Insight Marketing

It’s as easy as ABC

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Maybe you’ve heard?

Google and Meta are now on trial for creating apps that are addicting to children.

No?

You haven’t heard?

Well I have heard. Or rather, yesterday I read an article about it.

I have little to say about the actual substance of this case, since I have neither children nor any apps, but I thought something else in the story was very interesting.

Trial lawyer Mark Lanier, who is representing the plaintiffs, was using all kinds of sticky messaging strategies. A few examples:

1. “They don’t only build apps; they build traps.”

2. “They didn’t want users, they wanted addicts.”

And my favorite…

3. “This case is as easy as ABC. Addicting the Brains of Children.” [Lanier also had some toy blocks to spell out ABC]

I looked up this Lanier guy.

Turns out he’s one of the biggest trial lawyers in the US. He’s represented plaintiffs against big corporations like Johnson & Johnson and Merck, and has been able to win ~$20 billion in damages for his clients.

And get this. In an asbestos damage trial, Lanier used the same ABC strategy as in the recent Meta and Google trial:

“This case is as easy as ABC. Asbestos, breathed in, causes cancer.”

My point for you today is as easy as ABC:

Aphorisms. Boost. Conversions.

(Particularly if you can get them to form an “ABC” acronym.)

If you’re interested in more ways to make your message sticky and persuasive, I have a book recommendation for you.

It’s a book I’ve read only once but that has been immensely sticky in my head, in part because the entire message of the book is summed but up in an easy-to-remember acronym (you’ll have to read it to find out).

I think this book is so important if you thrive or starve by how well you persuade people that I have repeatedly said I would include it in the first-semester required reading of my mythical AIDA School.

In case you’re interested in getting your hand on the ABC’s of effective messaging:

https://bejakovic.com/sticky

How to write a really great hook

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A hook, as you prolly know, is how you pull people into your marketing message. It’s the core sexy idea in the headline of your ad, or the lead of your sales letter, or the top half of your email.

A few famous hooks:

* “The lazy man’s way” (to riches, to comb your hair)

* “Do you make these mistakes” (in English, in your underpants)

* A picture of a dapper man with an eyepatch [to sell dress shirts, or a parrot]

So how do you write a really great hook?

I don’t know. I wish I did. Consider the following:

For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking, on and off, about creating a $1k+ offer that sells 3-5 times a month.

At some point, I created a 1-page overview of how I have already guided a few people to that outcome, and I started offering that to people on my list, if they reply to say they want it.

Here are the email hooks I’ve used, and the number of people who responded to ask for the 1-pager:

Jan 10. Hook: “Where to buy crack.” Responses: 26.

Jan 11. Hook: “Taking credit for your rock star clients’ results.” Responses: 14.

I then spent some time talking about the promise of a $1k+ offer, without directly offering the 1-pager. I eventually offered the 1-pager again and…

Jan 22. Hook: “You’re probably creating too many products.” Responses: 7.

7 replies for a free and short and valuable PDF? At this point, I figure I’ve pretty much tapped out demand. I still try one more time and…

Jan 23, yesterday. Hook: “Really great price on coaching.” Responses 39, including my own father, an economist, who wrote, “Dear John i really need this paper for the subject I teach on the prices. Kind regards”

In case you’re as bad with numbers as I am, my point is that the responses I got, while making the same offer to my list, day after day, with different hooks, went like this:

Big, small, tiny, BIGGEST.

That’s contrary to all intuition, but that’s the power of a really great hook.

And if I knew how to write one regularly, I would write one regularly.

But my best advice for how to write a really great hook is to write a bunch of hooks, to serve them up to your market, and to let the market surprise you by which ones they love and which ones they treat like blood pudding.

If you want my help coming up with hooks for your daily emails — some good, some meh, some AMAZING — I’ve got a service just for that. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The next step

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A couple days ago, I heard a very smart marketer share a story from the trenches:

Back in the day, during the ClickBank wars, this marketer used to do webinars to promote offers from other offer owners.

The owner of one such offer told this marketer, “My upsells are sucking. Don’t be mad if you promote and nobody buys the upsells.”

The very smart marketer said, “We’ll fix that.”

He spent most of the webinar talking, not about the offer on sale, but about why folks need the upsells that will be available if they buy the front-end offer.

In a way, he flipped the script, or reversed the normal order of selling. He talked past the actual thing on sale, and focused entirely on the step after.

Result:

60% upsell take, and though it wasn’t mentioned when I heard the story, I imagine higher front-end conversions also.

In case you’re tempted to file this away in your mental folder of “interesting but useless factoids about webinar selling”:

This isn’t about just upsells, and it’s certainly not just about webinars.

