Emails

What we can all learn from princes William and Harry

by

A few hours after I write this, the Queen’s coffin will be placed on a gun carriage and will lead a procession down a packed Mall, along Whitehall and then into Parliament Square before entering the Palace of Westminster.

Walking in the procession behind the Queen will be her son, the new king, Charles III.

But perhaps more remarkable, Charles’s two sons, William and Harry, will also be walking in the procession.

That’s remarkable because for the two princes, this act will bring back painful memories of when they, aged 15 and 12, walked behind the coffin of their mother Princess Diana in 1997.

What makes this act still more remarkable is that princes Harry and William are embroiled in a bitter personal feud with each other. (I don’t know the details of the feud, and the Daily Mail article I just read didn’t elaborate. So I guess I never will know.)

Whatever the case may be, I think this all just highlight the importance of unity.

Unity of family… unity in moments of crisis… unity when different, individual, tiny elements come together to form a bigger and more powerful whole.

Because after all, isn’t unity really the essence we all strive for, in life in general, and in email marketing in particular?

In particular, I have just read about the first ever email marketer, a man named Mr. Pease.

Mr. Pease sold a product called “Pease’s Horehound Candy,” a kind of cough drop. And since he lived in the first half of the 19th century, he clearly didn’t use email, not the way we know it today.

But Mr. Pease’s remarkable marketing was the essence of what email is about. It would work today as well as it did in early America.

So what did Mr. Pease do to advertise his cough drops? ​​From chapter 8 of P.T. Barnum’s book, Humbugs of the World:

Mr. Pease’s plan was to seize upon the most prominent topic of interest and general conversation, and discourse eloquently upon that topic in fifty to a hundred lines of a newspaper-column, then glide off gradually into a panegyric of “Pease’s Horehound Candy.” The consequence was, every reader was misled by the caption and commencement of his article, and thousands of persons had “Pease’s Horehound Candy” in their mouths long before they had seen it! In fact, it was next to impossible to take up a newspaper and attempt to read the legitimate news of the day without stumbling upon a package of “Pease’s Horehound Candy.”

Mr. Pease got very rich selling his horehound candy with his humbug news item advertisements.

And that’s what I hope will happen for you as well, if you only follow his very smart, very durable, very unified marketing approach.

The good news is, in many ways you have it easier than Pease did. For example, Pease had to pay for advertising space each time he wanted to get his message out. But email today is pretty much free.

Of course, Pease did have some advantages that you today do not have.

Such as, for example, a ready-made and large audience of newspaper readers.

Or the fact that those newspaper readers read their newspaper with a curious and trusting mind, rather than with skepticism and disinterest.

Or the fact that those readers didn’t have Twitter, where they could start campaigns to mock or even shut down Pease’s company because of its misleading advertising.

But fear not!

Because there are simple, quick, and quite specific methods to overcome those problems in your email marketing today.

And if you have a business, and more specifically an email list, and you would like to make like Mr. Pease and market your way to great wealth, then may I advise you take a look at the fine offer below.

What, you want me to tie this offer into the topic of unity, or to princess William and Harry?

Not today. That’s not what I learned from Mr. Pease.

But if you do want potentially business-changing guidance with your email marketing, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/audit

Ben Settle or Daniel Throssell? My #1 recommended resource to learn email copywriting

by

In my email yesterday, I wrote that I’m traveling for a few days and that my subconscious let me down.

That’s because I wanted to write a quick and easy email. But even though I channeled my inner Gary Bencivenga and summoned the giant within to help me out with my copywriting duties, I got nothing.

​​Absolutely nothing…

​​Or so it seemed.

In reality, maybe the giant within did do some work on my behalf.

Because there was something about the email I did end up writing yesterday.

For some reason that’s not clear to me, it provoked a bunch of earnest, curious, and even strange responses from people on my list. These responses will provide me with good email fodder for the next few days and maybe beyond.

​​To start with, here’s a question I got from a reader named Paul:

I am a relatively new copywriter but one thing that fascinates me is email copywriting. People like you, Ben Settle and Daniel Throssell make their email interesting to read, persuasive, even addicting.

