Copywriting

A quick catalogue of forbidden parts of the human psyche

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The Roman playwright Terence wrote two thousand years ago:

“I am human, and nothing human is alien to me.”

Well, if you want to persuade people, you better have the same attitude.

You see, when people make buying decisions, it’s often deep dark instincts that are actually at work. And if you ignore those monkey and lizard hallways of the human brain, you won’t make as many sales.

But how do you know what weird and nasty things are actually lurking in the mass mind?

You look on the front page of Reddit. Or at least that’s what I did over the course of several weeks, while tracking forbidden emotions and ideas that kept coming up over and over. Here’s a partial catalogue:

#1 Disgust

The subreddit r/WTF features bizarre and revolting images or videos. And yet, the posts frequently go viral and make it to the front page. Example viral post:

“Tugging an enormous abscess out of a cow”

#2 Schadenfreude

There seems to be a strong human instinct to take pleasure in others’ misfortune or mistakes or stupidity. However, the world today has become a democratic place with a lot of concern about minimizing suffering. How to square the two? You have to direct your schadenfreude to appropriate targets. Example viral post:

“Steph Curry blows the open dunk and then airballs the 3”

#3 Indignation, anger, judgementalness

Indignation and judgmentalness are incredibly popular, and several subreddits specialize in them. Two that frequently make it to the front page are r/ChoosingBeggars and r/trashy. Example viral post:

“Kurt Cobain suicide letter t-shirt” (from r/trashy)

#4 Defeatism

American society is all about success and unfailing optimism. At least outwardly. On Reddit, the defeatist attitude often resonates very well. Example viral post:

“When the romantic beach getaway with your hubby doesn’t go as planned” (a video of a middle-aged woman looking on as a bunch of drunken college girls in the bar dance to Baby Got Back)

#5 Breasts

Of course, sex sells. But in the mainstream mind, it’s no longer ok to publicly stare at a woman’s breasts or ass. This holds on Reddit, too. You won’t find pictures of sexy girls on the front page — unless they are somehow disguised. For example, by being a vintage movie star. Example viral post:

“Scilla Gabel, Italian actress and Sophia Loren’s body double, 1957”

Now a disclaimer for the end: These forbidden parts of the human psyche are powerful. But you probably don’t want to clobber your readers over the head with them.

Instead, you will want to introduce them in subtle ways to make your marketing message most effective.

In case you want to see how I’ve done this in several successful email campaigns, you’ll want to get a copy of my upcoming book on email marketing. You can sign up for a free copy of it here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The obvious secret to creating blockbuster products

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I talked to a potential client a couple of days ago.

He’s selling a prostate supplement. It’s going well. And he now wants to create other products he could sell to the same audience.

So he wanted to know whether I could give him advice about which products to develop based on what I’ve seen working. I told him the truth:

I don’t know that I can predict which marketplace will sell the best. But I do know of a formula for almost guaranteeing that a product you create will be a blockbuster.

It’s a secret I learned from master copywriter Gary Bencivenga. In Gary’s own words, great products are “those with a clear-cut, built-in, unique superiority supported by powerful proof elements.”

Now, this might sound obvious. Or maybe too abstract. So let me give you a few real-world examples of what “powerful proof elements” really mean in practice:

# 1. RealDose Nutrition is an 8-figure weight-loss supplement company that I’ve written for. Their main product is called Weight Loss Formula No. 1. It’s a combination of four ingredients, each of which has been shown in clinical studies to improve a different hormone related to weight loss.

​​RealDose sources their ingredients in the same way as in the clinical study and they use the same dosage (hence RealDose). At core, their marketing simply consists of saying, “Our product works, and here’s the science to prove it.”

# 2. Another supplement company I’ve written for is Vitality Now. The face of that company is Dr. Sam Walters, who at one point formulated nutrition bars for NASA.

