Copywriting

Irrational influence of initial rhyme

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A while ago, I was reading a book titled Born to Be Good.

The book didn’t make a terrible impact on me, and I can’t remember many details of it. However, one little bit did stick with me ever since:

Some of the subchapter titles were along the lines of, “Compassion conspiracy,” or “Nature, nurture, and naughtiness.”

I noticed that each time I was ready to stop reading, these subchapter headings would pull me in and get me to read a bit more.

So of course, since I do sales copywriting, I took note of this.

And I have since been using alliteration (also known as “initial rhyme”) in email subject lines on occasion.

Some of these emails (“Sudden slump in sexual stamina”) did very well. Which made me think I had discovered something new when it comes to writing effective sales copy.

Well, it turns I’m not a copywriting trailblazer. Direct marketers have been on to the power of alliteration for a long while. For example:

List broker and direct mail expert Michael Fishman once mentioned was how he was trying to find new lists to promote a product called The Big Black Book (which was a compilation of secret ways of doing things more effectively).

Michael, list genius that he is, proposed selling this to a list of infomercial buyers of a product called Passion, Power, and Profit (which seems to be about reprogramming your subconscious to achieve your goals).

Now, the two audiences seem to have little in common — except their love of alliterative titles.

And yet that was enough. the Passion, Power, and Profit list wound up buying The Big Black Book.

So what’s the point?

First, alliteration works, particularly in titles, headlines, and subject lines.

Second, never underestimate how crazy and irrational people can be in their buying decisions, and how trivial details can get them to buy.

And finally, if you want help with sales emails that entertain, educated, and engage, you might like to grab a free copy of my upcoming book:

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

How to handle an outrageous offer by shouting obscenities

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Imagine you’re a big-shot Hollywood producer.

You’ve got a film being made in the jungles of Myanmar, starring one of your biggest assets — action star Tugg Speedman. Then suddenly, you get a call:

Tugg has been kidnapped. His kidnappers, the heroin-producing Flaming Dragon gang — are demanding $50,000,000 in ransom.

So how do you respond?

Now you might recognize this plot from the movie Tropic Thunder. The big-shot Hollywood producer is called Les Grossman, and he’s played by Tom Cruise — in one of his best roles.

I bring this scene up to get you to imagine how you would personally handle an outrageous offer that starts off with a gargantuan sum like $50 million.

While you think about that, here’s what you should NOT do — at least according to Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman:

You shouldn’t respond with an equally outrageous low offer.

The reason for this is the concept of anchoring.

That first ridiculous number ($50 million in the Tropic Thunder case) has already influenced your psychology on a subconscious level.

Even if you counter with a ridiculously low offer — “We will give you $1,000 and not a penny more!” — chances are you will wind up paying way more than you would otherwise. That’s because the pull of the anchor is so strong, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.

So what you can you do to rid yourself of the effect of the outrageous anchor?

Well, Kahneman thinks you should make a scene — scream and shout to make it clear to both yourself and the other person that any negotiation with this starting point is unacceptable.

And that’s exactly what master negotiator Les Grossman does in Tropic Thunder. After listening to the demands of Flaming Dragon, he takes a breath and calmly responds:

“Okay Flaming Dragon, fuckface. First, take a big step back… and literally fuck your own face! I don’t know what kind of pan-Pacific bullshit power play you’re trying to pull here, but Asia, Jack, is my territory. So whatever you’re thinking, you’d better think again! Otherwise I’m gonna have to head down there and I will rain down an ungodly fucking firestorm upon you! You’re gonna have to call the fucking United Nations and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I am talking scorched-earth, motherfucker! I will massacre you! I will fuck you up!”

And that’s how to inoculate yourself against ridiculous anchors.

Of course, not everybody knows this.

And if you’re selling in many markets, it makes sense to use anchors in your own marketing to justify your prices or to increase sales.

But enough obscenities for today.

In case you need help with sales emails, you might like my upcoming book. It contains bits of wisdom I’ve gained by writing for some very successful health clients. If you’d like to find out more or sign up for a free copy when it comes out, here’s where to go:

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

Even better than two Michelin stars

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There’s a restaurant in Copenhagen called Noma.

The name is short for “nordisk mad” — Danish for “Nordic food.”

And while that might not sound too appetizing, Noma is quite a destination for gourmands.

In fact, it’s got two Michelin stars — a pretty rare honor that only a small number of restaurants around the world share.

And yet, in spite of all the Michelin stars, there was a time when Noma wasn’t flush with business.

And then, in 2010, out of the blue, Noma came in at the top of the World’s Best 50 Restaurants.

This is a new restaurant list (unlike the Michelin Guides, which have been around for a century).

