Infotainment

Once upon a time

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It was a dark and stormy morning, and the anti-hero of our story, Bond Jebakovic, was sitting in a dimly-lit coffee shop — one of the few dimly-lit coffee shops in this otherwise-sunny Catalan town, for Barcelona is where our story takes place — sipping a latte, his bloodshot eyes glued to the door.

Bond was on a top-secret mission, and he was desperate for intel.

Suddenly, a woman walked in.

​​She was wearing a raincoat and sunglasses, though, as mentioned, it was a dark and stormy morning, and sunglasses were really not required. ​​Maybe it was for effect? Or maybe she had something to hide?

The woman looked around. The coffee shop was empty except for Bond, who was sitting on an uncomfortable bench in the corner.

The stranger walked to the counter and ordered. “Double espresso,” she said, “and one of those little pistachio cookies.”

While the barista busied himself with the order, the woman ambled around the coffee shop. ​​She approached and examined the large monstera plant in the corner. She walked to the large window and looked out to the gray street outside. Finally, she took a few steps towards Bond. ​​Without a sound, she dropped an envelope on the bench next to him.

​​Bond grabbed the envelope. ​On the face of it was a typewrittten title: Monday Morning Memo. Bond tore it open and started to read:

From: Research Dept. Head Roy H. Williams
21 Nov 2022, 7:11AM CET

Bond —

I was most pleased to hear you are still alive. Unfortunately, we can’t allow you any rest. You must deliver the following message immediately to AK. it’s a matter of life and death.

Start of Message:

Most stories should be told as fiction, even when they are true. When confronted with facts we are always on our guard. But the words, “Once Upon a Time” dispel doubt, open the imagination, and create a willing suspension of disbelief.

Case study from Agent William Lederer:

“I was a journalist and none of my books had sold very well, so I showed Jim the manuscript for my newest book. He told me to go back and fictionalize the name of the country, the characters, everything. Jim said to me, ‘The public is more willing to believe fiction than non-fiction.’”

Outcome:

* The resulting book, The Ugly American, stayed on the New York Times list for 78 weeks

* It was directly responsible for the creation of the Peace Corps

* Then-President John F. Kennedy bought a copy of the book for every member of Congress

* Historians speculate The Ugly American did more to change American Foreign Policy than any document since the Declaration of Independence

Bond rushed out of the coffee shop and started running down the street. AK’s apartment was just a block away, but as headquarters wrote, it was a matter of life and death.

Would AK be at home? Would Bond deliver the message in time? And what about those little pistachio cookies — were they any good?

All that, and more, on tomorrow’s installment of Bond Jebakovic Action Adventures. For a free trial subscription to this pulp daily email newsletter, click here and fill out the free trial subscription form.

I’ve done my best to hide a valuable lesson inside today’s email

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“I was in hell. I knew all the salesman’s tricks. Why wasn’t I rich? Why wasn’t I successful? I opened the Bible, and I read the 18th Psalm. ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress.’”

That’s from the “Christ in Commerce” sermon in Elmer Gantry, a 1960 film that I believe should be required viewing for anybody interested in copywriting, marketing, and influence.

Elmer Gantry should be required because fun should be required. And Elmer Gantry is a fun, loud, and entertaining film starring Burt Lancaster, possibly the most manly man of all time.

But Elmer Gantry should also be required because it’s about a huckster, a scammer, a traveling salesman turned revivalist preacher, once he figures out that preaching pays better than selling electric toasters.

Elmer Gantry tells of a time in US history that also gave birth to direct response advertising.

In fact, the Elmer Gantry type of big-tent sermonizing was a cousin discipline to direct response marketing.

​​It continues to be so to this day. Just think of people like Dan Kennedy and Tony Robbins — and the thousands of marketers who have learned from them — speaking in front of an audience of ten thousand, while a hungry sales team waits near the exits.

All right, that’s it for my email today. In case you’d like to learn how to write emails like this, you can find that inside my Most Valuable Email training. The link to that is below.

