Copywriting

How Edward Bernays manipulated me, and how he might do it again

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I once wrote an email with the subject line, “How I manipulated you, and how I might do it again.”

​​That email was all about the strategic use of inflammatory words — like “manipulated” — to get people reading stuff they might not read otherwise.

Well, Edward Bernays manipulated me, and I guess he manipulated millions of other people, too.

Right now, I’m reading Bernays’s book Propaganda. It’s been in print for the past 100 years, and it’s still discussed today, though I suspect few people who discuss it have ever read it.

Why do people know and discuss Propaganda? Because of that title. Propaganda. It’s like manipulated. On the one hand repulsive, on the other hand fascinating.

Imagine that Bernays had titled his book Public Relations — which is really what his book is about. Would we be talking about it today, much less reading it?

The answer is no. The proof is that Bernays did in fact write a book called Public Relations. Result?

Propaganda: 2,700+ reviews on Amazon
Public Relations: 74 reviews on Amazon — and I bet most of those only came via Bernays’s Propaganda fame

All that’s to say, hooks matter. And unless you hook someone right away, then all the other thousands of words you might have written won’t matter much.

But you knew that. It’s the oldest bit of advice traded around the copywriting bonfire.

What you might not know is how to write a great hook. How to make it sensational and inflammatory — propaganda for the rest of what you have to say.

About that. As Daniel Throssell wrote recently:

​The skill of coming up with a great hook, and the skill of making it sensational, are almost exactly the same as a tiny, mechanical, supposedly “niche” copywriting skill you probably do not yet possess.

​​But it’s a skill you can find out more about, and even acquire quickly, via the following page:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Jim Camp, plagiarist

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Last week, Ben Settle sent out an email in which he quoted a reader who said the following about negotiation coach Jim Camp:

“… his whole system for the most part comes from Dave Sandler and he never gives him credit, ever that I’ve heard. Now I realize he has done many things to make him an expert but he has never anywhere I’ve heard even mentioned Sandler.”

Ben is a big Jim Camp fan, and has infected many of his readers, me among them, with Jim Camp’s authority.

Ben shrugged off his reader’s comment, and said he had never heard of Sandler.

​​Neither had I. But I looked Sandler up. He was a sales trainer and he died in 1995.

I found a book of 49 of Sandler’s “Timeless Selling Principles.” Most of the rules line up very well with Camp’s system. And some line up exactly.

​​Take a quick look over the specific language in the chapter headings and summaries below, and you’ll see that Jim Camp was in fact taking a lot from Sandler. ​​From the book:

* “Don’t spill your candy in the lobby” [Camp swapped in “beans” for “candy”]

* “The best sales presentation you’ll ever give, the prospect will never see” [taken word-for-word]

* “The bottom line of professional selling is going to the bank” [Camp said “bottom line of negotiation…”]

* “You must be comfortable telling your prospect that it’s OK to say ‘No.’ You must also be comfortable hearing and accepting ‘No.'” [Camp used this pretty much word-for-word, and summed it up with the title of his book, Start With No.]

In that Ben Settle email, Ben wrote, “If you learn something that’s not common knowledge from a particular source it’s good to give credit.”

I’ve read and listened to Camp a lot, but I’ve never read or heard Camp credit Dave Sandler. I’ve heard him mention Peter Drucker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, even Gloria Steinam, but never Sandler. (I checked just now, and Sandler is credited once, among 20 other mentors, at the end of Start With No.)

So now what? Is Jim Camp really a plagiarist? Or did he at least snub an influential mentor by not crediting him enough?

It might be interesting for the gossip, but on a practical level, I couldn’t care less.

As I wrote a long time ago in this newsletter, I’m less interested in attribution than in ideas that work.

Jim Camp’s system works. I know because I’ve used it and seen it work.

But is it really Camp’s system? Or Sandler’s system? Or somebody else’s who came before Sandler? Or some amalgam?

Instead of agonizing over those tough questions, I would like to give you a better, easier question to ponder:

Do you remember any of Sandler’s points above?

​​The real value in this email is those five points, not a dogpile on the topic of whether Camp gave due credit or not.

And yet, I doubt one person in a hundred will remember any of Sandler’s ideas above from this email… while many will remember that I wrote an email with the subject line, “Jim Camp, plagiarist.”

No judgment there. Such is the human brain — wired for human action and drama. You can gripe about it and fight it without effect, or you can simply accept it and work with it.

