Copywriting

Free advertorial + no bondage

by

Lemme tell you about my recent positioning fail, so that we’re on the same page, or so you can maybe avoid the same:

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking to a guy who runs a big ecom business.

He had heard of my “free advertorial” offer and was interested.

We got on a call. At the end, he asked if I would sign an NDA.

I figured it’s harmless. I’ve never revealed any insider secrets from businesses I’ve worked with, and I don’t mind signing a paper to say I won’t do it in the future. I said, “Sure, send it over.”

The NDA arrived. Except it turned out it was not just an NDA. Actually, it was a noncompete agreement as well, and how.

First, the contract was asking me to agree I would never work with any of the dude’s competitors.

When I refused that, the dude took the offending clause out. He put in a new clause that said I could never use any knowledge or insights gained via working with him with any other clients.

I politely bowed out.

As with everything else in my life, this is my fault.

I didn’t really make it clear to this guy how I am going into this whole “free advertorial” thing.

I’m not a copywriter looking for work. In fact, I might very likely farm out the work to one of the copywriters I am coaching inside my ongoing advertorial cohort, and simply copy chief them to make sure the result is up to my standard.

Rather, I’m going into this “free advertorial” deal as an investor. I’m looking to partner with business owners, contribute valuable assets, tangible and intangible, which I own and will continue to own and have control of, and take a cut of any profits we generate together.

I am certainly not willing to put myself in a situation of voluntary bondage to anybody.

If you’re a copywriter looking to graduate to a new level, and partner with businesses instead of serving clients, I’m sharing my positioning fail with you because you might somehow benefit from my experience.

And if you are not a copywriter, but own an ecom store yourself, or if you know somebody who owns an ecom store, my low-pressure, low-risk, zero-bondage offer still stands. You can find out more about it here:

https://bejakovic.com/do-you-want-a-free-advertorial-for-your-ecom-brand/

Is it Kit or something else

by

Two days ago, I got the following message from a puzzled and spam-quarantined reader:

===

One crucial detail I noticed with your emails – they always end up in my ‘focused’ inbox in outlook rather than the ‘other’ where all my subscriptions end up. I use mailerlite and even when I’m using my hostinger mailbox to direct email I have heard people saying the reminders for my workshops have ended up in their spam. Is it Kit or your template or something else that makes your email go to inbox and everyone else’s go to spam? Looking forward to hearing from you!

===

I’ve debated long and hard about revealing what I’m about to reveal.

In the end, in the interest of building everlasting goodwill with my audience, I’ve decided to share with you my closely guarded Secret to Perfect Email Deliverability.

No, it’s not my email software.

No, it’s not the template I use.

Instead, my Secret to Perfect Email Deliverability, and the reason why I always land in the most prestigious inboxes…

… is this ugly Times New Roman font, in combination with a column width of precisely 140 characters.

I don’t know why it works. My guess is that when Gmail and Outlook get my emails, and see how ugly they are, they assume I am either the IRS or your high school teacher, and so I consistently make it into the primary or the focused inbox.

Ok. All right. That was… a joke, or maybe a non-joke. In any case, don’t take me seriously. I’m visiting family, it’s a glum situation here, and I’m trying to lighten the mood for myself somehow.

The fact is, I have no idea why my emails (or some of them) land in “focused” or “important” or “primary” inboxes.

Another fact is, I pay precisely zero mind to email deliverability.

My whole mind is instead taken up with writing for and to humans.

I figure if you build a relationship with your readers, many of them will seek you out, whether you land in the “focused” inbox or in spam. And if enough people seek you out, you start showing up in the preferred spots, without doing anything about it.

If that sounds reasonable to you, and if you wanna start writing emails that build trust for you and desire for your offers, while creating curiosity and forming a relationship that keeps your audience reading day after day, you might like my current offer Daily Emails 101.

The deadline for that is tomorrow, Sunday, at 11:59pm PST.

For the full details:

https://bejakovic.com/de101

P.S. Part of Daily Emails 101 is a short report I’ve prepared titled Email Tech Starter Pack. It will tell you the email software I recommend if you’re just getting started, and will tell you about the few one-time steps you will want to take when first setting up an email list.