“Whoa there,” I hear you saying. “Why in the Elmer Gantry would I want to learn to write emails like this? Just something from an old movie? Where’s the cleverness or the conceit in that? Where’s the valuable marketing idea? What exactly did I learn here?”

I promise there’s a valuable idea in this email, and it’s not just that Elmer Gantry is a fun film.

Perhaps you can figure out this idea on your own.

In any case, you can find it explicitly explained in MVE #14 in the Most Valuable Email Swipes, which is something you get with core MVE training. In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Gratuitous fun to make readers stand up and beg for buttermilk

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For the first 20 or 30 years of my life, I had this serious mental defect where I couldn’t enjoy a good bangemup action movie.

“So unrealistic,” I snuffled. “So predictable.” That’s how I wasted decades of my life.

Thank God I’ve grown up.

​​Because now I can watch and enjoy movies like True Lies, James Cameron’s 1994 action comedy.

​​True Lies stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as super spy/boring suburban dad Harry Tasker, and Jamie Lee Curtis as his stodgy/talented wife Helen.

The initial reason I watched True Lies was the following famous line. It’s delivered by a used car salesman who’s trying to seduce Helen and is unwittingly confiding to Harry about it:

“And she’s got the most incredible body, too, and a pair of titties that make you wanna stand up and beg for buttermilk. Ass like a ten year old boy!”

Which modern Hollywood screenplay would dare have that?

But even beyond the risky dialogue, I was surprised by how fun this movie is. I guess that’s the only word to describe it. For example, as the movie goes on, you get to see:

– an old man sitting on a public toilet, calmly reading a newspaper, during the first shootout between Harry and the bad guy

– Harry riding a horse into an elevator, and an aristocratic couple in the elevator getting whipped in the face by the horse’s tail

– Tia Carrere (the evil seductress in the movie) rushing to grab her purse before the bad guys drop a box with a nuclear warhead onto it

– a pelican landing on a teetering van full of terrorists and sending it crashing off the bridge

– Harry saving the day flying a military jet, perfectly landing the plane on a city street, and then accidentally bumping a cop car

The point is that all these details are what I call “gratuitous fun.”

They weren’t in any way central to the action of the movie… and even the comedic part of the plot could have done without them.

They were just pure, unnecessary fun that made the movie sparkle a bit more. And I guess they helped it become the success that it was, netting almost $400 million in 1994 dollars.

I think the message is clear:

This year, surprise your readers with some gratuitous fun in your online content, in your sales messages, and even your one-to-one business communication.

​​People love James Cameron’s movies. They will love your stuff, too. In fact, you’ll make them wanna stand up and beg for buttermilk. Whatever that means.

And if you are too close to your own marketing to know what “gratuitous fun” might look like… well, maybe you can get some ideas from my own marketing. If you like, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter here.

Drop your phone in the toilet, grab a cup of coffee, and read this whole email word for word

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About two weeks ago, I got a surprise:

Dan Kennedy started sending me emails.

I’m not 100% how this happened. In the past, I’ve signed up for email newsletters on various DK websites.

​​As I’ve written before, I’m a big Dan Kennedy fan and I had high hopes.

But it always turned out the emails were not written by Dan. They were just random pitches for various DK stuff. Each time, I eventually ended up unsubscribing.

And yet, two weeks ago, I suddenly started getting emails from Dan again. And they are great.

I don’t think these new emails are actually written by Dan either, not now, not as emails. It’s probably just old Dan content, repurposed for the email format by some marketing monkey working under Russell Brunson, who has bought up Dan’s entire business.

Still, it’s great stuff, full of humor and valuable ideas. For example, here’s one bit from a recent DK email which caught my eye:

One of the great litmus tests of a newsletter is when yours arrives, are people so excited about it that they drop whatever they’re doing, take their phone and lock it in the trunk of their car, get a cup of coffee, then eagerly sit down to go through it? At least a quick skim to see what’s there and then say, “Tonight, when I have more time, I’m gonna read the whole thing word for word.” Is that how they react?