As I wrote once before, it’s your choice whether you want to be subtle or savage in how you work with it.

What is not your choice is how people’s brains work, and what kinds of messages they respond to.

​​And the most condensed and powerful type of message that people respond to… well, you can read more about that here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Why I don’t write to my “old self”

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“… the 30-oared ship of Theseus, the Athenians constantly removed the decayed part of her timbers, and renewed them with sound wood, so that the ship became an illustration to philosophers of the doctrine of growth and change, as some argued that it remained the same, and others that it did not remain the same.”

It’s become popular online advice to say, “Write to your old self.” Solve the problems that you yourself had two months or two years ago.

I believe I first heard Rich Schefren say this years ago, but it’s become widespread since.

I don’t do it this way. I don’t write to my old self. Two reasons why:

First, find it hard to move forwards while looking backwards — it gives me seasickness.

Second, I frankly don’t remember who I was two years ago, any more than I can guess who I will be two years from now.

Instead, what I do, and what you can consider doing too, is to write to myself today. I write about what I find interesting, motivating, valuable-sounding right now.

For example, in my email yesterday, I wrote about very high-ticket back-end offers. Why? Because I sense it’s something I should be doing today, or at least in the next few months.

Of course, among the ideas I find interesting many have to do with tennis gossip, identifying plants in the wild, or my own health.

I don’t write about those. I make an effort to choose among all the many ideas I find interesting, motivational, and valuable-sounding, and I only write about those that can also be interesting to people who tend to read this newsletter.

Still, the starting point is always what I find interesting, today, now.

In case this idea resonates with you, I can tell you there are some benefits to doing it this way, at least in my mind:

It’s fresher, more honest, less preachy than writing to my old self.

It can be more valuable to readers — because I’m writing based on my current experience and emotions, rather than on fading or faulty memories.

Ultimately, by focusing on ideas that can make me better, rather than what made my old self better, it makes this newsletter better in the long term, and benefits my readers if they stick with me.

Maybe this doesn’t do anything for you. But then again, maybe it resonates with you on some level.

And if it does, and if you’d like to do something similar, then consider using my Most Valuable Email trick. It’s a way to take ideas that interest or intrigue you, play with them, and make them interesting to your readers, too. For more information on MVE:

https://bejakovic.com/mve

Pride as proof element

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I was on a call with one of my coaching students recently. He had added some new features to his subscription offer. He was excited and enthusiastic about it, and so he wrote up one of his daily emails to announce it.

I thought this was great, and I told him so.

Not necessarily for the feature or even what it would do for his customers, though that was solid. But the real thing that was great was my student’s excitement and enthusiasm around the whole thing.

My very first big direct response copywriting client was Josh Dunlop. Josh hired me via Upwork in early 2016, some 6 months after I decided to work as freelance copywriter. Back then, Josh had a 7-figure site selling photography courses. I’m guessing it’s even bigger now.

I remember talking to Josh at some point and hearing him say he’s particularly proud of one of his courses. That stuck with me. I put it into an email that sold that course, and it did well. I guess it resonated with his readers too. I’ve been using it ever since.

In his book How to Write a Good Advertisement, Vic Schwab lists 17 types of proof. As far as I can see, “pride in your work” is not among them. But it should be.

People normally cannot judge the quality of your offer before they buy it. They might not be able to judge it even after. But they sure can judge your emotions around what you sell.

​​So if you are proud of what you sell, highlight that, so people know it, and so they have an easier time making up their own minds. Speaking of:

As I’ve said before, and as I’ll say again, I’m proud of my Copy Riddles course.

​​I’m proud of the initial concept for the course… I’m proud of the way I managed to carry it out and the learning experience I provided for people who get it… I’m proud of the feedback I’ve gotten, including from people whose jobs and careers have been positively impacted by this training.

Of course, pride is not the only proof element I have to show you that Copy Riddles is a worthwhile investment. For the full presentation, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

7 ways to grow your Twitter following from somone who has never done it

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Along with this daily marketing newsletter, I also have a weekly health newsletter, which I started in January.

Then around April, I started a Twitter account, under a pseudonym, to go along with the health newsletter.

I’ve been posting daily on Twitter for maybe 4 months now. It’s been absolutely worthless in terms of any organic traffic to my health newsletter, or even any engagement on Twitter itself.

I could blame the Twitter algorithm, or simply tell myself to be patient. But it’s not either of those. Instead, the fault lies with the content I put on Twitter — earnest, factual, “should” info, as in, “you should care about this… but you really don’t.”