If you could recommend some/one resource for learning email copywriting, which would you recommend? (besides your 10 commandments book, which I already bought and read, btw it’s a really great book)!

Well, if you have $100, you can give it to either Ben Settle (for his Email Players Skhema that comes with his Email Players monthly subscription) or to Daniel Throssell (for his Email Copywriting Compendium).

​​I have both, and I cheerfully endorse both.

Also, some time soon, I will re-release my Most Valuable Email training in a formal, course-like format. That will also sell for $100.

​​I’m biased to the tactic I discuss in that training, because it’s been responsible for many good results for me personally. So maybe you can just wait a bit and give me your $100 when the Most Valuable Email is available again.

Of course, there’s also an entirely different route if you want to spend you $100 in the best way.

Most people won’t want to hear this. But if you want to learn email marketing, I mean really learn it, then the best resource I can recommend is…

Active Campaign. Or MailChimp. Or Constant Contact. Or whatever.

The email software you use isn’t important.

What is important is that you start your own list.

Do it today.

And then later today, write a short email and send it to your list, even if you’ve got zero subscribers.

​​In that email, give a little occasion of what happened to you earlier in the day — “this Bejako character suggested I start my own newsletter.” Then tie it up with something you learned about email marketing by reading the newsletters of people who are a few years ahead of you.

Such as, for example, the fact that there’s a lot of value in free daily email newsletters, if you will only read carefully and then apply the advice.

So write that email today.

And then tomorrow, do it all over again, with a new occasion, and a new bit of something you learned.

Keep this up for a week. Then 30 days. Then for 90 days.

By that time, I bet you will be well on your way to making your own emails interesting, persuasive, and even addicting.

All right, so much for the free but valuable advice that almost nobody will take.

Again, if you’ve got a $100 burning a hole in your pocket, you can buy solid courses from both Ben, Daniel, and eventually from me.

But $100 will also get you 11 months of the lowest plan of Active Campaign. That’s the software I personally use. It’s fine, and I’m fine endorsing it to you.

If by some small chance you want to take my advice and want to get started now, you can use my affiliate link for Active Campaign below.

And if you do sign up for Active Campaign using my affiliate link, send me an email and let me know.

Once you set up your optin form, I’ll get on your list.

I don’t promise to read your emails all the time. I certainly don’t promise to give you feedback or coaching or public endorsements.

But I do promise to stay subscribed for at least 90 days. And maybe knowing that at least one person is on your list will be enough accountability to allow you to go from being fascinated by email copywriting… to being fascinating.

In case you are ready to get going:

https://bejakovic.com/activecampaign

The real secret to how I survive the biggest mistake you are making the fastest way

by

Yesterday evening, I got an odd email from a reader. The subject line read:

“About your email subject lines”

There was nothing in the body of the email. There was just an attached file, “7 Tested and Proven Email Subject Lines that Get Your Emails Opened.” Among them:

1. How to survive _____
2. The biggest mistake _____ make
3. The fastest way to ______

I have this Chateau Heartiste policy of keeping my replies to readers no longer than what the reader wrote me. And since this reader didn’t even include a hello, I couldn’t, according to my policy, reply to ask him why he was sending me this guide to subject lines.

Was he displeased with my subject lines in general?

​​Was he impressed with my subject line yesterday? ​​Did he think it fit one of these molds in some way?

​​I guess I’ll never know.

But since this reader did send me tested and proven subject line ideas, I squeezed a bunch of them into my subject line today.

After all, why not? I don’t think it will make a molehill of difference. Here’s a story on that matter:

Last year, I wrote an email with the subject line, “More real than real.” That email was about some slightly esoteric stuff. I purposefully didn’t want a DR-style subject line for it, one that might attract the wrong kind of attention.

A bunch of people wrote in response to that email to tell me how much they liked the story and the lesson I was sharing.

I also got a response from a smart and successful marketer. He warned me that he almost missed my email, which he thought was valuable once he read it, because my subject line didn’t catch his eye at all. He even rewrote my subject line to show me how it’s done.

And then, the next week, he wrote in with a similar message, again pointing out that my subject line is suboptimal and that he almost missed another valuable email from me. As far as I can tell, he continues to read my emails to this day.