This caught my eye because last month, I launched my Most Valuable Postcard.

​​MVP is not a newsletter — really, it’s an un-newsletter. It covers tried-and-proven marketing principles rather than new techniques and tactics.

I was wondering how people would react to this approach, and to the format of the postcard. Well, initial reactions are starting to filter in.

One MVP subscriber, who shall remain unnamed, said that in the excitement of receiving her postcard, she ended up dropping her phone into the toilet (the phone survived).

​​Sure, a house is not a home, and a toilet is not a trunk. But it may be even better.

And as for reading the whole postcard word for word, MVP subscriber Jakub Červenka just wrote me to say:

Hey John,

Just wanted to let you know I just got your postcard. I am only half-way through your horror stories, but I am already sure you over-delivered on value.

And I have a feeling that your postcard newsletter thingie is case-in-point study in putting in work up front for your prospects.

I don’t have yet enough money / business big enough to be able to afford you, but you making this whole thing so personal, I cannot think of anyone I’d rather work with once I am launching my funnel in English market..

But in the meantime, I am pre-sold already on any copywriting course you may sell in future.

And my mind is already spinning trying to come up with ways I could use what I am learning from you into my business.

Thank you for inspiration, it is awesome!

Jakub has only read half the postcard so far. That’s hardly word-for-word reading… but as far a testimonial for MVP, I don’t think I could ask for anything better.

Still, I’m still not sure what to do with this project.

Like Jakub says, it’s very personal… but also very unscalable.

If I ever reopen this offer to new subscribers, I might tweak the format, and I will certainly increase the price.

But if that doesn’t turn you away, and you want the chance to lock your phone in your trunk or at least fumble it into the toilet when you get a postcard in the mail from me, you can sign up for my (free) daily email newsletter, so you can get notified if I reopen MVP again.

A fun and easy email about “appointment marketing”

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I’m in this bantering WhatsApp group with a few friends that I studied with. In the group, we exchange stupid jokes and tabloid headlines, and we reminisce about times spent drinking together.

I’m very happy to join in all that.

But sooner or later, the conversation turns to Netflix and the shows people are watching. Whenever this happens, I sit there, a frozen smile on my face, with nothing to contribute, quietly desperate inside, waiting for the storm to pass.

I stopped watching TV a long time ago, and I completely missed out on the streaming revolution. I never got into any of the millions of streaming shows.

I wish my friends never got into them either, so I wouldn’t have to sit on the sidelines during the latest rounds of, “It was soooooo good, you should check it out!”

So it was with some malicious glee today that I read an article on Vulture, about Netflix’s recent troubles.

The article came out late last month, on the heels of news that Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in 10 years. Netflix’s stock price dropped 35% as a result, erasing over $50 billion worth of value in one day.

“Good,” I cackled to myself, rubbing my hands together. ​​

But you know what? I might not watch Netflix, but I do care what they do as a company.

Because like Ben Settle has been pointing out for years, we have entered the age of entertainment. Today, not only your education or selling, but even your entertainment, needs to be presold through entertainment and still more entertainment.

And who better to learn from than the hottest entertainment provider today? That’s why I figure Netflix’s hits and misses are both worth studying.

The Vulture article gives an interesting analysis of what has been going wrong at Netflix. The article deserves digging up and reading in full. Here I will share just one fun and easy thing with you.

Netflix innovated binge watching. All episodes of a show were dumped to the public at the same time.

That means you can spend a weekend in bed, eating Nutella out of the jar, and watching episode after episode of Bridgerton until nausea sets in, either from the show or from Nutella.

But while binge watching got Netflix a cult of rabid fans to start, it has its drawbacks, which are now surfacing.

One drawback is obvious. The lifetime of a binged show tends to be short.

The second drawback is less obvious. Many people like the opposite of binge watching, something the Vulture article calls “appointment TV.”