It kicked off in 2002 as a lark, but it’s since become more successful than anticipated. In fact, it’s become so powerful that it impacts the tourist industries of entire continents.

And it does wonders for individual restaurants:

The day after Noma got the top spot in the World’s 50 Best, a hundred thousand people tried to book a table. Suddenly, finances weren’t an issue any more.

So what’s going on?

How could the upstart World’s 50 Best do so much more for Noma than 2 prestigious but stupid Michelin stars?

For that, let me quote an interview that I just listened to. It’s with Michael Fishman, one of the world’s most successful list brokers, and a guy who has bushels of experience in direct marketing. Says Michael:

“When you give prospects a choice in direct mail, the danger is that they don’t make a choice and that you lose the order. […] The more choices you give and the more effort you embed in the process, the more likely you are to lose an order.”

I think the same reasoning applies to restaurant guides.

The Michelin system might be prestigious, but it requires effort.

After all, there are multiple restaurants all around the world with two or more Michelin stars.

On the other hand, there’s only one restaurant at the top of the World’s Top 50.

Which means no choice.

No effort required.

No chance to give up and say, “Ah to hell with it.”

Maybe you think I’m stretching this too far. But as Michael Fishman puts it, this idea of effort is “excruciatingly sensitive.” Michael illustrated this with the example of a direct mail reply card that required two perforations instead of one. Even such a tiny bit of extra effort reliably lowered response, compared to the simpler option.

Just something to keep in mind when you are designing your offers.

Or setting up your marketing campaigns.

Or writing to your clients.

Speaking of which, I’ve got a no-choice, no-effort offer for you. If you want a free copy of my upcoming book on email marketing, head on over to the following page, and sign up with your email:

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

“America’s best copywriter” offers a 2-part formula for sucking readers in

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I’m re-reading Maxwell Maltz’s self-help classic Psycho-Cybernetics, which opens with the following sentence:

“During the past decade a revolution has been quietly going on in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and medicine.”

Now if you ask me, this is a great opening line.

In case you’re interested, I’ll tell you why — and how you can use this to suck your own readers into your copy.

To get started, let’s look at a couple of alternative opening sentences old Max coulda used. For starters, here’s one:

“During the past decade a revolution has been quietly going on.”

This opening line isn’t bad.

It sounds mysterious. And sometimes, that’s enough to suck readers in.

But it might not be enough, because this opening line is also very vague.

Anybody who reads this might rightly say, “So what? There are too many revolutions out there to worry about right now.”

That’s why this opening line gets a B-.

Now let’s look at a second possible opening line:

“During the past decade researchers in psychology, psychiatry, and medicine have come to an important conclusion.”

Boy that’s a dull duck.

While the content is pretty much same as in Maxwell Maltz’s original, there’s no intrigue.

There’s no excitement.

There’s just the cold feeling that reading on will be work and not fun.

That’s why this second opening line gets a C-.

Maybe you see where I’m going with this.

Because the B- and C- aren’t grades in the traditional sense. I’ll let Gary Bencivenga, who has been called “America’s best copywriter” and “The Michelangelo of direct mail copywriting,” explain it in his own words:

“In pondering this, I realized a great truth about headlines: your level of interest is directly proportional to the presence of two factors: benefit and curiosity. Either one without the other is a devastating weakening. I = B + C. Interest equals Benefit plus Curiosity.“

And there you have it.

The first alternate opening line was missing a benefit (B-).

The second was missing curiosity (C-).

The original Maxwell Maltz opening line wasn’t missing anything. It had both benefit (don’t tell me you have zero health or mental issues) and curiosity (a quiet revolution?). That’s what made it so good.

The good news is, you now know a formula that let’s you do the same: I = B + C. This works whether you’re writing a headline, a subject line, or some other crucial piece of copy, like an opening sentence.

Or a call to action. Speaking of which:

I’m putting together a book on email marketing for the health space where I will share what I’ve learned writing for some big clients. And I’ll also share examples of some of the most successful emails I’ve written — including a 5-part email sequence that tripled sales in a funnel for RealDose Nutrition, an 8-figure supplement company.

If you want to get your paws on this book when it comes out (and get it for free), here’s where to sign up:

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

Sympathy for the Crocodile Hunter

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I didn’t know this until yesterday, but February 22 was Steve Irwin’s birthday.

As you may know, Steve was “The Crocodile Hunter,” who went on TV to face all kinds of exotic and dangerous animals, for all the world to see.

His daredevil lifestyle eventually caught up with him, and he died in 2006 after being stung in the heart by a stingray.

Anyways, I never watched The Crocodile Hunter on TV, and I never knew when Steve Irwin’s birthday is.