As the very smart marketer put it:

“Any step that you know is coming, you want to presell or preframe that first.”

In entirely unrelated news, let me tell you about my own plans for the rest of this month.

This February, starting February 3, I will be going for a ride. I will also be taking a few folks along with me. You have the opportunity to come with.

The destination is a $1k+ offer, which you can sell 3-5 copies of per month, and which you can deliver in 5-6 hours total to start and then faster and faster each time you sell it.

You don’t need a lot in case you want to go for this ride with me.

I’ll provide the car (well, minivan), the route planning, the music, and maybe some snacks and drinks along the way.

What you will need:

A pair of sunglasses (to look cool), a small but dedicated audience, and knowledge or experience you can pass on to people.

(If you’ve previously thought of or tried selling “coaching” or “mentoring” to your audience, you are most likely ready to go, even if nobody took you up on your offer. We’ll fix that.)

For the rest of this month, I’ll be talking about this ride, and seeing who would like to come with me. I already have people who have expressed interest in various ways, and I will be starting with them.

Meanwhile, you might be interested in my Daily Email Habit service.

It makes it easier to email daily, which is key to being able to sell 3-5 copies of a $1k+ offer even with a small audience. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Taking credit for your rock star clients’ results

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A few days ago, I was on a call with “Rebelpreneur” Gasper Crepinsek.

Over the past couple years, Gasper built an online brand teaching people AI. He’s still doing that, but this year he is going broader, using his background as an ex-Boston Consulting guy to help people build actual and sustainable businesses online.

I helped Gasper launch a $1k+ offer last month.

We worked on it together for a couple weeks, then Gasper went out and sold it to three people in his audience in a matter of days. He then started delivering the actual offer.

Result: One of Gasper’s clients already closed his own sales and is making money as a result of working just a few weeks with Gasper.

About that, Gasper said, “He’s attributing it to me, but I told him, ‘It’s all you.'”

My message to Gasper on our call, and maybe to you now, is to take credit where you’ve earned it.

Sure, it’s smart to sell to people who would succeed with or without you. When they do inevitably succeed, there’s a glow on you as well.

That doesn’t mean you can’t take some of the credit, and legitimately.

Even if somebody is an absolute rock star, you can inspire them… you can push them a bit… you can guide them through a process so they get results faster, sooner, easier, more enjoyably than they might have done otherwise.

In Gasper’s case, his client might have done something similar in another 3 or 6 months. But because of working with Gasper, he’s got another, say, $5k in the bank, today.

That’s pretty much what my situation is with Gasper as well.

The dude was succeeding and would have succeeded more, one way or another, with or without me.

But I helped him come up with a simple, attractive offer that, from the looks of it, will be his main, high-ticket, backend money-maker for the coming year. (Gasper says, “It’s crazy how much people like it,” meaning the offer).

Is having a $1k+ offer, which you can readily sell to your list, something that interests you?

If so, hit reply and let me know.

You can’t buy anything here. But if you do reply, I’ll give you a 1-page overview of the process that I guided Gasper through, so you can go do it yourself if you like.

The BEST kind of infotainment, for me, now

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… is listicles. Let me give you 10 reasons why.

No, listicles ain’t it, though my recent email with 10 reasons why auctions can beat launches did work well. It drew a bunch of interest, including from some very successful course creators and audience owners.

I don’t think it was the listicle part of that email that did it. Rather, I think there were a few other reasons why that email drew big fish from deep under the surface of my email list.

Would you like to know what I think is the biggest of those reasons?

Would you like to know what I believe is the BEST kind of infotainment right now, which draws in even sophisticated and big-time marketers and business owners… and which also happens to be the only kind of infotainment I still regularly consume?

It’s not funny stories about what happened around the kitchen table last night…

… not personal reveals of childhood trauma…

… not pop culture references…

… not historical anecdotes…

… not insightful analogies that put familiar facts into a new context…

… not rants and raves…

… not, like I said, listicles.

Nothing wrong with any of those, and you can weave them into your emails, as I do, often.

But on their own, all of these have become insufficient, at least to draw my weary attention and interest.

Rather, the BEST kind of infotainment, in my immodest opinion, because it is the the ONLY kind of infotainment that still sucks me in on a consistent basis, is…

“What’s working for me now”

(… and its flip side, “What’s not working for me any more.”)

It’s important to highlight this is still infotainment. It’s still there to attract and give your readers momentary pause, to allow people to nod along for a minute and say hmmm.