I am not pointing fingers or making fun of anybody.​ I’m just pointing a finger at something obvious:

A lot of standard copywriting wisdom, which was extracted from cold-traffic tests, isn’t particularly relevant to warm daily emails, which people mainly open because they’ve learned that you have something fun or interesting to say. In warm emails, the “headline” is really your name, and not your subject line.

Maybe you say I can be cavalier about this, because I still don’t sell regularly in this email newsletter, and I certainly don’t A/B test my subject lines here.

Fine.

But I have been in situations where I was actively selling in email, and where I was actively testing. I’ve managed two 70,000-person email lists, which were made up of buyers, and which produced millions of dollars of sales, thanks to emails I wrote. And yes, thanks to subject lines I wrote.

And you know what?

I once ran a little test to find out how our email open rates influenced our sales.

​​Result?

Experts were shocked. Literally. I mean, I, an email marketing expert, was shocked.

And that’s why I want to warn you about the biggest mistake that email marketers make when it comes to subject lines. And that’s to follow “Tested and proven subject lines that get your emails OPENED.” If you want to read the real secret of why this is a big problem, here’s the fastest way to do that:

https://bejakovic.com/why-ecommerce-list-owners-should-beware-high-open-rates/

About my semi-confessional love note to the wrong girl (and my lifelong history of sending such notes to the wrong people)

by

When I was in 10th grade, I had a light-to-moderate crush on this girl in my English class, Sarah K.

One day, while we were in class, I wrote Sarah some kind of a note. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote. It was not a full-on confession of love. More like a semi-confession, veiled in some kind of inside joke.

The class was seated in an L-shaped arrangement of desks. Sarah’s desk was in front of and perpendicular to mine.

I folded up the note.

I waited for the opportune moment.
​​
And I tossed the note from where I sat to Sarah’s desk.

But Sarah didn’t notice. She was busy writing something. In fact, everyone was busy writing something. Well, except me.

“Psst, Sarah!” I tried to get her attention.

But in my characteristically careless way, I forgot that Sarah K. shared the desk with Sara L.

Sara L. looked up from her writing. She saw my hopeful-then-terrified face. And then she spotted the note on the desk.

Sara L. picked up the note. Unfolded it. Tried to parse the meaning of whatever I had written for Sarah K.

Sara L. then frowned, shook her head a little, and gave me a disapproving look. It said, “You are SO weird.” She crumpled up the note and threw it over her shoulder.

Well, that was a long time ago. It doesn’t sting much any more.

​​But really, how little things change.

Yesterday, you may have been surprised to get an email from me with the subject line “Death of a postcard.”

I meant to send that email just to the 20 people who are the first subscribers to my Most Valuable Postcard.

But instead, I ended up sending the email to my entire list. Years of daily ritual clicking is a hard habit to break.

I realized my mistake only a few moments after I sent out the email.

I literally groaned. Because here’s something you might or might not know about me:

In spite of the frequent typos, missing articles, and ungrammatical sentences in my emails (a consequence of how I write, a topic for another time), I actually hate making mistakes.

The memory of even a tiny mistake can keep me up at night, or startle me awake in the morning.

And sending out a semi-confessional note to a mass of people who were not supposed to get it — well, that’s a less tiny mistake than just a typo.

Like I said, I groaned.

And then, in the very next moment, I took a deep breath.

I reached into my mental library. I pulled out my copy of Daniel Throssell’s Email Copywriting Compendium. ​​And I flipped the mental pages until I got to rule #101.

“Aha,” I said, “here we go. Here’s the fix for this mess.”

I won’t tell you what Daniel’s rule #101 is. If you’ve bought the Email Copywriting Compendium already, you can reach for it now in your mental bookshelf, or at least pull it up on your computer, and look up rule #101 yourself.

And if you haven’t bought the Email Copywriting Compendium yet, well…

Daniel certainly doesn’t need my help in selling it. And since so many people on my list are also on Daniel’s list, I’m not sure what help I can give.

Still, I have been in a giving mood lately. And I have been sharing resources that I personally find valuable. So I will link to Daniel’s Compendium below.