I have no interest in investing any time to grow my Twitter following, or in changing my approach. What I’m currently doing on Twitter is useful to me as a kind of notepad. Plus I have other ways to grow my newsletter.

But yesterday, I did make a list of 7 types of content I believe would do much better on Twitter, and could get me a growing, engaged audience, perhaps quickly.

I’m sharing this list below because, frankly, it’s also a good lineup of content to put into your daily emails. So here goes, along with a quick “daily email” illustration of what I mean by each category:

1. Inspiration. “There has never been and will never be a better day than today to start an email newsletter.”

2. Tiny tips and tweaks that feel meaningful. “Listicles should either have 7 or 10 items.”

3. Sensational news, or news framed in a sensationalist way. “Breaking! Rob Marsh of The Copywriter Club wrote me directly last night to ask if I want to go on their podcast.”

4. Human stories. “Being slightly inhuman, I’m drawing a blank here.”

5. Personal opinions, particularly if they are dumb. “If you send fewer emails, people will value each of them more.”

6. Predictions, particularly if they are overconfident. “We will see a billion dollar newsletter company in the next year. 100%.”

7. Hobnobbing — referencing, resharing, commenting, agreeing or disagreeing with positions of people who have bigger follower counts than you. “Yesterday and today, Justin Goff sent out two emails about doers vs. spectators. I’m telling you about that because…”

… as I once wrote, I was lucky to read a specific issue of the Gary Halbert Letter, very early in my marketing education. That issue was titled, “The difference between winners and losers.”

In that issue, Gary said with much more vigor what Justin said in his two emails yesterday and today, which is that spectators can never really know what it is to be a player.

Like I said, that influenced me greatly, very early on, in very positive ways. It’s probably the reason why I managed to survive and even succeed as a copywriter and marketer.

It’s also why I profited so much from another Gary Halbert Letter issue, the second-most valuable Gary Halbert issue in my personal experience, which laid out a recipe to develop a specific money-making skill.

In case you’re curious about that money-making skill, or which Gary Halbert Letter issue I have in mind, or in case you yourself want to survive and succeed as a copywriter or marketer, then read the full story here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

A peek behind the curtain of my “mesmerizing” Copy Riddles sales letter

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It’s strange times around the Bejako household. There’s a Copy Riddles promotion going on, but I’m not the one furiously typing it up.

Instead, I’m looking on as Daniel Throssell sends out email after email to sell Copy Riddles. I’m watching the resulting sales coming in. And I’m feeling a little guilty that I’m not somehow supporting the effort.

So let me share a third-party opinion on Copy Riddles that might help change some minds.

This opinion comes from Carlo Gargiulo, an Italian-language copywriter. Carlo is a star copywriter at Metodo Merenda, a Switzerland-based info publishing business. He also has his own list where he writes to entrepreneurial dentists and doctors and marketers, and he is a bit of an LinkedIn influencer in the Italian copy space.

Carlo had the following to say about Copy Riddles:

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Copy Riddles is the best copy course of all time.

I have spent a lot of money studying and learning so much useful information from copywriter courses such as Stefan Georgi, John Carlton, David Deutsch, etc. (all great courses that I have enjoyed), but I feel that Copy Riddles was the COURSE that allowed me to become a good copywriter.

I hope you will create courses similar to Copy Riddles in the future.

My dream is a course of yours on writing sales letter-landing pages (Your writing style is completely different from that of most copywriters I see around.). Indeed, Copy Riddles’ landing page is the only one I have read in its entirety over and over again. You literally mesmerized me with that landing page.

Anyway, congratulations and thanks again for creating and making Copy Riddles available.

===

Here’s a quick copywriting lesson, specifically about how I structured the multi-page Copy Riddles sales letter, which Carlo says he found mesmerizing.

Each of the three pages of that sales letter is designed to get you to believe one and only one thing, specifically:

Page 1’s belief is that bullets are one of the most valuable copywriting skills you can ever own.

To do that, I refer to authorities such as John Carlton, Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, David Deutsch, Stefan Georgi, and Ben Settle, all of whom have gone on record to say that — yes, bullets are one of the most valuable copywriting skills you can ever own, and maybe the most valuable.

Page 2’s belief is that the best way to own bullets is to follow what Gary Halbert once recommended in his newsletter — and what people like Gary Bencivenga, Parris Lampropoulos, and Ben Settle have put in practice — namely, to look in parallel at both the source material and the finished bullet.