It’s not heavy-handed teaching or nuance or complexity. And its ultimate and not-so-secret goal is still to sell – you as a trustworthy and successful and relatable person, and your current offer, whatever that may be, as a worthwhile and credible opportunity.

Why does “What’s working FOR ME now” work so well, for me, and on me?

Under the shiny “NOW” hood, it’s still the old-fashioned engine, made up of news and benefit and proof.

Except, in today’s world, news spreads quickly and soon stops being news, often before your audience has had a chance to even see your message.

And as for proof, we’ve all become skeptical and jaded and suspicious.

The fix to both is to share, not “What’s working now,” but “What’s working FOR ME now.” Not, “How TO” but “How I.”

So there you go.

Whether you’re new or established, my suggestion is to write more “What’s working FOR ME now” content.

Not only will it draw in even sophisticated readers, but it will force you to try out new things in your business, make them work for you, and then figure out how to package that up in a sexy and sellable way. And if you’re constantly doing that, you will find success, and soon.

By the way, “What’s working FOR ME now” is an expansive category that allows for lots of different experiments and reports.

One small slice of that category is what I’ve called my Most Valuable Email trick.

The Most Valuable Email trick allows you to create “What’s working FOR ME now” content quickly, without taking weeks or months to run an experiment and collect and process results.

In fact, I used the Most Valuable Trick in this very email. And like I say on the sales page, you can get going with it in an hour from now. If you’d like more info, or to get started today:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Hot new “no cure, no pay” repackaging of a service offer

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Long-time reader and customer Rasmus Gullaksen writes in reply to my email yesterday:

===

A bit unrelated, but I came up with a new ghostwriting offer for my audience a few weeks ago. And I’ve never experienced so much demand for a service EVER. literally had 25 ish people write to be about this offer after promoting it 2-3 times on LinkedIn.

Most LinkedIn ghostwriters sell 6-8 monthly posts for X amount. But that has all the risk on the clients side (if the posts dont perform, the client still pays) and no big upside for the ghostwriter (if 8 posts do well and make a lot of money, the ghostwriter doesnt get anything more)

So I came up with the offer (a kind of No cure, no pay ghostwriting)

1. I’ll overhaul your LinkedIn profile page for $1k (so it sells better)

2. And then I’ll ghostwrite for you for free until you get a new client from your content, and only once that happen, I get a cut off the amount you make from that deal. If it takes 10 posts to get there, the client wins (10 free posts) and then they also get a new client (win for them, win for me) + I don’t make any commitment to post X times for them, I just post as many as I think are necessary + ramp up if things go well etc. I then get paid only if my content gets them results, and that only gets easier and more lucrative as time goes.

Right now im just trying to figure out what kind of business owner has the best business model for me to do this for. Currently helping a motivational speaker, a legal advisor, and a SaaS founder.

===

I think what Rasmus is doing is… absolutely GREAT.

There’s lots of clever stuff going on in Rasmus’s offer above. What I wanna focus on is a super basic thing, which I believe drives this whole thing – that this is a service offer with a guaranteed outcome.

Is that really so hard?

To come up with a specific outcome for the service you provide… and to find a way to guarantee that outcome?

At least for some clients? And to then factor out your risk, by making this offer ONLY to those right kinds of clients?

If you offer services — copywriting, media buying, dog walking — maybe it’s worth thinking about how and for who you could provide a guaranteed, bundled up outcome.

Maybe it can mean you sell more easily… have an easier time with delivery… AND make more money?

Putting the idea out there.

If you already do this, and guarantee an outcome with some of the services you offer, write in and let me know.

I wanna hear your experiences. And who knows, maybe I end up promoting you and your offer, like with Rasmus above.

Become an investigative reporter with high-level salesmanship skills

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A bit of Bejako background:

I went to high school in a rich suburb of Baltimore, Maryland (we weren’t rich, but ok).

All the other kids in my class were ambitious and smart (one girl’s dad later won the Nobel Prize in chemistry). They worked hard their entire high school days. They ended up going to schools like Princeton and Stanford, and became lawyers and doctors and architects.

Meanwhile, 17-year-old Bejako had zero drive to go to college, and had no idea what kind of work he might ever want to do.

His best guess — the only option that kind of turned him on – was the idea of moving down to Annapolis, Maryland’s small, quaint, maritime capital, and becoming a reporter on some local newspaper that covered state politics.

Fast-forward to the present, and switch back to the first person:

While I never became a small-town reporter, the same lack of ambition and non-entrepreneurial nature I had in high school has stuck with me throughout life, now into middle age.

