:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

The trouble with selling prostitute interviews you gave away for free

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About six months ago, I wrote an email about a prurient new obsession I had developed with the YouTube channel Soft White Underbelly.

Soft White Underbelly features thousands of in-depth interviews with people on the outside of mainstream society:

Drug addicts… homeless people… prostitutes… escorts… child abuse victims… inbred Appalachian families… gang members… a high-level mob boss… a strychnine-drinking Pentecostal preacher… a conman who ran real-estate frauds totaling in the tens of millions of dollars.

Then, a couple days ago, I read that YouTube had demonetized Soft White Underbelly.

​​SFU videos are still available to watch on YouTube. But they won’t come with any ads, and so they won’t make any money for Mark Laita, the photographer behind the Soft White Underbelly channel.

I tried to do some back-of-the-envelope math for how much money that actually was.

Over the past 30 days, Soft White Underbelly had a bit more than 12M views. Using the low-end rate of $3/1k YouTube views, that comes out to $36,000 over those 30 days, or about $430k per year.

That’s a sizeable chunk of cash to disappear from one day to the next.

My point?

I guess I could tell you the same old story, one you’ve probably heard a million times before:

Don’t rely on anybody else’s platform. Have your own platform — such as an email list — which you control.

The trouble is, Mark Laita already has that. He has his own site, where you can subscribe for $8/month to get all that stuff that’s on YouTube, plus some “exclusive content” in the form of more videos exactly like the stuff that’s on YouTube.

The welcome video to the SFU YouTube channel invites you to subscribe on the paid site. And in that video about being demonetized, Mark also tells people who can afford to do so to get the paid subscription.

Will that replace the income from YouTube?

I have my doubts, for several reasons. The most important reason is this:

It’s hard to sell the exact same thing you’re giving away for free. It’s even harder to sell it there’s a bunch of your free stuff still lying around.

That’s just human nature.

Laziness. Entitlement. Plus, a bit of common sense. If there are already thousands of prurient Soft White Underbelly videos on YouTube, most of which I haven’t watched, why should I pay to get a few more each month?

But here’s what I would tell Mark Laita, and maybe you, if you’re in a similar situation:

This is not really a big problem.

Because it’s easy to sell a slightly different thing to what you’re giving away for free. You can even sell almost the exact same thing, only renamed and repackaged in a sexy way.

So for example, Mark Laita has thousands of video interviews. Instead of selling more of the same, he could repackage some of that content in a different ways:

* He could sell a coffee table book of photography — stills from his videos. (He already has these photos in the videos themselves.)

* He could sell transcripts, packaged up as fancy printed books, or low-end kindle ebooks.

* He could create “themed documentaries” which are really his different videos pasted together. The effect of absentee fathers… the drug scene in east LA… massage parlor confessions.

Of course, there are also many other things Mark could sell congruently on the back end of his YouTube Channel. The above are just a few ideas for things he could sell with practically no additional thought or work.

So like I said, that’s my advice for you too, in case you create a lot of content, which isn’t making you money direct now.

Take that free content, repacakge it, rename it, and stick a (preferably large) price tag on it.

People will buy it, and get value out of it, even if you gave it away for free before.

Of course, maybe you are too close to your own content to see how it could be repackaged or renamed in the most sexy and profitable way. You might be able to find some good ideas on that in my free daily email newsletter. Click here to sign up for it.

Regular price: Very expensive. Recession price: Very expensive

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Back in 2009, as the mortgage crisis turned into a recession, a men’s clothing store in NYC put up signs in its storefronts that said:

“Cashmere sweater: $2,500. Recession price: $2,500.

“Lamb’s fleece jacket: $11,000. Recession price: $11,000.”

As you can probably imagine, some passersby burst into the store, fuming and asking to speak to the manager about the shameless tone of those ads. And at such a time!

But other passersby saw the sign, remembered that they urgently wanted to splurge on something expensive, and came in and bought an overpriced lamb’s fleece jacket.