Announcing: Daily Emails 101

by

What I’ve got for you today:

Daily Emails 101, a walkthrough of the first 101 days of writing daily emails and making money from your email list.

Daily Emails 101 gives you to tools to start writing status-building, desire-creating daily emails, without taking 2 hours per email… to make money from your email list, your expertise, and your personal interests… and to repeatably grow your list with qualified, engaged readers.

The pre-sale for Daily Emails 101 is on right now until this Sunday. If you wanna get it or want more details:

https://bejakovic.com/de101

Today: Simple Money Emails + a $297 bonus

by

I have this course, called Simple Money Emails, about how to write sales emails that make money today and keep readers reading tomorrow.

Simple Money Emails sells for $197.

You can buy it today, via the affiliate link below (yes, affiliate link, even though it’s my course), and get a bonus that “sold nearly 100 copies at $297 when it debuted several years ago.”

In case you’re curious or confused about this unusual offer:

This morning, I woke up to see a broadcast email by the world’s most obsessed ad archivist, Lawrence Bernstein. Lawrence decided to promote Simple Money Emails today to his list as an affiliate offer. The background as to why Lawrence is promoting Simple Money Emails, in his own words:

===

Back in September of 2024, I ran a quick campaign to my house file for a compilation of ads from the great fascinations copywriter, Mel Martin.

The price for the compilation was a princely $7. I’m a big believer in having as many names of people in your database as possible…

Who’ve given you money

…versus a legion of free opt-ins. There’s something magical that happens, even with such a seemingly trivial transaction, and that seven-dollar buyer can turn into $100,000 in business. I’ve seen it happen.

As far as I can tell, John Bejakovic has a similarly sized list to my own.

And we sent approximately the same number of emails to promote the exact same product.

The difference?

Bejakovic bested Bernstein by 44.34%


153 sales vs. 106 sales

===

What made the difference?

Why did I make 153 sales to Lawrence’s 106, even though our lists are the same size… even though we sent the same number of emails… even though it was Lawrence’s offer on sale, which if anything should sell better to his list than to an affiliate’s list?

Lawrence’s answer to this conundrum is that it all comes down to the kinds of emails I send.

That’s why Lawrence is promoting Simple Money Emails today, because that course lays out how I write simple, effective, daily emails like the ones I used to promote Lawrence’s offer… and my offers… and dozens of offers for clients, including some for whom I made $4k-$5k worth of sales via email, every day.

And to sweeten the pot, Lawrence is also throwing in a training called Airmail Advantage, which he says “sold nearly 100 copies at $297 when it debuted several years ago.”

Airmail Advantage is a collection of proven direct marketing ideas and campaigns, all direct mail, some of which go back 100 years and all of which — gasp — are still being used today by undercover and smart direct response businesses.

Do you wanna write simple money-making emails, or know how I advise people to write such emails?

Do you wanna get a bunch of little-known direct marketing strategies, tricks, and hacks, which you can legitimately use today?

You can get both today, at the following link:

https://lawrencebernstein–desertkite.thrivecart.com/simple-money-emails

P.S. If you buy Simple Money Emails today, I’ll send you a link to get Lawrence’s Airmail Advantage. You don’t need to do anything extra, just bear with me, because I’m doing this by hand. And if you bought Simple Money Emails in the past… sigh. I asked Lawrence. He agreed to extend the same bonus offer to you as well. Just write me and ask.

Last call: Save yourself 20+ hours of copywriting work a week

by

“An uneasy, necessitous, busy, rich man seems to me more miserable than he that is simply poor.”
– Michel de Montaigne

Consider this my last warning, threat, and statement of opportunity to grab Dawn Apuan’s time-saving offer for copywriters who write for coaches and consultants.

Dawn’s offer is about saving yourself time, and delivering more copy to more clients in less time.

Dawn says her AI gizmo, to which she is selling the blueprints until tonight, has saved her 30-40 hours a week. Other copywriters say Dawn’s system has save them “at least 20 hours per week” and “cut my work time in half.”

Because, as Montaigne says, an uneasy, necessitous, busy copywriter is even more miserable than a copywriter who simply has no clients.

Dawn’s offer can help you stop being uneasy, necessitous, and busy.