​​Unfortunately, Vitality Now isn’t in the business of selling nutrition bars. If they were, they could make a killing simply by saying, “The same nutrition bars used by NASA!”

# 3. I’m currently going through a magalog written by another famous copywriter, Parris Lampropoulos. This magalog is for a boner pill called Androx. One of the ingredients in Androx is cordyceps — a mushroom from Tibet that was used at the emperor’s court in China for its libido properties.

​​Thanks to this, Parris can open up the sales message by talking about how the Emperor had to have sex with nine different women every night, and how this was the supplement that made it possible.

With products like these, which have such powerful proof elements built in, the marketing writes itself. Or as Gary Bencivenga put it:

“It’s your mission to come up with a product so inherently superior that, as soon as it’s effectively explained, demonstrated, or sampled, your prospects have no conclusion to draw except “I want it!”

I hope that’s the kind of product you’ve got (or are looking to make). And if that’s the case, and you just want good ways to explain and demonstrate to your buyers WHY your product really is superior, then you might like my upcoming book:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

What kind of an idiot uses the self-checkout lane?

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Today, I saw a woman in the self-checkout line at the local supermarket.

She couldn’t finish her purchase and she was waiting for help.

Nobody was coming to rescue her. So she looked at me imploringly as I felt up the avocados to see which ones are ripe.

I can’t help you lady, I thought to myself. Nobody can.

Sure, the self-checkout counter is always alluring. I admit I’ve been sucked in by it before.

There’s no line.

You get to play around with the barcode scanner.

Plus you don’t have to make small talk with the cashier.

Tempting, yes. But it inevitably backfires.

The flaky, illogical self-checkout machine will defeat you sooner or later, and leave you stranded just like that poor woman today. It’s happened to me enough times. That’s why I never go to the self-checkout counter any more.

I’ve found that it pays to have professionals do things for you.

This applies whether you want your avocados weighed and scanned…

Your website designed…

Or copy written for your sales funnel.

Speaking of which, if you do want some professional help with your sales copy, you might like my upcoming book on email marketing. It won’t write the copy for you, but if you’re looking for a copywriter, it might convince you that I’m your man. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The secret to triggering Upwork’s recommendation algorithm

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One day, I got an invitation to interview for a job on Upwork. The invitation read:

“I’d like to invite you to apply to my job – and I found you by looking up something related to sex and gender. Please review the job post and apply if you’re available.”

The job itself wasn’t interesting to me.

What was interesting was this mention of “sex and gender.” You see, just a day before, I had added a new item to my portfolio.

This portfolio item was titled, “Daily Emails for a Dating & Men’s Health Guru.” It talked about how I had written all these emails about dating, relationships, and sexual health for a big ClickBank seller.

This was the only mention of “sex and gender” in my entire Upwork profile.

And that’s why I think your Upwork portfolio is the secret to triggering Upwork’s recommendation algorithm.

Sometimes, those recommendations happen when clients are looking for specific keywords, like in the situation above.

But in my experience, new portfolio items mean more job invitations overall, even for jobs that don’t have to do with the portfolio item you just added. It certainly doesn’t happen every time, but I’ve seen such a bump in invitations often enough to think it wasn’t just chance.

And here’s the beauty of your Upwork portfolio: you can put anything in there.

Of course, you should only put in actual writing projects that you’ve done. But it can be on Upwork or off Upwork, it can be paid or done on spec (ie. for no money), it can be professional or a school project — whatever, as long as it’s relevant to a potential client who is looking for a copywriter.

And if you want to know how I write those Upwork portfolio items that trigger the Upwork recommendation algorithm, you’re in luck.

I describe it all in detail in my new book “How To Become a Top-Rated, $150/Hr Sales Copywriter On Upwork.”

And what’s more, you can now get this book for free. At least that is, if you act by midnight tonight PST.

In case you’re interested, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

A sewer drain leading straight into the Upwork gold vault

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The Bank of England holds about 400,000 bars of gold.