Fast forward to today:

I don’t read the news and so I was convinced that we are now in a recession, and have been in one for some months. But I did check the news just now, and it turns out to still be a matter of uncertainty, of anxiety, of will-he nill-he, of how-do-you-define-it. A few things are certain:

1. The economy has shrunk for two quarters in a row

2. Stocks have lost 18% of their value since the start of the year

3. Ocean shipping rates have plunged 60% this year

So do all those useless numbers that mean it’s time to raise your own prices to shameless levels… keep them there in spite of the current and coming economic pain… and even proudly advertise the fact?

Well, that’s for you to decide. To help make up your mind, you might want to give a listen to the talk below. It was given by crusty but highly successful marketer Dan Kennedy, back in 2009.

I first listened to this talk two years ago, during “these uncertain times” of enforced lockdowns and economic inactivity. It was one of the most enlightening marketing talks I’d heard in a long while. It remains so, and so I revisit it from time to time.

Only thing is, if you’re easily offended, you’ll definitively want to skip this talk. In fact, Dan Kennedy says at the start that, out of the thousands of talks he’s given in his life, this was the only time he got a complaint letter ahead of the talk itself, and not just after.

So consider yourself warned. If you’re still up for it, here’s where to go:

https://mikecapuzzi.com/dan-kennedy-presentation/

Let’s see if I can make you watch the SuperBowl

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A few days ago, I was listening to an old episode of the James Altucher podcast, and I learned this curious fact:

A person who bets any amount of money on a game is 11x more likely to watch the game.

I’m not sure if this means that you can get people to watch a game, just by getting them to bet. But I’m willing to find out.

Because there’s an old marketing idea that I’ve long thought is super clever.

As far as I know, nobody today in the DM world is using it, at least not online. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you can correct me.

Here’s the idea. It comes from direct marketing legend Joe Sugarman, the guy who made BluBlocker sunglasses into a $300M brand.

Joe once wrote an ad promoting a computer. He ran it around the time of the SuperBowl.

The ad basically said, if the Bears win the SuperBowl, you get this computer at 50% off. If they lose, the price stays as it is. And here’s the outcome, in Joe’s own words:

“There was a lineup of people — we had a retail store — there was a literally a lineup of people all the way around the block waiting to pick up their computer that they were getting for 50% off. The funny part about it was that we were making a nice profit on that as well.”

Like I said, I’m willing to test this idea out.

So I just checked. The Superbowl is in 8 days.

And I happen to be working on a new offer. It’s called Copy Zone. It’s about succeeding in the business part of copywriting — getting started, finding clients, managing clients, performance deals, upleveling.

I am planning to get Copy Zone out by the end of this month. And I’m planning to sell it for $150 to start. But I’ll make you a wager:

If you pick the winner of this Superbowl right — Bengals or Rams — you get my Copy Zone offer for 50% off, or for $75, during the launch window.

Of course, you gotta buy a ticket if you want a piece of this action.

Fortunately, the ticket to play this game is free. But it is time-limited.

So if you want to play this game of chance, you’ll need to get on my email list first. Then just hit reply to my welcome email and pick this year’s SuperBowl Winner.

Bengals. Or Rams.

You have time to enter until I send out my email tomorrow, Monday, Feb 7 2022, at 8:24 CET.

​​Call — or rather, email — now. Our bookies are standing by.

My fruitful first Clickbank failure

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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of my first-ever book. Well… book might be a bit grandiose.

It was more like an 85-page pdf. And by publication, I really just mean I put it up on Clickbank for sale.

The title of this thing was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. The background was this:

10 years ago, I was a dissatisfied office drone working at an IT company. Day after day, I’d sit at my computer, drumming my fingers on the desk, looking out the window as the sun set at 4pm. “And I still have to sit here and pretend to work for 2 more hours!” I wanted to get free.

And then I heard about Mike Geary. Mike was making a million dollars a month selling his own 85-page pdf, The Truth About Abs, on Clickbank.

How could I do the same?

Fortunately, the same source who clued me in to Mike Geary (Tim Ferriss) also clued me in to that most highly revered and valuable guide to direct marketing:

Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters.