For example, knowing (once upon a time) that Seinfeld is coming on at 9pm every Thursday isn’t just about having a ritual for a Thursday evening for an entire year.

It also creates expectation and excitement.

It allows viewers to bond with their friends who are also watching the same show.

And maybe most important, it allows people the pleasure of sharing and converting others, getting you free publicity, and money money money.

So what exactly am I telling you to do?

Absolutely nothing.

​​In fact, if you remember anything from this email, remember my disappointed face whenever I hear the conversation turn to Netflix recommendations… and remember my fiendish cackling whenever I read about Neflix’s troubles.

Because I figure that for anything like “appointment marketing” to work, it takes more than just a regular schedule.

The content itself must be fun and easy. Even a hint of work or seriousness is probably deadly.

So in the interest of having you go on Twitter to share the latest Bejako email… or tell your friends that my newsletter is soooooo good and they havetocheckitout… I will stop myself here. And I will go peek in my WhatsApp group, maybe for some political memes to make me chuckle.

And on the next episode of Bejako…

Well, that episode will air tomorrow, at around 8pm CET, in your inbox, in case you sign up for my fun and easy email newsletter.

I’m sorry Ms. Jackson

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This one right here goes out to all the email copywriters… the business owners who write their own emails… maybe even those with a YouTube channel.

Here’s the story:​​

A few weeks ago, a music industry insider named Ted Gioia made a big splash by writing an article with the title:

“Is Old Music Killing New Music?”

Gioia had a bunch of stats and anecdotes to prove that old music — stuff that came out 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago — is crowding out the new music being produced today.

Gioia has his theory for why this is.

Basically, he says, record company execs just wants to get a piece of the American pie to take their bite out. So they keep giving people tried-and-true stuff. They’re not willing to take risks.

It’s short-term thinking, Gioia says. Because ironically, the execs are making themselves irrelevant in the process. But one way or another, the fact remains, in Gioia’s words:

“Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact.”

In my own uninformed yet subjective opinion, this is part of a bigger trend.

It’s not only music that’s getting old. I think it’s movies also, and perhaps other pop culture too.

This matters for marketers.

Because from what I’ve seen writing approximately a billion sales emails… pop culture always gets a great response.

Pop culture references turns you into a magician who can abracadabra a sales point… get people to enjoy it… and maybe even get them to buy.

So what exactly am I telling you?

Well, it’s the same thing that some 40 years ago, A-list copywriter Gene Schwartz said:

“If a movie does a hundred million dollars or more, especially a movie that does two hundred or three hundred million dollars or more, I would go to it two or three times.”

This is a good idea today just as it was in Gene’s time.

Go see blockbusters. But make sure you see the same ones that Gene was talking about, like Lethal Weapon and Home Alone and Pulp Fiction.

In other words, don’t take risks with any of this new stuff. Give people the tried-and-true. And keep doing it. Forever. Forever-ever. For-EVER-ever.

“Whoa there Bejako,” you say. ​”You’ve been handing out a lot of careless and maybe even harmful advice lately.”

Oh yeah, like what?​

“Well, like ​first you said to bet on the Bengals for the Super Bowl. We know how that turned out. Then a couple days ago you almost got me sucked into QAnon.”

That was an honest mistake.
​
“Whatever. The point is, now you’re telling me to pander to my audience with references to Fleetwood Mac and Kill Bill. But isn’t this the same short-term thinking as those record company execs? Won’t I be making myself irrelevant in the process?”

I don’t know. You might be right. I might be wrong. So all I can say is:

I’m sorry dear reader. I am for real. Never meant to send you bad advice. I apologize a trillion times.

But I’ll do more than apologize.

I’ll tell you how to avoid pandering and talk about pop culture your audience isn’t familiar with, without taking much of a risk. That’s in my email tomorrow. I hope you’ll read it. You and your mama.