It’s the second largest gold reserve in the world, after the New York Federal Reserve.

And though it’s worth over £100 billion, nobody has ever managed to break in and steal even one ounce.

Well, almost nobody.

Back in 1839, the Directors of the Bank started receiving anonymous letters.

The letters announced a man would meet them inside the vault at an hour of their choosing.

Finally, the Directors agreed to test out what was going on.

So, one night, they gathered inside the vault.

And waited.

And waited.

And then, at the appointed hour, they heard a noise.

It was coming from underneath their feet.

And the next thing they knew, a couple of the floorboards moved, and a man climbed out.

He was a sewerman who, during repair work, discovered that an old sewer drain led straight to the floor of the Bank of England gold vault.

It turned out the sewerman never stole anything — they counted all the bullion — though he sure could have.

So he was rewarded for his honesty with a gift of £800 — about £80,000 in today’s money.

I bring this curious story up because I’ve got a monumental announcement:

I’ve just published my guide to becoming a top-rated, $150/hr sales copywriter on Upwork.

This prestigious tome is like a sewer drain straight to the Upwork gold vault.

It contains the best insights I’ve gathered over the past 4 years freelancing on Upwork.

And while most of the book is not particularly glamorous (hence sewer drain), I certainly wish I’d had this guide when I was starting out. It would have helped me make a lot more gold shekels early on and save myself a lot of frustration and headache.

I’ll give an example of just one such story tomorrow.

For now, if you want to grab a copy of my Upwork guide, you can get it as a Kindle book on Amazon. Plus…

You don’t even need to reward me in any way for my sewerman honesty.

That’s because if you act in the next 36 hours or so (12 midnight PST on Wednesday), you can get this book for free. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

How to sell lousy rotten garbage

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“HOT”

That’s the headline of a famous ad written by Joe Sugarman some time back in the 1970’s.

The ad was for a membership program called Consumers Hero — basically a mail-order catalogue of refurbished goods such as clock radios and digital watches.

Sugarman used the “HOT” concept to suck people in — the idea was that this stuff was so cheap that it was basically like stealing from the manufacturers.

And that’s not the only clever idea in this piece of copy.

For example, there’s also how old Joe addressed an objection that the reader was sure to have earlier on. The objection being:

“Sure, the refurbished clock radio might be cheap, but isn’t it junk?”

To which Joe says, of course it is!

In fact, as Joe walks you through Consumers Hero and its service, he uses the phrase “lousy rotten” six times to describe their merchandise. At one point, he even refers to it as “garbage.”

This is something that famed negotiation coach Jim Camp used to call the “negative stripline.””

In effect, it’s when you take a more negative position that the person you’re negotiating with (or selling to).

This disarms much of your adversary’s negativity.

And it can even cause him to try to bring you to a more neutral position.

“Lousy rotten garbage? It can’t be that bad! Tell me more about it, and I’ll see if I want one.”

And of course, Joe does tell you. All about how the money and care that goes into refurbishing the lousy rotten clock radio, into testing it, and in making sure that you’re perfectly satisfied when you get it and use, including a five-year warranty.

So what’s the point?

If your prospects are sure to have an objection, don’t shy away from it.

Beat them to it.

And even make a joke out of it.

And then, end on a less negative note. Such as:

If you have lousy rotten garbage on your hands (just kidding!) and you’re trying to offload it onto your customers, you might like the email marketing lessons found here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Copywriting lessons from a knife-wielding burglar

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Back when I was in college, I lived in a slum house with four other guys.

One of them eventually turned out to be a weed dealer. Which I didn’t mind for a while — it was Santa Cruz, after all.

But that all changed one sleepy afternoon.

I was taking a nap in my room, as I tend to do. And then a strange rasping noise woke me up.

Rasp rasp rasp.

I tried to go back to sleep.