Being the bookish type that I am, I got the Boron Letters and I read them. At the time, I wasn’t sure what exactly was so great about them. But I did get one thing from Gary, and that’s when he talks about how to create an info product:

1. Pick a topic
2. Read 5 of the best books on the topic and take notes
3. Write up your own book/85-page report with the best information taken from those other books
4. Make millions!

And here we get to the crossroads.

Because in an unusual move for me… I actually put the Boron Letters down… stared at the void for a bit… and then took a hesitating, first step forward.

In other words, I stopped reading and actually did what Gary was telling me to do. I followed his steps 1-3.

The outcome was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. I put it up on Clickbank. And then, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of step 4 aaaand…

Total sales? 0. Total money made? $0. Total learning experience?

Well, with 10 years of hindsight and about 6 years of working as a direct response copywriter, let me highlight a few of the mistakes I made with this first project:

1. Name. I went with Salary Negotiation Blueprint just because every other info product at the time was “something something blueprint.”

But what exactly was the promise in my name? That with my blueprint, you could… negotiate? Not very tempting.

2. “Affiliates will love it!” No, they won’t.

You can see public lists of what Clickbank affiliates love to promote, and salary negotiation guides are not it. This was a lesson I could have learned from the Boron Letters — sell to a starving crowd.

3. My market. What profile of person is going to buy an ebook on salary negotiation?

I can’t say, because I never managed to sell a single copy. But my guess is, these aren’t exactly players with money. More likely to be schlubs on a budget — much like me at the time.

6. The back end. What can you sell to somebody who bought a guide on salary negotiation? A course on networking over the water cooler? Or a guide on Slack tips and tricks, maybe? It feels like grasping at straws.

Ultimately, salary negotiation is a one-time need. Which is bad — because the profits come on the back end.

7. The price. I can’t remember the price. I think I started out at $37, and when I failed to make any sales there, I moved it down to $17, where I continued to fail to make sales.

But whether at $37 or at $17, my price was completely disconnected to the value of my offer. There was zero thought or strategy to it.

So there you go. Maybe you can learn a bit about direct marketing from my mistakes above. Or maybe you knew all this simple stuff before.

Either way, you’re in a good place.

Because there are mountains of people out there who don’t know even these basics of direct marketing and copywriting.

​​And not all these people are as clueless and unsuccessful as I was 10 years ago. Some of them have working businesses — even thriving businesses — in spite of awful, self-defeating marketing.

But you’ve probably heard this claim before.

I know I heard it for a long time. And all I could say is, “Well, where are all these mountains of business owners who could benefit from my growing marketing knowledge? I’m ready to help them out!”

The perverse truth is, they seem to pop up the most when you no longer need them.

A part of it is simply your level of skills. But a part of it is the exposure you give yourself.

In other words, you can shortcut the process somewhat, by giving yourself more exposure. Which brings me to my ongoing offer:

You can get a free copy of my Niche Expert Cold Emails training.

This training covers two cold email strategies that got me in touch with a couple of business owners, one with a working business, and the other with a thriving business.

All in all, these cold emails led to $16k worth of copywriting work. Not Mike Geary money, but an important step on my journey away from office dronedom. And I’m sure I could have gotten more work from these emails, had I just used them more consistently.

The training is yours free right now, as part of a promotion I’m trying out. For the full details, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/

Everything is free

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I know a lot of people in the marketing world worship at the altar of Seth Godin. I myself have had no contact with that religion, until today.

Today, I read an article that Seth wrote earlier this month, with a provocative title:

“Customer service is free”

Seth says that because of word-of-mouth and the value of loyal customers, you should stop looking at customer service as a cost.

That’s a point I’ve heard Ben Settle make before. Ben says that customer service is the #1 sales skill, which will allow you to charge higher prices… give you an advantage over your competitors… and allow you to make up for your shortcomings.

But here’s something that puzzled my mental squirrel:

Ben Settle has been making this point about customer service for years. It never made as much impact on me as the Seth Godin article. Because Seth’s presentation was more powerful.