This offer ends tonight, I’m presuming at 11:59 PST, since dawn lives around Seattle.

If you want to get this before it disappears, go here for more details before time runs out:

https://bejakovic.com/if-youre-a-copywriter-and-you-write-for-coaches-and-consultants

P.S. I recently recorded a call with Dawn, grilling her about her strategies for becoming the resident copy guru in half a dozen masterminds and communities so she can get clients easily and in bunches. If you buy or have bought Dawn’s time-saving AI offer before the deadline tonight, write me an email and I’ll share the interview with you.

If you think you can smell bad copy…

by

Today is the last day to grab Dawn Apuan’s time-saving AI system for copywriters who work with coaches and consultants.

When I first wrote to promote Dawn’s offer and linked to her sales page, I got a reply from a copywriter in my audience who wrote:

“If anything, her sales page is a reason to NOT buy it…”

… presumably meaning, professional copywriters can tell this sales page, which was written with the help of Dawn’s AI gizmo, is 1) not good copy, or 2) sounds like it’s written by AI, or 3) both.

Well about that.

Like I said, Dawn writes for coaches and consultants. It’s a specific style of copy, with a specific structure and tone.

I’m not advising you to get and use Dawn’s system if you write financial copy (go apprentice at Agora) or if you sell bizopp (read and model my emails).

But if, like Dawn, you write or want to write for coaches and consultants, then her AI system can save you time (on the order of 20+ hours per week, as per case studies on her sales page) and produce copy that clients will be happy with and that will get them results.

How do I know clients will be happy with it and get results from it?

I’m taking it on Dawn’s word. I know for a fact that Dawn is more successful than 99% of copywriters out there, and she specializes in this coach and consultant market.

Like I wrote in previous emails, Dawn has been a resident copywriting guru in a half dozen copywriting communities, which is also one way she has been able to get paid (!) to get clients and get them easily.

She has been delivering copy to many clients for a while now, using the same system she is selling here. She continues to do it, and I’m assuming that means that this copy makes the clients happy.

“Sure sure,” I hear somebody in the back say. “But maybe Dawn is just really good at selling herself as a copywriter and selling her copy to clients. That still doesn’t mean that her copy is actually good or that it gets clients results. Maybe her clients are just too naive to know otherwise.”

For that, all I can really tell you is a little story that Dawn shared with me recently, during a call in which I interviewed her about how she has managed to get a half dozen paid copy guru positions inside business communities.

Speaking about how easy and natural it’s been for her to get clients in this way, Dawn said:

===

And then they hear about your results. I had one lady in that group where we met every week, and she did hire me outside as well. But she was like, “I show up to these calls every single week, because every week I do what Dawn says, and every week I make more money.”

===

My point being, if you think you know good copy, meaning results-getting copy, for coaches and consultants, and if you are sure that what Dawn is producing is not it, then you are frankly wrong.

Again, I’m going on that by Dawn’s experience and the results she has gotten for her own clients, using both her typing fingers and the AI-ified version of that, which she is selling the blueprints to now.

Dawn’s modestly priced, DIY offer disappears tonight, to be replaced with a cohort format that will be 10x more expensive.

If you don’t want to pay 10x more, if you do write or want to write for coaches and consultants, then here’s my full (bizoppy) pitch for Dawn’s system:

​https://bejakovic.com/if-youre-a-copywriter-and-you-write-for-coaches-and-consultants

P.S. I recorded that call I did with Dawn, grilling her about her strategies for becoming the resident copy guru in half a dozen masterminds and communities so she can get clients easily and in bunches. If you buy or have bought Dawn’s time-saving AI offer before the deadline tonight, write me an email and I’ll share the interview with you.

A non-zero amount of sales

by

This morning, I woke up to a ThriveCart sale notification.

“What’s this?” I said. I ripped it open like Dudley Dursley ripping open his 36 Christmas presents.

The notification revealed its secrets, and told me the new sale I made:

===

Emails That Did Well – $79

===

“Emails that did well” is an offer made earlier this week, in one email only.