I am really not motivated by money, try as I have to change that. I’ve also never thought of myself as an entrepreneur or online business owner. And yet, that’s kind of what I’m doing now, and what’s more, I’m not really qualified to do anything else.

I’m telling you all this because a couple nights ago, I was reading a book about direct marketing. It said the following:

“Understanding your ultimate prospect has nothing to do with creativity. It requires relentless, investigative salesmanship. You need to become an investigative reporter with high-level salesmanship skills.”

“Hm,” I said to my pillow. “An investigative reporter on the salesmanship beat? That’s something I can imagine myself doing.”

And in fact, the very next day, I told myself to treat what I’m doing as investigative reporter. I started collecting data about offers I had made, successful or unsuccessful. I came up with theories about why things turned out as they did. I started trying to write up a story that makes sense that fits the data to the theory.

It’s been fun and it’s getting me to do things I should have been doing all along.

My point is not that you specifically should start treating your business as an investigative reporter.

My point is that, if “value-creating entrepreneur” or “small business owner” doesn’t really feel like a suit that fits you, there lots of other suits you can put on, including ones that you like the look of. And it will still be you inside the suit.

You gotta do certain things to see success if you have an email list and want to make money with it. Selling is one of them. Understanding your audience is another. Creating new offers is still another. But there are lots of ways to get yourself to do those things, including things that align with your own natural motivations and ambitions.

Or in the words of Internet marketer Rich Schefren, “Put your business goals of your self-development goals.” It’s much more likely you will see success if you work with your own psychology, rather than trying to change it.

So much for Monday Morning Mindset.

For some specific strategies on how to take your existing skills and interests and turn them into money, enough to pay for a house:

https://bejakovic.com/house

How coaches and course creators can give confidence and lasting knowledge to their students

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Here’s a little riddle for ya:

– pine

– crab

– sauce

There’s a fourth word you can attach to each of these three words, which will lead to three other common words.

What is that fourth word?

While your brain works on that, I can tell you I riddled this riddle myself yesterday.

At first, nothing came to me in spite of trying. Then I gave up trying to guess the fourth word, much how the fox gave up trying to get the grapes, because they are unreachable and therefore must be sour.

But then, a few moments later, out of nowhere, without me seemingly doing anything and while I was busy thinking how this is a stupid riddle and how I don’t want to play, the fourth word popped up in my mind, covered by a thick syrup known as the feeling of insight.

The feeling of insight = that feeling of satisfaction, wonder, and possibility that happens when we emerge from the intellectual dark into light, when confusing and complex give way to simple and certain.

I read an article yesterday about the new neurology of insight. Basically, scientists have now pinned down the areas of the brain that light up when we come up with a solution to riddles like the one above, and we feel insight.

The names of those brain areas aren’t very interesting, unless you yourself are a neuroscientist.

What is interesting is something the article called the “insight-memory advantage.”

Basically, experiences of insight make people remember associated facts better than when they are simply told facts. This has practical applications, for example, if you are a coach or course creator. From the article:

“Applying insight-boosting strategies to teaching could lead to better learning outcomes for students. Insight seems to be a powerful and positive experience that generates accurate solutions, confidence in our answers and strong memories.””

So how do you generate a feeling of insight in your students?

I will leave you to ponder that on your own, for possibly obvious reasons.

One “insight-boosting strategy” is sure to pop up soon, if it hasn’t already.

Meanwhile, if you write emails about marketing or copywriting, there’s a non-obvious way to create insight, which I’ve personally used to great effect. To find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Use your email list to pay for a house (cheaper than you might think!)

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Here are some fascinating financial facts:

The average monthly mortgage payment for a house in the US is $2,329. (If you’re not fascinated yet, hold on.)

Add in property taxes and insurance, you get up to around $3,000. (Getting intrigued?)

In high-cost states such as California and Massachusetts, the average monthly cost to pay for a house is as high as $3,600. (I bet you’re fascinated now, or at least feeling some tingles.)

At the same time, if you choose not to own, but to rent, like I do, then on average you are paying only about $1,800/month for a house, looking at all rentals around the U.S. (Ta-da!)

I’m fascinating you with all these facts because yesterday I reopened my Skool group, Daily Email House.

One new thing is that I started letting in people from my list into the group (previously the group was only for subscribers of my Daily Email Habit paid service).

I also made another change. While the group was previously just a kind of aimless social club, I decided to start having a “mission” for it.

Since I wanted to get this boat off the dock as quick as possible, and since most decisions in life are alterable, I set the mission to the first thing that came to mind, “Use your email list to pay for a house,” playing on the old name of the group.