Perhaps, and this is just a hypothesis based on my own experience today, the power of “FREE” is greater than the power of “profitable” for getting into people’s heads. Sure, once you open up a path into somebody’s brain with the ice pick of FREE, then you can bring in the “profitable” argument. But not before. And that’s what Seth Godin does — FREE in the headline, profitable in the very last sentence of his article.

But whether that’s a universal truth or not, one thing is universally true:

All your offers, whether ideas you are pitching or actual products you are selling, should be FREE. Of course, not free today. But FREE. Here’s what I mean:

The next time you are faced with a prospect who’s holding your offer in his hands, interested but still not sold, then apply the following free idea, and it will pay for itself immediately:

Put your arm around your prospects shoulders and point to the rainbow on the horizon. Then point back to that product of yours, there in your prospect’s lap. And then once again, point to the rainbow.

“Do you see now?” tell your prospect. “In 9 weeks, it will pay for itself. So really, it’s FREE. And after that, it will even start to make you money.”

Speaking of making money:

I have an email newsletter in which I share money-making ideas about marketing and copywriting. You can sign up to my newsletter today at a small up-front cost. But really, don’t think of it as a cost, think of it as an investment. One that will pay off before the end of the day.

If you repel people, charge accordingly

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I gave away today’s lesson in the subject line — if you repel people, charge accordingly. But maybe you want a bit more explanation about what I mean. So let me set it up:

Yesterday, I moved to a new apartment in an old town.

The last time I was in this old town was in May. Back then, I had to look for an Airbnb, and there was one uniquely horrible listing that flashed back into my mind yesterday.

This Airbnb had a sea-and-fish motif:

On the wall, a tiny lifebuoy, about the size of a donut…

On the mantle, cheaply framed photos of fish carcasses dangling from hooks…

In the cramped bedroom, navy blue and white stripes. In fact, the navy-blue-and-white design was everywhere, making the apartment look like a crowded barber shop.

But none of this was the worst part.

The worst part was that this listing offended my marketing expertise. Because this apartment was very affordable — about 20% cheaper than everything else on offer.

So that’s my point for you:

I thought this apartment was hideous. According to the availability of this place on Airbnb for the next few months, most other people agreed with me. And yet…

I’m sure somebody out there would love this place. Probably some modern-day Stede Bonnet, with unfulfilled childhood dreams of adventure on the high seas.

In my email yesterday, I told you how there’s good money to be made by selling people on the idea of work, struggle, and even suffering. But I have one caveat to that hideous idea:

You’ve got to charge accordingly.

Because work, struggle, and suffering will turn many people off. So you have to make up for it with the few people who don’t run away.

Same thing if you have a uniquely and tastelessly decorated Airbnb apartment. Don’t apologize with your price. Charge more for it. ​​

The bigger point is that marketing comes down to just two things, psychology and arithmetic.

The psychology says the more unique and niched down your offer, the easier it becomes to sell the thing to the right prospect.

The arithmetic says that the more unique and niched down your offer, the fewer right prospects there will be.

I don’t have a formula for how to choose just the right tradeoff between the two. But I do know how you can give yourself some insurance.

And that’s a higher price. ​A higher price is the lifebuoy that keeps you afloat and alive… even when you cast off from the dry land of everyday, acceptable promises… and find yourself tossed around by the dangerous but exciting seas of uniqueness.

Ok, so much for pricing strategy. Now about business:

I have an email newsletter. Some people have called it the “most underrated list in copywriting.” Still others find it too bizarre or unique for their tastes. If you are curious and want to give it a try, here’s where you can get on board.

People don’t know what anything is worth

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Imagine you’re starting a new business as a cat and dog photographer. So as the first step, you head to Amazon to check prices on DSLR cameras.

Hm. That Canon EOS Rebel you’ve been eyeing is priced very reasonably.

In fact, the price on Amazon is cheaper than at the specialized photography equipment website… and at your local brick-and-mortar photography store… and even at Walmart.

But here’s the trick.

I didn’t know about it until today — maybe it won’t be news to you — but of course Amazon gets its own back.