But I sure found out yesterday, thanks to an inflammatory tweet by the animal rights group PETA:

“Steve Irwin’s actions were not on target with his supposed message of protecting wildlife. A real wildlife expert & someone who respects animals for the individuals they are and leaves them to their own business in their natural homes.”

Now, this PETA tweet started quite a firestorm.

Thousands of people felt they needed to come out and make their voices heard on this matter.

The gist of most responses was, Steve Irwin was a beloved guy who did tons of good and loved animals and helped educate people.

All of which might be true – though a quick romp through Wikipedia shows that while Irwin was alive, he also faced similar accusations of disturbing wildlife.

But I’m neither here to shit on the memory of Steve Irwin, nor to write a hagiography of the guy.

I simply want to point out how many people felt the need to come to his defense.

The question is why.

Probably lots of different reasons.

But at least one good explanation is something known as the “halo effect.”

That’s a well-studied human cognitive bias — or you can call it a heuristic.

In effect, the halo effect is the reason why well-behaved students get graded more favorably… why good-looking people tend to get paid more for the same job… and why dead TV personalities get made into saints.

In short, our brains take one thing we know well (“I loved watching Steve Irwin’s show as a kid”) and we transfer that to a whole bunch of stuff we don’t know (“Steve Irwin did more for the protection and conservation of animals than PETA ever will, you sick cunts”).

This halo effect seems to be an almost unavoidable part of human nature.

Which is why it makes sense to keep it in mind when you’re planning out your marketing campaigns, or when you’re positioning new products on the market. In the words of Steve Irwin himself:

“Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.”

Quite cynical, Steve. But true. And with that, let me get to the pitch:

If you want ideas on how to write emails that your make your prospects feel like you are a friend first before you go for the jugular, you might like my upcoming book.

You can find out more about it and even sign up for a free copy (when it comes out) by going to the following page:

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

Nobel Prize winner identifies the cheapest kind of proof

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Here’s a story from Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman.

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman talks about a time he moved to a new state.

He had to get a new driver’s license, which meant he had to pass a driver’s license exam.

He didn’t study very hard for the exam. Instead, he scanned through the booklet of rules once and hoped for the best.

When the test came, he knew some of the answers from his experience driving.

But there were questions where he didn’t know the answer. And so he did what most of us would do — he just looked over the available answers, and picked the one that seemed familiar.

In other words, just because an answer seemed familiar, his brain had a suspicion it must also be true.

Now, here’s why this might matter to you:

If you do any kind of sales — in person or in print — you know the importance of following up with your prospect multiple times.

Each time you follow up with a prospect, good things are going on:

You build more of a relationship. You have a chance to answer more objections. You can build more vision. You might even get unusually lucky — and get to the prospect at a time when he is flush with money or ready to buy.

So all of these are good reasons to consistently follow up with promising prospects.

But something else is going on as well. Something very fundamental in the way our brain works.

In fact, it’s one of the topics that Kahneman himself studied and won the Nobel prize for. In Kahneman’s words:

“Anything that makes it easier for the associative machine to run smoothly will also bias belief. A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”

In other words, familiarity, born out of repetition, is a kind of proof in itself.

It’s a particularly cheap kind of proof, because anybody can do it — it doesn’t require anything except persistence.

And while it can work for getting people to believe in falsehoods, it works even better when you have a legitimately good offer — and other forms of proof as well.

Which, in a nutshell, is why it makes sense to follow up with your prospects regularly — for example, by sending them daily emails.

If you have a good offer… And you keep presenting that offer in interesting and credible ways to your prospects… Day in and day out…

Then eventually, most of your real prospects will get convinced, and will wind up buying from you.

Of course, there’s the issue of actually writing interesting and credible emails. If that’s not your strong suit and you want some help, you might like my upcoming book. And you can even get a free copy when it comes out. For more info, check out the following page:

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

Why I’m not qualified to work in the most elite copywriting shop in the world

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During the past week, I was agonizing over a career decision.

Specifically, I was considering whether to apply for a job at Stansberry Research.

If you know direct marketing, you might have heard of Stansberry. They ran the “End of America” campaign a few years back. This was one of the most successful direct marketing campaigns of all time, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

The point being, Stansberry Research is an elite place for copywriters.

So when I saw that they are hiring, I got a pain in my side and a bug in my head.

Should I apply?

On the one hand, I don’t want a proper job.

On the other, this would be an opportunity to perfect my copywriting skills at the very highest level.

So what to do?

In the end, I didn’t apply — because it turned out I am not qualified. They are only hiring experienced financial copywriters, and I’ve written very little in the financial sphere.