Page 3’s belief is that Copy Riddles is a fun and effective way to implement that Gary Halbert process…

… without spending months of your time and hundreds of hours of your mental effort to do what I’ve already done for you, which is to track down a bunch of winning sales letters… buy or borrow or steal the books or courses they were selling… and go bullet by bullet, comparing the source to the finished product, figuring out how exactly the A-list copywriters turned lead into gold.

And that’s pretty much the entire sales letter.

If I manage to convince the reader of all three of those points, then making the sale is easy, which is why I don’t have a big and dramatic scarcity-based close for the Copy Riddles sales page.

Of course, it does help that I have a bunch of great testimonials, like Carlo’s, right before the final “Buy now” button.

Maybe you would like to see how this mesmerizing sales letter looks in reality.

I won’t link to it directly in this email. Instead, I will remind you that Daniel Throssell is promoting Copy Riddles right now.

Daniel has gotten me to offer a one-time, sizable discount from the current Copy Riddles price, exclusively to people who come via his list.

So if you’re curious what my mesmerizing Copy Riddles sales page looks like, check out Daniel’s next email, because it will have a link to that page at the end.

And if you’re at all interested in buying, then act before tomorrow, Wednesday at 12 noon PST, because that’s when Daniel and I agreed to end this special offer, which will never be repeated again.

In case you’re not yet on Daniel’s list, here’s where to go:

https://persuasivepage.com/

Secret, occult, or classified — which one wins?

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Yesterday, after I sent out an email with the subject line “201 good reasons to get on Daniel Throssell’s list today,” I got the following reply from a long-time reader:

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I know all you top level people charge big bucks for critiques.

I’m not sure why but today I decided to rewrite this email with my take on it.

If it can be useful to you, use it however you wish.

All I want from it is your critique and words of wisdom. Not some long breakdown critique. Just a couple minutes of your time and perhaps a couple lines of advice.

===

What followed was a rewrite of my email from yesterday. It was really a re-write – basically every idea I had in the original email was there, just said using other words. Example:

[my original]
“Daniel’s offers are how he beat out a dozen other top email marketers during the infamous 2021 Black Friday campaign. It’s how he made the classified ads he ran this spring (mine among them) a big success for everyone involved. It’s why I ended up providing a unique and sizeable discount on Copy Riddles only to people on Daniel’s list.”

[my reader’s re-write]
“Daniel’s Offers. This is his Midas touch. It’s how he raced ahead of the pack during the buzzworthy 2021 Black Friday showdown. It’s the force behind his game-changing classified ads earlier this year. And guess what? It’s why there’s a unique, too-good-to-miss discount on Copy Riddles for Daniel’s elite.”

So.

​​​Is this re-write, this new choice of words, better than what I had originally?

Or is it worse?

Think about that for a hot minute. And then I will tell you the correct answer, which is, who cares?

The best and most insightful copywriting book I have ever read is the Robert Collier Letter Book. And as Collier says in that book, “it’s not the copy so much as the scheme back of it.”

Yes, individual words have power. But they don’t have nearly the power of sound psychology.

There are lots of ways to tell people that you have secret knowledge. Whether you use the word secret, select, elite, insider, little-known, occult, forbidden, classified — that doesn’t really matter very much.

It’s the opportunity, the scarcity behind all those words that really gets peoples eyes going wide and their mouths hanging open.

Get the psychology down first. Then fiddle with the words. ​Or don’t, because if you got the psychology behind your words right, you will still make money.

​​That’s how and why the top copywriters make a lot of money.

So how do you get the psychology down?

Back to my email from yesterday. It was about how I’ve brought back my Copy Riddles course, and how I agreed with Daniel Throssell to offer an exclusive $200 discount to buyers who come via Daniel’s list.

In my email yesterday, I was letting my readers know about that, so they sign up to Daniel’s list in case they want that same discount.

The fact is, you have various options if you want to master the psychology behind the words, the scheme back of the copy. A particularly effective option is my Copy Riddles course.

​​As marketing consultant Khaled Maziad, who went through Copy Riddles a while back, wrote me about Copy Riddles:

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I loved that you didn’t include bullet templates but went deep into the psychology behind each bullet. This course is not just about the “how-to” of writing bullets but understanding the artistry and the deep psychology behind them… Plus, when and where to use them.

===

I’m honestly not sure how long Daniel is planning to promote Copy Riddles — we didn’t agree on it, and maybe he is going to decide in real time based on the sales he sees.