If you write daily emails, I encourage you to get it and read it. Maybe even twice. That’s how many times I’ve read it so far, and I might read it again.

And in case you’re wondering:

This is not an affiliate link. It’s also not part of any kind of JV, cross-promo, list-swap deal with Daniel.

I’m just linking to Daniel’s Compendium because a) you might get value out of it and b) in gratitude over that rule #101. Plus a few other of Daniel’s rules, which I’ve peppered into this email.

​​Maybe you can spot these rules in action. If not, here’s where to go:

https://persuasivepage.com/compendium/

Ben Settle emergency emails in support of Copy Riddles?

by

Last night, I sent out an email vaguely threatening you with a bunch of upcoming emails to promote my Copy Riddles program, which is now open for enrollment until this Sunday at 12 midnight PST.

After I sent that email out, I slumped in my chair and hung my head.

“Great, now what?” I said. “Where am I gonna get all those emails? Who’s gonna write all that stuff I threatened them with?”

Beyond the one half-finished Copy Riddles email I had written during my Most Valuable Email presentation, I had nothing.

But then a desperate idea hit me. “I have that useless diploma from the Oregon School of Manifestation… why don’t I apply what they taught me?”

So I closed my eyes, put my fingers to my temples, and started to massage slowly, while sending out vibrations of easily-written emails into the universe.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL, my AOL account suddenly said.

Well, not really. I don’t use AOL. But I did get an email, just a few minutes after I wished for some easy help.

The email came from Ben Settle, and the subject line read:

“Advice to a new Agora copywriter”

This email of Ben’s is full of uncharacteristically detailed and forthcoming advice. If you’re on Ben’s list, it might be interesting to read. I will highlight just one bit, because it serves my purposes here.

A new Agora copywriter wrote in to ask Ben’s opinion on a bunch of stuff, including that bullets aren’t at all important any more.

To which Ben responded:

“Bullets still work, never stopped working, and will always work — When written correct everything ‘comes’ from the bullets, including non-bullet copy or ads where there are no bullets.”

Now I’d like to think Ben wrote this specifically at this moment, just to help me out with promoting Copy Riddles.

After all, the first basic premise behind Copy Riddles is that once you own the skill of writing bullets, you own the essence of intriguing, irresistible copywriting, no matter what format you write in.

The fundamental ideas inside Copy Riddles apply whether you are writing bullets… headlines… subject lines… body copy of sales letters and VSLs… ads… or emails.

In fact, I think Copy Riddles ideas transfer directly if you are writing sales emails, and not just in subject lines. I’ve even made the claim before that sales emails are basically the modern version of “expanded” bullets.

So that’s the first premise behind Copy Riddles.

The second premise is that you go further and faster by doing and experiencing… than by reading/listening/watching and then forgetting.

That’s why Copy Riddles is built around a unique, effective, and, I modestly think, clever mechanism. The mechanism gets those bullets lodged into your head, not just as a bunch of how-to information, but as a skill that you own.

But don’t take it from me. Since we are speaking of new Agora copywriters, a junior Agora copywriter named Harry Thomas went through Copy Riddles during the last run. And he had this to say:

“Honestly, John’s course is brilliant. While the content is bullets-centred, everything inside can be applied to other aspects of copy. Whenever I’m choosing endo subject lines or writing Taboola ads, I’ll write them out in bullet form first, then pick the best ones to use. And this might sound weird, but I can almost feel myself improving in real-time with John’s exercises.”

To get more details on my Copy Riddles exercises or to join while the joining’s good:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Frankly, I’m a little passive aggressive…

by

I got an email from a marketer not too long ago, and the subject line read:

“Frankly, I’m a little concerned about you…”

The body of the email was predictable — I’m concerned about you because you might miss out on this amazing offer.

I groaned.

Not just because I recognized this subject line as a yet another marketer abusing Paul Greystone’s “Frankly, I’m puzzled” hook.

But worse than that, I groaned because this came in a daily email from somebody I was curious to hear from, somebody who seemed promising and cool. And here he was, sounding needy, awkward, even a little passive aggressive.