Deadline in the air tonight

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“You know the song by Phil Collins, ‘In the Air of the Night’
About that guy who coulda saved that other guy from drownin’
But didn’t, then Phil saw it all, then at a show he found him?”
– Eminem, Stan

I just found out that Phil Collins’s famous hit In The Air Tonight is not about a drowning that Phil witnessed. I thought it was for years, apparently like Eminem and millions of other people. But no. It turns out to be just an urban legend. Says Phil:

“So what makes it even more comical is when I hear these stories which started many years ago, particularly in America, of someone come up to me and say, ‘Did you really see someone drowning?’ I said, ‘No, wrong.’ And then every time I go back to America the story gets Chinese whispers, it gets more and more elaborate. It’s so frustrating, ’cause this is one song out of all the songs probably that I’ve ever written that I really don’t know what it’s about, you know?”

I know, Phil. It’s gotta be frustrating. Still, it’s a hell of a story… and maybe you should have kept quiet about the bland real origin of the song.

But whatever. Phil can’t hear me. Maybe you can. So let me admit why I bring all this up:

In The Air Tonight has been playing in my head all evening long. In part, because it’s getting late. In part, because I don’t want to be accused, like that mysterious person in Phil’s song, of standing by and not lending a hand to a drowning man.

So here’s me, making a last effort to help you out:

The deadline to enroll in my Copy Riddles program is nearing. The cart will close in a few hours, at midnight PST.

Maybe you couldn’t care less and you’re just fine, right where you are. But if you have any interest in enrolling in Copy Riddles, consider this a lifebuoy I’m throwing you. To grab it and use it while there’s still time:

https://copyriddles.com/

Tom Cleveland continues his productive NYT snooping

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How do veterans of #vanlife feel about all the newbies? Can you make a statement about your gender, when there’s no one there to watch you? And is that “maskne” on your face, or is it plain old acne?

In case you want answers to any of these questions, head on over to the New York Times website. As I write, these stories are all up on the home page.

A guy named Tom Cleveland has been snooping on the Times. I wrote about him a few weeks ago. Through his snooping, he discovered how the NYT makes its headlines more dramatic through A/B testing.

Now Cleveland has put out a part two to his research. It’s about which stories linger on the Times digital front page. And the breakdown is this:

News: 46.6%
Opinion: 22.2%
Feature: 31.1%

“Categories and numbers, huh?” Let me translate what I think this means.

“News” you’re probably familiar with. “U.S. Adds 916,000 Jobs in Sign of Surging Labor Market.” No thrills there.

“Opinion” is a little more fluid. It includes hard-hitting editorial such as “The unsettling power of Easter” (also on the NYT front page right now) as well as the “If a gender falls in the forest” piece above.

And then there’s “Features.” This is apparently an industry term for pure fluff — your typical #vanlife and maskne pieces.

So adding up Opinion and Feature, we get that the NY Times shows this type of content 54.3% of the time on its front page. In other words, this is most of what they show — because it’s most of what people want to see.

Please believe me:

This is not my ant-sized attack on the elephant that is the New York Times. Instead, I just want to point out that people always want human-interest stuff, first and foremost.

If you’re in the business of feeding people whatever, just to sell subscriptions and ads, they you might as well stick to fluff or tabloid content.

On the other hand, perhaps you have an important message to share with the world. But you worry that your topic puts people to sleep. Or gives them a headache.

Don’t worry. It’s an easy problem to fix. Just wrap your dry, complex topic in a thick human-interest sandwich. People will happily devour it, all the way to the end. ​​Here’s an example from an email I wrote last year:

“It’s a story of family betrayal… of breakthrough ideas, conceived in prison… of a small group of desperate visionaries who took an almost occult science… and combined it with a strange, untested new technology… to create the foundations of an industry worth over a quarter trillion dollars.”

Do you know what that paragraph was about? It’s about dry, technical topic. Namely, direct marketing, told through the colorful characters who dun it — Claude Hopkins, Gary Halbert, Ken McCarthy. And if you want to know how that story developed, you might like to sign up to my very human-friendly email newsletter.

How to create a selling style people love to read

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Let’s talk about the infamous Arthur P. Johnson.