According to an analysis by Boomerang Commerce, Amazon dynamically reduces prices of its most popular items to make you think you’re getting a good deal.

That’s why something like a popular DSLR camera is cheap on Amazon.

But at the same time, Amazon dynamically jacks up the prices of less popular items — cables, lenses, carrying cases — that you are likely to buy with your main purchase.

End result?

You feel you’re getting a deal. Meanwhile, Amazon sits there quietly, with that trademark smirk on its face.

“Meh,” you say. “That’s nothing special. Businesses have a right to manipulate their prices however they want to maximize profits.”

I don’t dispute that.

My point is simply — well, actually, it’s not my point. It’s the point from the people at The Atlantic. They made the video I watched today, which clued me into this Amazon pricing stuff. And the video summed it up like this:

“People used to think the Internet would usher in this new age of transparency for pricing. But really it’s just given retailers new ways to manipulate the same old fundamental bias: People don’t know what anything is worth.”

Marketer Rich Schefren likes to say that marketing is getting people to value your offer.

I used to think that means sharing enough information for your prospect to see what your offer is truly worth.

But people don’t know what anything is worth. No amount of information will help them see the “true” value of your offer.

When you understand this, then Rich’s koan takes on a whole new level of urgency and meaning.

Suddenly, positioning becomes the most important decision you can make.

Because if you can put yourself into a marketplace of one… and given that people don’t know what anything is really worth… well, then you can manipulate the prices of your own offers how you like. And you don’t even have to be sneaky like Amazon about it.

So how do you get yourself into that magical marketplace of one? That’s something I write about on occasion in my email newsletter. If you’d like to read what I write about it the next time, sign up for my newsletter here.

The king’s evil

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“‘Tis called the ‘evil:’
A most miraculous work in this good king;
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do.”

For centuries, English and French kings used to claim they had a divine gift. They had the “king’s touch,” which could heal disease on contact.

Mostly, these monarchs specialized in healing one disease — a nasty condition called scrofula. This was a tumor-like lump on the neck, along with ruptured skin there.

Scrofula even became known as the “king’s evil.” If you had the evil, you could push your way towards the king… get touched… and with almost miraculous certainty, be healed. In this way, the “king’s touch” gave the monarchs a special authority and position, separate from the money and power they controlled.

“Yeah yeah,” I hear you saying. “Enough with the history lesson. Tell me how I can make money.”

All right. So continuing with my recent series, here’s a great way to make money, one I first heard from Ben Settle:

Charge premium prices. $97/month for a 16-page print newsletter… $499/month for access to an insiders’ community… $986 for a paperback book.

There are good practical reasons for this premium price strategy. Ben explains it by saying he’d rather have four quarters than 100 pennies.

Sure, both might add up to $1.

But it takes a lot less work to pick up four quarters than a hundred pennies… plus the quarters are likely to have changed hands less often and therefore be cleaner… plus they are easier to carry than a clunky jar full of copper.

So there’s that.

But there’s another, more powerful reason to charge premium prices.

It goes back to the king’s touch… and the king’s evil. Because scrofula rarely resulted in death, and it usually disappeared on its own. That was the explanation for the kings’ divine gift.

And in a similar way, along with a few other things Ben does, premium prices select a special part of your market.

They select the part that was most likely to succeed anyhow. That was most likely to succeed with your guidance… or with somebody else’s guidance… or without guidance at all, just with some extra time.

And just to be clear — I’m not trying to take away anything from the stuff Ben teaches. There are many profitable ideas inside his paid products. Many I’ve personally used and made money from.

But if you take the extra step, like Ben does, to get those ideas into the hands of people who will most likely succeed, sooner or later, one way or another… well, once they do succeed, you can credibly claim to have the divine gift. The king’s touch. A special authority and positioning, separate from your marketing or the quality of products you sell.

But you say you want more scrofulous business and marketing ideas.

Well I’m not surprised. But I am quite sleepy. So if you do want more, sign up to my email newsletter, and I’ll have a new marketing idea ready for you tomorrow.