I’ve committed my share of marketing sins, so I’m not here to lob tomatoes at this guy.

I just want to share something with you. Something it took me a while to accept, but which was really rather obvious once it clicked. It’s simply this:

Copy in email marketing is not the same as classic direct response copy.

Obvious, right? Right. But how many times a day, if you are in the marketing and copywriting space, do you get things which are blatantly lifted from old school sales letters and hooks?

Or how many times have you done it yourself, if you write emails for your own business or a client?

My accountant says I’m crazy…
I’m eating steak whether you buy this offer or not…
Our warehouse manager just called me to say we are overstocked!

I’m not saying not to study or use proven direct response classics.

I continue to read classic marketing and copywriting books, and study old sales letters, often for the fourth or fifth time.

I continue to find brilliant ideas in them.

And I continue to work them into my own daily emails, often with great success.

So the way I see it, you’ve got two choices right now. Choice one is to ignore everything I’ve just told you and continue to make profit-crippling email marketing mist—

No, we won’t go down either route of the crossroads close in this email.

But if you want a different, more subtle, more entertaining and less passive aggressive way to use classic direct response ideas in your email marketing… at least if you are a copywriter or marketer, selling yourself first and foremost… then you might like to hear a presentation I will put on next Wednesday at 7pm CET.

I’m calling this presentation the Most Valuable Email. Because that’s what it’s been for me.

If you are a marketer or copywriter, maybe it will be the same for you. But whether you sign up or not, I’m eating stea—

(Professional habits are hard to break.)

But seriously:

To register to watch my Most Valuable Email presentation live, sign up to my email newsletter by next Wednesday. This will give you an opportunity to sign up for the presentation — and who knows, maybe it will inspire you with a few classic direct response ideas as well.

Most Valuable Email… for copywriters

by

I’d like to tell you about a type of content, specifically a type of daily email, that has been most valuable for me.

This type of daily email is my go-to whenever I want to stimulate and engage my readers, including the many grizzled, wary, and sophisticated marketers and copywriters on my list.

In this way, this type of email has helped me sell stuff… grow my email list organically… get amazing job referrals… and sometimes even get interesting and cool stuff for free.

This type of email has also been most valuable to me because it builds up immediate and unquestionable authority.

It makes it clear I know what I’m talking about, even if I don’t harp on about the great results I’ve had for clients or the testimonials or endorsements I’ve gotten.

And finally:

This type of email is most valuable because it’s the type of email I personally find most enjoyable to write.

Going back to this type of email over and over has helped me stick with daily emailing for the long term, while making me exponentially better at the actual work of copywriting.

If you’ve been reading my daily emails for a while, you can probably guess the type of email I’m talking about.

But if you cannot guess, or if you would simply like to hear me go into this topic in more detail and tell you how you too can write this type of email yourself, I will do that in a free presentation I’m calling The Most Valuable Email.

You can register for the Most Valuable presentation below. But first a warning:

This type of email has been most valuable to me personally. I can imagine it being equally most valuable for for any other copywriter.

If you are not a copywriter, you might be able to adapt and use this type of email profitably in a different market, for a different type of audience. But that’s something I haven’t thought much about, and so I won’t be talking about it on this presentation.

If that doesn’t turn you off, then here are the details:

The Most Valuable Email presentation will happen live, on Zoom, on Wednesday, Jun 22, 2022, at 7pm Central European Time.

You can sign up for the presentation by clicking the link below. I will then send you a confirmation email with the Zoom link and a public calender invite — which I can never manage to make work, but will try for anyhow.

Also, there will be a recording. I will only send it to you if you express interest and register below. I won’t be sending the recording out to my list in general.

I haven’t yet decided what I will do with this Most Valuable Email training in the future. I might make it available only as a bonus for a paid offer, or I might turn it into a paid offer itself.

One thing is for sure:

I will make the recording available for one week, following the live presentation. Beyond that, I make no guarantees.

So if you want to join me live for this Most Valuable Email training, or if you want to watch the recording during this guaranteed 7-day replay window, sign up to my email newsletter before next Wednesday. You will then get an email from me with the registration details for this presentation.