I say “infamous” because the man was as unlikely as anyone ever to become a successful sales copywriter.

Johnson graduated from Swarthmore College with highest honors. He then went to Oxford University for a graduate degree. He had ambitions of becoming a poet, and a backup plan of becoming an academic.

Yet, through a chance runin at a bar with a former classmate, Johnson gradually got sucked into the world of direct response. He first worked at the Franklin Mint, writing copy for collectibles (a good education — how do you sell something with no obvious benefits?).

He next worked in product development at another collectibles company. Finally, even though he did not want to write copy any more, he stumbled into freelance copywriting. And that’s when things really took off.

Johnson wrote controls for a number of major publishers, including Boardroom and Agora. He made himself a fortune in the process.

He was so successful he made it onto Brian Kurtz’s Mount Rushmore of greatest copywriters, along with Parris Lampropoulos, David Deutsch, and Eric Betuel.

And here’s the lesson. When Arthur P. Johnson was asked what he attributes his success to, he said the following:

“I think that I’m able to sell products in a more entertaining way than a lot of other people are. I think that being entertaining while you are selling is a big key to success in a very crowded marketplace these days, because you really have to buy people’s attention.”

Johnson did most of his work in the 90s and 2000s. But this lesson, about having to be entertaining to sell, is even more true today than it was back then.

I’m proof of this.

Not with these emails, where I rarely sell anything.

But starting earlier this year, I’ve helped move hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ecommerce products.

​​I’ve done it by writing emails, much like this one, that tell some kind of story or share a joke or just a funny picture. And those emails most often link to advertorials I also wrote… which contain more of the same — stories, fake personal confessions, and light humor (so I think).

The thing is, I’m not particularly entertaining in real life, or when writing things other than copy. In other words, all this entertainment stuff can be learned by rote.

So how do you learn it?

Two ways:

First, start paying attention to the books, shows, emails, and movies you yourself find entertaining.

Second, read or re-read Commandment IX of my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

No, this chapter is not a how-to for writing entertaining copy. But it will give you some successful examples of such copy that are running right now.

Plus it will even give you some advice on who and what to study if you want to get better at entertaining in your copy.

And once you start to entertain in your copy, expect people to comment on how interesting your writing is. Expect to have them say how they look forward to hearing from you. And most of all, expect to have them buy — as long as you’ve got anything to sell.

Speaking of which, I happen to have something to sell tonight. In case you don’t yet have my 10 Commandments book, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

A VSL lead idea from the Harmon Brothers Agora ad

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I watched the Harmon Brothers Agora video today.

​​You might know what I’m talking about. It’s a humorous, viral-style video by the same people who made the one for Purple Mattress — except this one is selling an Agora stock-picking service.

This video is deadpan because it moves so quickly. I counted 17 jokes — visual, verbal, and physical – in the first 60 seconds alone. That’s a joke every 3.5 seconds, and I might have missed some.

When I first saw this video, I thought it was mostly a ripoff of Will Farrell movies. But I now realize it’s actually inspired by The Simpsons, which had the same rapidfire sequence of jokes.

​​Each joke might not be spectacular in itself. But the jokes are staggered in such quick fashion and edited so tightly that your brain starts to play along.

Unfortunately, the type of humor in the Harmon Brothers video is hard to replicate in writing. Instead, this might be a good way to write a lead, particularly for a VSL in gotta-wow-em markets like bizopp or weight loss. Here’s the recipe:

Take everything you want to say, all your promises, open loops, proof, objections and rebuttals, and write an obnoxiously long lead. Don’t be shy. Then boil it down through merciless editing by at least 10%, preferably much, much more.

The resulting copy will have so much momentum, that even if none of your individual claims or promises is all that unique or impressive or believable, you will simply blitz your reader’s brain into sticking with you through the first few minutes. And that, as they say is, 50% of the battle.

For more rapidfire copy ideas, you might like my daily email newsletter. If you’re interested, sign up here.