I am sure that the only way to get that $200 discount on Copy Riddles is to be on Daniel’s list when he sends out the discount code.

Maybe it’s too late for that already. Or maybe it’s not.

Maybe, if you get on Daniel’s list right now, you will still have a chance at a $200 savings. If you’d like to at least have that option, which is yours if you want it, then here’s the link:

https://persuasivepage.com/

I failed in my quest for the gift of the gab

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Yesterday I tried to win the gift of the gab. I didn’t manage it.

What surprised me was that I found I had really hoped for it. I was almost desperate to get it.

Background:

I’ve been vacationing in Ireland for a week. Yesterday was the last full day. It was supposed to be the climax — going to Blarney Castle outside Cork, to kiss the Blarney Stone.

Legend says that anyone who kisses the stone will be blessed with the “gift of the gab” — the skill of talk, palaver, flattery, “the ability to deceive without offending.”

But the kissing didn’t happen for me. The line to kiss the stone was impossibly long, down the stairs, out the castle, into the gardens.

My friend Sam and I had spent too much time idling around the Blarney Castle grounds, inspecting and enjoying the fern garden, the bee observatory, the lake with the gold treasure at the bottom of it, the horse paddock with no horses, the impressive botanical garden, the wish-granting magic stairs.

What a waste of time.

Because the line for the actual castle was building up in the meantime, putting a bigger and bigger barrier between me and the gift of the gab.

My point:

We all want something external, outside ourselves, a talisman, a magic spell, a divine approval, something to believe in as cause and guarantee for our success, and as a motivator to action.

Regarding my failed quest for the gift of the gab:

The last time I was in Ireland, 10+ years ago, was because I was competing at the European University Debate Championships, even though I had only taken up debating months earlier.

In the decade since, I met two of my long-term girlfriends — relationships that lasted multiple years — when I ran up to an unfamiliar girl on the street and started gabbin’ away.

And today, I have this gabbin’ email newsletter, which is read regularly by some thousands of people, and which provides me everything I ever wanted in life, at least as far as business goes.

Meaning, I shouldn’t really be desperate for a magic stone to grant me the ability to chat, chatter, and use words to connect with people.

And yet, yesterday I found myself scheming to get back to Cork at the very next opportunity, book a hotel near the Blarney Castle, and be the first person in line in the morning to kiss the stone and get that magic gift of the gab.

So I’m writing this email to tell myself as much as to tell you that power and responsibility aren’t in the Blarney Stone or really anywhere else you need to travel to. As Tolstoy wrote, the Kingdom of God is within you.

It can be valuable to remember that.

On the flip side, there’s no denying that something external to believe in will sell, and will sell big. It’s the allure of a new mechanism, as copywriters like to call it.

But let’s get off the ethereal plane and descend to a more mercenary plane:

Specifically, the plane of my Most Valuable Email course.

I’ve made sure that course contains a mysterious and magical mechanism, the “Most Valuable Email trick.” It’s a big part of the reason why many people have bought this course.

But as I make clear on the MVE sales page, what’s really most valuable is the process of applying this Most Valuable Email trick to yourself, which makes you a better marketer and copywriter every day, and which as a side-effect produces interesting and influential and even sellable content.

Or in the words of Spanish A-list copywriter Rafa Casas, who bought MVE right when I put it out:

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Thanks for the course. It’s true that it can be read in an hour, but it needs more resting time and practice to get the full potential out of it. Which is a lot.

===

So if you want to develop and nurture and even cherish the gift of the gab that’s already in you, and learn to sell daily without offending, here’s the full info on Most Valuable Email:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

10 pieces of Bejako advice to a newbie copywriter

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A new subscriber to my list wrote in today to ask:

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how would you approach copywriting & marketing if you had to start from scratch. or if, let’s just say your brother (if you have one) asked you he wants to learn copywriting and marketing. what would you tell him? what would you tell him in terms of getting clients (it seems this is a whole phd education on itself)?

===

That’s not unlike asking how I would approach a career in computer programming if I had to start from scratch.

​​But even though I have literally hundreds of posts on my website that are relevant to answering this question, I decided to entertain this reader and so create a single resource to point people to in the future.

So here are 10 pieces of Bejako wisdom for newbie copywriters:

1. The 5-year rule: It will take months and more likely years to get consistently good and make good money from copywriting. Unless this is a job that you imagine you will be okay doing every day for at least the next five years, then don’t get started at all.