But the rasping wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t even so loud — but it was such an unusual noise, and coming from somewhere so close, that I got curious to find out what was going on.

So I got up, opened the door of my bedroom, and stepped outside into the hallway.

There was an unfamiliar man there.

He was ​​holding a large kitchen knife, and trying to carve a hole in one of the other doors. The door belonging to the room of my weed-dealing housemate.

The burglar and I looked at each other in the darkness of the hallway. He collected himself first and said, “Go back to your room.”

Which I promptly did. I locked the door behind myself and called 911.

Of course by the time the police came, the burglar was gone.

All that was left was the kitchen knife lying in the hallway, and the random pieces of door that he had uselessly chipped away.

Which brings up today’s marketing lesson.

You see, this knife-wielding burglar attacked the door from all angles.

In fact, the area that he was trying to carve through was about the size of a dinner plate.

If he had focused his energy on a smaller part of the door…

Or even better, if he had just clawed away at the door knob…

Then he probably would have gotten to the money and the weed on the other side.

And that’s the marketing lesson I mentioned.

When you’re writing a sales message, you don’t want to spread yourself thin, and hope to have a breakthrough by chipping away at all parts of your market.

Instead, you should always aim for the white-hot core — the fanatics, the ultra-devoted, the people with the most consuming pain. ​​

Why?

Well, because the experts say so. I’ve heard the above sentiment from at least two A-list copywriters (Gary Bencivenga and Richard Armstrong). And whenever I’ve taken it to heart, I’ve found I get better results than when I try to make too many different appeals.

Sometimes, business owners find this hard to accept. Which is why it helps to get an outside perspective with your marketing and sales copy.

And in case you want to see how I’ve helped some big supplement businesses by applying the above principle, you might like to get a free copy of my upcoming book. You can sign up for it here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

How to dupe Hollywood’s 2nd biggest action star into humiliating himself

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Back in 1992, a terrible movie came out called Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.

(If you want to go on YouTube for a minute to check out the trailer, go ahead. I’ll wait.)

It starred Sylvester Stallone as a tough cop who has to team up with his overbearing mom to solve a case.

Stallone later said this was the worst movie he’s ever made, and he expressed regret for getting involved.

Critics seem to agree.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot has a remarkable 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with one reviewer generously saying, “Give it half a star for being in focus.”

All right, so the movie sucks.

The question then becomes, why would Sylvester Stallone, one of the biggest action stars of the 80’s and early 90’s, agree to be in this clearly terrible production?

The answer is simple.

​He got conned.

It turns out Stallone had a long-running “Whose is bigger” competition going on with the other massive action star of the period.

I’m talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who is clearly a better politician than Sly. Case in point:

Arnold read the script for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.

He saw immediately that it was godawful.

And dyed-in-the-wool politician that he is, he then leaked something to the press about how he was tremendously interested in the movie.

Knowing how Hollywood works, he also asked for a huge amount of money to star in the movie.

So of course the producers then approached Stallone, hoping to get a better deal.

And since Arnold had made it known he wanted to do this movie badly, Stallone accepted, thinking he’d swiped a good opportunity from out of Arnie’s jaws.

Clever.

And an illustration of the most fundamental principle of human persuasion, which I heard goes back to Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch:

“Find out what people want, and show them how to get it.”

Of course, you sometimes have to dig deep to find out what people really want.

Stallone didn’t want money. Or even a hit movie. His real motivation was to one-up Schwarzenegger.

Sometimes it takes political genius to uncover this (like in the case of Arnold and Sly).

Other times, you simply have to do extensive research. And if you want to see my approach to doing research to figure out what people really want, specifically for writing up sales copy, then you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The secret life of an Amazon Dash button

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A couple of days ago, I read that Amazon will no longer sell its Dash buttons.

These were the physical gadgets you would stick inside your pantry or laundry room.

When you run out of Betty Crocker cake mix or Tide laundry detergent, you simply press the corresponding Dash button and… presto! An order is placed on Amazon for a restocking.