About that time Israeli jets bombed a US Navy ship

by

“We’re under attack, send help!” is probably what Captain William L. McGonagle yelled over the radio.

McGonagle commanded the Navy spy ship USS Liberty, stationed in the Mediterranean sea, in international waters off the coast of Egypt.

Four Israeli jets had just fired rockets and dropped napalm bombs on the Liberty.

In that initial attack, nine US navy men died. 60 were wounded, McGonagle among them.

Then Israel dispatched a second attack, made up of high-speed torpedo boats.

These boats fired torpedoes on the Liberty, and strafed the lifeboats that the Liberty had launched.

McGonagle succeeded in evading all but one of the torpedoes, which damaged the Liberty heavily. He also finally made contact with the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga.

The Saratoga dispatched 12 US jets to defend the Liberty. But when word of this reached Washington, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered the jets to retreat. It was never made clear why.

All in all, in the combined air and torpedo-boat Israeli attacks, which lasted for two hours, 34 Americans servicemen died and 171 were wounded.

Shocking, right? I’d never heard about this incident until today. I found it surprising and new. I thought you might find it surprising and new as well.

The truth is, today I had no ideas for a story to open up this email with.

I also had no valuable takeaway to give you.

I didn’t even know what offer to make.

So really I had nothing, zero, in all three main dimensions of your standard copywriter’s daily email.

The good news is I figured out a takeaway eventually.

Takeaway: You gotta have an occasion for your copy. In other words, your sales copy has to answer the question, why now?

I first heard this idea from A-list copywriter Dan Ferrari. An occasion is standard in financial copy. But it’s a very powerful idea that works in other markets just as well.

For example, Dan once wrote a sales letter in the health space that tripled response over the control. In large part, he did it by using an occasion to frame the promotion.

So that’s the valuable takeaway today, have an occasion.

What about the offer? I also figured that out:

My 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters Book.

I just told you Commandment IV.

And really, if you comb through my emails over the past few years, you will also find all the other nine commandments, in more or less disguised form.

But if you would like to read them all, undisguised, in a quick and fun package, for just a few dollars, you can get a copy of the entire 10 Commandments book here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

So that takes care of the marketing takeaway and the offer.

And clearly, I also figured out a surprising story to open up with.

I did that by reading a bit about what happened on today’s date in history. Because the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty happened on today’s date, June 8th, exactly 55 years ago. That’s why I’m telling you this story today.

This “on today’s date” is not something that will work as an occasion for a long-running sales letter. But it’s a good fallback for daily emails like this one.

So let me wrap up this email and the story of the Liberty:

Israel apologized later, paid a $6.5 million restitution, and said it had mistaken the Liberty for an Egyptian warship.

But many American officials and military personnel, including those who served on the Liberty, believe the Israeli attack was intentional.

One theory is that the Liberty was attacked because it was a spy ship. It would have intercepted and discovered Israel’s secret plans for the controversial invasion of the Golan Heights, which happened the next day, on June 9th.

I might use the occasion of that Golan Heights invasion to write another email tomorrow.

But for today, I gotta make you my offer. I won’t even make you scroll up for it. In case haven’t yet got a copy of my 10 Commandments book, you can do so here:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

How to increase your chances of winning acclaim and validation from the very highest levels of the direct response industry

by

Last week, Joe Schriefer, formerly the copy chief at Agora Financial, now the owner of his own business, wrote me to say:

Hey John,

Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your emails. I think you’re one of the best email writers out there!

Finally! Acclaim and validation from the highest levels of the direct response industry! The world is waking up the tremendous value in each of my—

But hold on, I said to myself.

I looked at Joe’s message again. Yes, he says he has been enjoying reading my emails. That’s very nice of him to say, and it suggests he’s been reading for a while, and has liked more than one of my emails. But my ego was on alert. Come on, why did Joe have to write exactly when he did?

The fact is, Joe sent me the message above in response to an email I sent out last week, about Gerry Rafferty and my obsessive love for the song Baker Street.

But in that email, I very consciously made the effort not to write the way I would normally write.

I mentioned yesterday that a couple weeks ago, I agreed with Daniel Throssell to do an analysis of his email copywriting style.