​(​By the way, this bit of advice isn’t unique to copywriting — I apply it to every complex project or undertaking I’m considering.)

2. There’s no “one thing.” Copywriting and marketing are really a collection of different principles and techniques you have to understand and master to some extent, preferably to a high extent.

3. Books: The best way to learn if you have dedication (see point 1 above).

4. Ads and working funnels. The best marketing is out there for free. Look at it critically. Try to deconstruct it consciously, and write down what you see. Patterns will soon start to emerge that you won’t see if you simply look at advertising like a consumer, or worse, if you dismiss it by saying, “I could do this” or “I’ve seen this described in a book.”

5. Get real practice, as soon as you can, preferably today. “Real practice” does not mean hand copying sales letters or writing mock ads for made-up products. You have three options. Get a job, get a client, or start your own project. No need to restrict yourself to just one of these options, by the way.

6. Start an email list today even if no one is reading it but you. Write about what you’re learning and apply it within your emails.

7. You will have to pay one way or the other. In one case, you will have to pay in time and money (the freelance route, which means buying your education in drips and drops via courses or coaching or ongoing mistakes that nobody corrects for you for too long).

In the other case, you will have to pay in freedom that you’ve sacrificed and in having your productivity arrogated by an employer (the route of getting a job, and working for somebody who knows what they are doing and can teach you and correct your errors).

8. The golden ticket is not to be a copywriter but a marketer who either 1) guides client businesses to make more money and gets paid accordingly, or 2) eventually takes his skills and runs his own business.

​​That said, copywriting is a kind of Trojan horse that can help you do either of those more easily. If you have this understanding at the start and if you take it seriously, it will make your path easier and more lucrative.

9. If after everything you have read so far you still want to become a copywriter (or better yet a marketer), then the sooner you get started, the better.

​​This is not a field in which you have to study for years before you can have the authority to actually do any work — though it might take you years to figure out the various elements (point 2 above) and have them click in your head.

10. Read my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters book if you haven’t yet, and consider re-reading it if you have read it once already. It lays out several of those fundamental principles and techniques (point 2 above) and exposes you to a handful of the top people in this field, many of whom have written informative and very affordable books (point 3 above).

Here’s the link to get started:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

My “unpleasantly manipulated” reader guesses the essence good copy

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True story about daily emailing:

This past spring, I wrote an email about my grandmother and a neighbor she once had. My grandma couldn’t remember the neighbor’s name any more, but only the fact he liked fried chicken.

I made the point in that email that if you want to be remembered, you have to take things into your own hands — otherwise you run the risk of becoming the fried chicken guy.

My email was selling my Most Valuable Postcard #2.

Our story continues with a reply I got to that email. The reply came from an uncommitted new reader, who wrote:

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I am feeling unpleasantly manipulated by your writing.
Is this the key to good copy?

New subscriber, not yet committed.

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“Could be,” I wrote back to my uncommitted new subscriber. “Which part did you find manipulative here?”

He wrote back to explain:

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No one wants an epitaph of being “the guy who likes fried chicken”.
That sets up a negative emotion in the reader.

Followed by the pressure to purchase MVP #2, by tomorrow night at 50% discount.

Two emotions jammed together –
Felt manipulative.

===

My eyebrows shot up when I read his reply. I can understand if my uncommitted reader didn’t enjoy reading my fried chicken email.

​​But with those two points he singled out he literally got to the essence of effective copywriting, at least the way I describe it in MVP #2.

Only thing is, in MVP #2, I managed to unify his two part observation into a single guiding principle, a single word, a single approach that is really the most important — the most valuable thing — in all copywriting and direct marketing.

I also spelled out specific techniques to apply this guiding principle, both in your marketing campaigns, in your copy, and even in your customer service.

Maybe that’s got you a bit curious.

Maybe this will get you to take action:

I will retire MVP #2 this Saturday at 8:31pm CET.

The reason why, in case you’re curious:

As the name of it suggests, MVP #2 is really just the remains of my short-lived subscription offer, the Most Valuable Postcard, which I ran last summer.

​​MVP #2 should be a standalone course, with clearer positioning, with its own sexy name, with a bit more bulk, and with an extra zero or two in the price.

So I will be retiring it. Maybe I will bring the content back in the future, changed slightly and priced much higher.

​​But if you would like to get it before it disappears, at the current very affordable price, you can buy it today, of your own choosing, at the link below:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp2/