When these buttons were announced a few years ago, the Internet mocked them as stupid, ugly, and intrusive. And now, a court in Germany has declared them illegal. A few days after the ruling, Amazon announced it will stop selling Dash buttons.

The Internet seems to be celebrating, as if to say, “We told you this is a stupid idea, Amazon!”

But I think few people are thinking about the very smart underlying principle behind the Dash buttons.

The buttons themselves sold for $4.99 (they probably cost Amazon well under a dollar). And their basic function was to get you to buy more stuff from Amazon.

Did you catch the wonder of that? You pay Amazon so you can buy more stuff from Amazon.

When looked at in this way, the Dash buttons aren’t so stupid after all.

In fact, this same idea — pay us so you can buy from us — is something that smart direct marketers have been doing for decades.

In essence: you subscribe to an interesting newsletter, say Second Opinion.

The price is cheap, $20/year.

But each newsletter is in fact a more or less direct sales pitch for other products, such as supplements, where the real money is made.

Of course Amazon, which is really the biggest direct marketing company in the world, knows this well. And it even admits that the real reason the Dash buttons were axed was not the German court ruling.

Instead, Dash buttons have been replaced by Amazon’s other, more successful reordering and subscription programs. Most of which are only available — you guessed it — if you also pay for Amazon Prime.

How does this apply to you?

Well, I think the underlying principle is this:

It’s always easier to get extra sales from existing customers, than to drum up new business.

Of course, you don’t need Dash buttons to do that. You can simply write your customers emails, and make them new offers. In case you need help writing those emails, press your “Profitable email marketing” Dash button. If that doesn’t work, then you might try the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

How to get away with murder and sales

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“‘This young man did not deserve to die on a parking lot of Long John Silver’s on a Saturday night,’ Chris Bailey, Indianapolis Police deputy chief, said after the killing. ‘Those with information who are not sharing with us should be ashamed of themselves.'”

A couple of years ago, the national murder clearance rate dropped to its lowest level ever since the FBI started tracking the issue.

The clearance rate measures how many murder investigations ended with an arrest or with an identification of a suspect.

Nationwide, it’s around 60% right now.

In big cities, however, it’s much worse.

So for example, in Indianapolis, you’re more likely to get away with murder than not. And if you shoot somebody dead in Chicago, you’ve got roughly a 75% chance of never being caught.

So what’s behind this?

There are lots of possible explanations. But one big reason — at least according to police chiefs — seems to be a growing unwillingness to talk to the police, whether it’s out of fear or simply because of a no-snitching policy.

Which is pretty crazy if you think about it. People dislike or distrust the police enough to side with murderers.

And as usual, there’s a lesson here that you can apply to your own marketing.

​It’s a powerful technique that you can use to get your market to side with you — even though you might be worse than a murderer (that is, a salesman).

This technique something I learned from copywriting legend Gary Bencivenga. In a nutshell, the technique is to create a common enemy. ​​In Gary’s own words:

“Instead of the usual ‘I’m trying to sell you something,’ which sort of sets up immediately in the reader’s mind a you-versus-me mentality, I found a way to shift gears by saying, ‘it’s you and me against these other guys.’ And if you can create an enemy in your copy, that’s what happens. You set up a three-point discussion and you come around from your side of the desk to be on the reader’s side of the desk and then it’s you and the reader against the enemy that you’re railing against.”

Of course, you want to be careful when you pick your enemies.

And I would also add, you want to be intellectually honest.

In other words, pick on people (or ideas) because you genuinely disagree with them — not just because you are looking for a fight.

The good news is, if you start looking around your market, you’re very likely to find good candidates to turn into enemies. And when you identify them, you can start honing the perfect message to position yourself against them.

How do you hone that perfect message?

One way is to write daily emails to your list, and see what they respond to best. And if you want help with those emails, then you might like the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/