I identified three techniques that Daniel uses regularly, which aren’t standard copywriting practice, and which aren’t in Daniel’s Email Copywriting Compendium.

The night before I wrote that Baker Street email, I had finished writing up the results of my analysis for Daniel.

And when it was time to write my own email, I said, what the hell, why don’t I try using these techniques myself?

Result: I got about double the responses I normally get to an email I send out, and among them the message from Joe.

Coincidence?

Possibly.

The result of 3+ years of non-stop daily emailing, with an effort each day to tell you something fun and new, while working hard on improving my writing?

Possibly.

The hypnotic effect of Daniel’s secret copywriting techniques?

Possibly.

Thing is, it’s not easy to generate favorable coincidences on demand.

​​And 3+ years of daily work requires, well, 3+ years of daily work.

So if you want to increase your chances of boosting your email engagement… and maybe even winning yourself some acclaim and validation from the very highest levels of the direct response industry… then I figure you got two options today:

Option 1 is to dig up that Baker Street email I sent and analyze what I did.

This kind of critical analysis of marketing is good practice. After all, the best marketing — and by this I mean not just my spectacularly valuable emails, but other stuff, too — is out there for free, ready for you to dissect and profit from.

Option 2 is to click the link below and sign up on the next page. That will get you into the presentation I will hold tomorrow, where I will tell you exactly what those three techniques are.

I will also give you examples from Daniel’s copy, and I will spell out how you too can start using these techniques today. I’ll even point out how I used them myself in that Baker Street email.

If you can’t make the presentation live, sign up at the link below and I’ll send you the recording when it’s out.

But if you do attend live, I will give you a surprise gift that won’t be part of the recording.

Either way, if you do want to see this presentation, go here:

https://bejakovic.com/daniel-throssell-presentation

7-time Mr. Emailympia’s self-improvement habit

by

Werewolves were still roaming around when I woke up this morning. The clock showed 4:51am.

I lay around in the dark for a bit. I imagined laying around some more… but no! I jumped up, grabbed my stuff, and raced off to the 24-hour gym.

In case you’re starting to break out in a cold sweat, thinking this email is about seizing the day by the tail… don’t worry. The fact is, I should have stayed in bed.

Because in a few minutes, there I was at the gym, sleepy and foggy-brained. Somewhere in this haze, I thought it would be a good idea to lift a weighted barbell over my head.

My mind was elsewhere. My muscles were tired. I staggered forward under the unexpected weight… braked by standing up on my tiptoes… swayed back and forth… and almost dropped the barbell, plates and all, onto my skull.

A moment later, I stood there, looking at the now-harmless barbell on the floor. And I remembered something that 7x Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger once said:

“Doing an exercise once with awareness is worth ten times an exercise done while distracted.”

Good advice for the gym.

But maybe you don’t care for the gym.

Maybe you just care for better marketing and stronger copy.

In that case, I can share a related idea by 7x Mr. Emailympia, John Bejakovic.

Here’s a little habit I used to practice in the old days of writing this email newsletter.

First, I made a list of what I called “1% improvements.” These were things that I knew made for better emails… but that I didn’t practice regularly. Not with any awareness at least.

My habit was to pick one of these 1% improvements each week. And for the rest of the week, with each email I wrote, I consciously and awarely practiced that idea.

Result?

Wealth, fame, and, like I said, 7 Mr. Emailympia titles so far. And who knows what the future holds? Hollywood stardom… a career in politics… or maybe marriage to a Kennedy.

So I’d like to suggest to you:

Make your own list of “1% improvements.” Pick one each week. Bring your awareness to it. And watch your returns compound, just like they are doing for me.

“Incorrect,” I hear an accountant saying. “In order for returns to compound, you have to keep your investment alive. And you said you stopped your 1% habit. Therefore, you are not compounding anything, you meathead.”

Fair point. So as of today, I’d like to announce I’m picking up this “1% improvement” habit again.

I won’t spell out which specific habit I’m working on this week. Maybe you can spot it in today’s email. And if not, don’t worry. You get another chance tomorrow. I’ll be back.