After I made that offer and sent that email, I got a reply from expert email marketer and superior fractional CMO Nick “Jolly” Bandy, who wrote:

“Actually laughing my ass off reading this. So you are selling the SAME bonus stack as last week… without the main offer…for the same amount of money…and this will most likely make a non-zero amount of sales.”

Yes, it’s pretty much like Nick says, minus the laughing.

I first offered “Emails That Did Well,” plus all the free bonuses eventually included with it, as free bonuses to an affiliate offer.

After the affiliate offer closed, I offered the same bonuses for $79, which happened to be the price of the affiliate offer.

And I made a non-zero amount of sales as a result. As for how non-zero?

That’s for me to know and you to find out, at least if you have gotten yourself access to my Emails That Did Well document.

But before I send you to a page that outlines all the details of that offer and possibly entices you to buy it, a bit of marketing insight:

The first email I ever wrote to my list on the topic of positioning came in 2020.

In that email, I compared your positioning to a spear, which needs to have a very small and very sharp point, in order to pierce your prospect’s thick defenses (his skull) and lodge in the soft gray matter inside.

The thing is, if you fuse together several very small and very sharp points, they lose their “very small” and “very sharp” qualities.

Your positioning becomes less like a spear, small and sharp, and instead becomes more like an iron, flat and heavy.

An iron will hurt somebody if you throw it at their head, but it won’t pierce anything or create any kind of new understanding.

In short, positioning is not additive. A plus B plus C is not always greater than A alone, and often it is less.

That’s why a non-zero amount of people have taken me up on the Emails That Did Well offer.

If you’d like to get that offer, so you can find out how well that email has done so far, and to keep track of my other successful emails, now and in the future, here are the full details:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-emails-that-did-well/

If you’re a copywriter and you write for coaches and consultants

by

If you’re a copywriter and you write for coaches and consultants, I have a new time-saving offer for you. A few results this offer has generated:

#1. “Recently, I used it to build a $25,000 project in 12 hours, start to finish.”

#2. “Saves me 30 to 40 hours a week”

#3. “It totally upped my game and cut my working time in half”

#4. “Client output that used to take me a couple of days now takes me a couple of hours”

#5. “I’d been procrastinating on her lead magnet to $97 course sales sequence all week, and now it’s basically written, in about an hour”

#6. “Saved me at least 20 hours per week.”

#7. “This system added $77,000 in the first 7 months, and more since”

The person behind this time-saving offer is Dawn Apuan. I mentioned Dawn in my emails over the past week. She’s the copywriter who’s been getting clients for years, a dozen at a time, by being the resident copy guru in multiple business masterminds and paid communities.

Dawn writes copy for coaches and consultants. It’s a specific style of copywriting. You can see it in her copy for her offer, at the link below.

I on the other hand am first and foremost a business opportunity copywriter.

Rather than leading off by trying to empathize with you, I’m telling you what I found sexiest in this offer. That’s the massive time savings… the big projects delivered in a matter of hours… and case studies, case studies, case studies.

Oh, and the price:

This system that Dawn sells, this offer, is an AI offer.

Dawn has been selling it to coaches and consultants directly, as a done-for-you install into their business, so they can produce their own copy. She has been charging $5,800 for it, and she has sold a bunch at this price level.

Dawn will also run a cohort soon to guide a small number of copywriters to create and install the same system in their own copywriting practices, so they can deliver more copy to more clients in less time. Since this will be a cohort rather than a full done-for-you install, Dawn will charge a more manageable though still pricey $2,900 for it.

And then there’s the DIY price.

Dawn is currently selling the trainings, prompts, swipes, and videos on how to build and install this “save you 20+ hours of writing a week” gizmo into your copywriting business… for just $297.

That’s if you act now, because Dawn will be doing the done-with-you cohort soon. I don’t know exactly when, though I do know she will pull the DIY version on July 15.

I bet you have many more questions about how this system works, what it is, and whether it makes sense to grab it before it disappears. That’s ok. Dawn has prepared a sales page, I’m assuming using her own system, to give you the full details.

If you’re interested in finding out more, before it slips your mind and slips away:

https://bejakovic.com/dawn

Turns out, I was right about the best kind of infotainment

by

A few months ago, I wrote an email with the subject line, “The BEST kind of infotainment, for me, now.”