Well, it seems like that off-the-cuff mission statement has resonated. For example, Steve Raju, of the on-and-off-but-wonderful “License to Quill” newsletter, joined the group and wrote:

“John, I think you should give away a house, every day, possibly forever, only via email.”

An old House member, copywriter GC Tsalamagkakis, also commented:

“And the fact that you can say ‘using daily emails to pay for a house;’ as a challenge for some people in a group and it actually makes sense is still mind-blowing to me.”

Most interestingly, a number of folks who applied to join the group, like this new member, listed as their #1 current goal some version of:

“Literally use my email list to pay for a house.”

Now let’s get back to those fascinating facts up top.

The average house in the US will cost you something like $3,600 a month.

That’s not a negligible amount if you have to pay it. On the other hand, it’s also not a sexy amount if you’re promising it as an bizopp inducement:

“Use your email list to make $3,600 per month!”

I doubt many people would have tripped over themselves running to take me up on that promise.

I can imagine I would even get some emails from all the copywriting experts on my list, reminding me of the importance of making a BIG promise in your marketing. And things would be even worse if I were to promise just the $1,800/month that’s needed to pay the average rent.

My point for you being that everybody promises money. That is lazy and ineffective. It only happens so much because money is easy to promise for the promiser, if that’s a word.

There’s a translation step that still needs to happen in your prospect’s head whenever you promise money.

Your prospect hears “money,” but then imagines a house, or a watch, or a vacation that money can buy. And when that translation happens, your prospect feels the warm glow of security, or improved social standing, or fun and freedom, feelings that “money” alone cannot generate.

So why not skip the translation step? Why not take the direct route to the result you want? I once heard copywriting coach David Garfinkel say:

“Either you do the work and get paid, or your prospect does the work and gets paid.”

Meaning, either you put in the work to translate your offer into terms that your prospect cares about on a bare-metal level… or your prospect has to do it, and more often than not, “gets paid” by not doing it and not handing you any of his or her money as a result.

That’s a little sales tip, in order to help you pay for a house using your email list. And if you’d like more support and help on that journey, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/house

How much is infotainment worth?

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How much is infotainment worth? I mean, how much do stories and pop culture analogies and outrage in your marketing sell, above and beyond what you could sell by appealing to personal interest alone?

I don’t know. As far as I know, nobody has ever tried to quantify it.

But I do know of an analogous situation, one that has been quantified. Check it:

Back in 1946, baseball club owner Bill Veeck was the first to introduce fireworks at a baseball game. The baseball establishment was outraged. “It cheapens this great and noble sport,” they said.

Veeck was undeterred. Eventually, other team owners came around, and today, fireworks are a standard addition to many major league games.

Of course, the change in attitude came down to money.

As Veeck argued and found to be true, fireworks at a baseball game pay for themselves many times over, primarily in the form of keeping fans at the stadium longer and selling more hotdogs and beer. When combined with a home-team win, the results are multiplicative. Here are the stats:

1. Lose game, no fireworks: X

2. Lose game, fireworks: 1.4X

3. Win game, no fireworks: 2X

4. Win game, fireworks: 3X

In my mind, this is analogous to selling with or without infotainment.

In this analogy, fireworks are the fun, infotainment, insight.

As for “winning the game,” that maps to your customers actually profiting from the product or the service that you sell.

And “extra money made via concessions” maps to how much more money your one-time customers are willing to spend with you in the future.

Do the baseball numbers above map perfectly to selling?

Again, I don’t know. I would be surprised if they mapped perfectly, But I do suspect they are indicative.

The fact is, infotainment has value in terms of customer loyalty and future willingness to buy. But it has far less value than a product that delivers real results. You can be unlikable or dull, and people will still buy from you, over and over, if they get value from what you sell.

Of course, if you both have a great offer that actually produces results… and you add in your stories and analogies and outrage… then you can look forward to really amazing profits, ones that insulate you from the ups and down of the market and the claws of the competition.

Now I got a favor to ask you, or rather, a deal to make with you:

I’m always on the lookout for great products to promote. The problem is, lots of stuff looks great on the outside. But does it actually deliver results? That’s where I’m hoping you can help me.

What’s a product or a service that you paid $200 or more for over the past year, which really delivered?

It could be an info product, a service, or something you paid to have done for you. And by “really delivered,” I’m not talking about being fun and diverting, but of giving you real value in your real life.

If you’re game, hit reply and let me know of stuff you’ve paid for that was a good investment.

In turn, I’ll reply to you and tell you three offers I’ve bought over the past year or so, all of which cost around $1k, all of which delivered real value to me, and all of which happened to be sold via infotainment.

Do we have a deal? If so, hit reply, and fire away.