In that email, I said the kind of infotaining content that’s working best for me now is not not funny stories… nor personal reveals… nor pop culture references… nor rants and raves.

Instead, the best kind of infotainment for me now is “What’s working for me now,” and its flip side, “What’s not working for me any more.”

After I wrote that email, there was some chatter in other newsletters to the effect of, “Yeah but that’s because John writes to an audience of sophisticated marketers and marketing-savvy biz owners. The same is NOT true for the vast majority of other niches.”

Well, about that.

Yesterday I saw a post titled “The Great Blogging Collapse” by a guy named Daniel Stanica.

Stanica did some research.

Back in 2022, he took a look at 100 money-making blogs, spanning fields like blogging, recipes, travel, DIY, parenting, health.

Today, in 2026, Stanica looked at those same 100 blogs again. Did they grow, shrink, or disappear?

And yes, before you raise your hand, his post is mainly about blogging and about success as measured by SEO traffic.

Still, the conclusions he reached in comparing 100 successful online properties in 2022 and 2026 sound reasonable to me, and align very much with what I said above.

So what happened to the 100 successful 2022 blogs in 2026?

According to Stanica:

1. “The median successful blog lost 85% of its Google search traffic.”

2. “More than half of the blogs experienced catastrophic declines.”

At the same time, a small number of blogs maintained or became more successful. Looking at the commonalities among them, Stanica sums it up in four points:

1. Firsthand experience (“I made/tested/went”)

2. Owned audience

3. Real product

4. Brand search (people search for your name)

To me, that first point, about firsthand experience, sounds exactly like what I talked about when said “what’s working for me now.”

Combine that with the remaining 3 points, and it pretty much sums up what I’ve found to work and what I do with this newsletter.

It’s something that worked in 2016… that’s working in 2026… and that is highly likely to work still in 2036, even with the development of AI… and the great blog collapse… and the impending shortage of sulfur in the world.

If you’d like to find out more about how I and a small group of forward-thinking marketers and business owners are surviving and even thriving in 2026, and probably 2036:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Do you want a sexy newsletter-writing job?

by

I have a friend named Will. Will and I were both in Dan Ferrari’s coaching group at the same time back in the late 19th century.

I talked to Will last week to catch up.

For the past couple years, Will has been doing all the email marketing for Polymarket, one of the two big prediction markets.

First he was doing a cool weekly email, which I even read, because it’s interesting.

Then they got him to start doing a daily email as well.

It’s a lot of writing and a lot of work.

Will is looking for help, for a writer to handle either the daily email, or segments of the weekly newsletter, or some combination of both.

I offered to put the word out to people in my audience in order to:

1. Help Will

2. Look cool to people in my audience

There’s a conflict between those two goals.

Will’s first question was, “Will I get inundated with replies?”

I told him that chances are yes. And I offered to act as an intermediary, to vet people before I pass them on to him.

If you are interested in writing for Polymarket:

1. Reply to this email

2. Tell me you specialize in writing Morning-Brew style newsletters

3. Include highly relevant samples to back up your claim in 2 above

I’ve already put this call out inside Daily Email House, my Skool group. I’ve had three people apply. Two frankly could not follow the instructions above. The third did, and I passed his info on to Will. But I’m guessing you still have a really good chance at this sexy job (at least sexy to me) if you really want it.

But what if you don’t have relevant samples? In that case, you have two options.

Option one is to not apply for this job. If you don’t send me highly relevant samples, I will not forward your stuff to Will, and I will not listen to you when you explain to me why I should hear you out.

Option two is to create highly relevant samples on the spot, maybe even a sample Polymarket email or two (their stuff is all online and you can find it and model it).

NB: If I have to parse, read into, or interpret your message or your samples to figure out how they could be relevant to this job… I will just skip your application. The whole point here is to figure out if you are the kind of person I should hand off to Will. A part of that is your writing experience and skill. Another part of that is your ability to make his job easier, rather than harder, and right now I’m the proxy for that.

What about salary? Terms? Stock?

I have no idea.

If that’s your first concern, I’d say, don’t apply for this.

But if you have relevant experience, or if you want experience writing for a big and exciting newsletter, then you know what to do.