But that’s really not the biggest issue. Because, had I wanted to, I could have written samples of financial copy, specifically as a way to angle for this job.

What got me instead was an interview I saw with top copywriter and marketer Justin Goff. Justin doesn’t do financial copy, but from what I can tell, he sells to a similar audience that Stansberry Research sells to.

And that’s where the problem lies.

Because in this interview, Justin was going over the psychological triggers that motivate this audience.

Things like anger… resentment… fear… suspicion… closed-mindedness… a sense of moral superiority…

In short, these are not people I would want to spend my time around in real life.

And in the same way, I would not want to spend my whole day, every day, researching and writing to this audience. I’m afraid their bad karma would rub off on me.

Maybe it’s crazy.

Or maybe it’s just my brain coming up with excuses, because I like the freelancing life and I don’t really want an office job ever again.

Whatever the reason, the conclusion is I won’t be applying to Stansberry Research now or in the foreseeable future.

And I will continue to focus on the health space. Speaking of which, if you want my insights about email marketing in the health space (including lessons from an email campaign for an 8-figure supplement company that tripled sales for a specific funnel), you might like my upcoming book:

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

I survived a copy critique from Parris Lampropoulos

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A few weeks ago, I got a shot at a copy critique from one of the most successful copywriters active today, the great and reclusive Parris Lampropoulos.

Now, Parris can apparently be brutal in his copy critiques.

Plus, the critiques he was offering would be done in front of an audience of several hundred people.

And it would all be recorded.

So I was a little nervous about submitting anything.

At the same time, it was a fantastic opportunity. After all, Parris has written dozens of million-dollar marketing campaigns, and here was an opportunity to get personalized feedback from the guy.

So I gritted my teeth, picked out a sales letter I had written last year, and submitted it.

This sales letter was for RightBiotics, a probiotic supplement sold by RealDose Nutrition.

Anyways, when the the big day came, Parris critiqued several other people’s copy before he got to mine.

And all throughout, he was encouraging and fair — even though he told a few people to burn what they had and start over.

Finally, it was my turn.

“The body copy is good,” Parris said. But there was a serious problem, which Parris pointed out with a question:

“John, are you the first person ever on the face of the planet to sell a probiotic supplement?”

(I am not.)

“So why would you come out and tip off you’re selling something?”

And it’s true. In my headline, I announced a “clinically proven new probiotic that does XYZ.” Regardless of how this letter was formatted — even if it looked like an article — the reader would know immediately I was selling something.

Doing this might be acceptable when you’re selling something incredibly unique…

Or when you’ve already got a good relationship with the reader.

But for cold traffic, Parris said, this simply wasn’t good enough.

And with that, the critique was over.

I was still alive.

And I even had a clear plan of action. That’s because Parris gave me a simple — though not necessarily easy — way to fix this sales letter.

I’ll talk more about this over the coming days, as I implement Parris’s critique.

For now, remember Parris’s advice about tipping off the reader. It applies if you’re ever running ads and trying to sell something to people who don’t know you.

On the other hand, if you’re not trying to make sales to cold traffic, you might consider sending them daily emails to build a relationship first.

And if you want some advice on how to do this well, you might like my upcoming book. It talks about several successful email campaigns I’ve written — including one for RealDose Nutrition, which tripled sales for a specific funnel.

What’s more, you can get a free copy of this book when I finish it (in the next month or two). To sign up, here’s where to go:

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

Lethal Webinar 2

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The camera zooms in through a window of a high-rise apartment and onto the bed.

On the bed, there’s a topless blonde woman. She’s wearing white stockings and a negligee, and writhing in drug-fueled lust.

The next thing you know, she gets up.

She stumbles over to the balcony.

She climbs onto the railing.

And then she takes a dive, falling some 30 floors down, onto the roof of a parked car.

So begins the original Lethal Weapon movie.

I bring this up because Gene Schwartz, one of the greatest copywriters of all time, called this movie “the greatest training for any merchandiser in the world, especially copy people.”

He advised copywriters to see it at least three times, preferably in the same day.

Why? What could possibly be so great about Lethal Weapon?

In Gene’s own words:

“You’ve got to pick up the rhythm, and you’ve got to see how Silver, who is an absolute genius — Spielberg and Silver are the two communication geniuses of our country at this moment — every timing, every three minutes he throws another blast at you. There’s another head being smashed against a windshield. There’s another fifty people being blown out of an airplane. And then there’s a few minutes of dialogue which means nothing.”

This is the same structure that Gene advised for sales letters as well.

Explosion… Fight… 3 minutes of conversation… Another explosion…

Headline… Cautionary tale… 3 sentences of explanation… Another shocking story…

You might think this structure is just for hyped-up sales copy.

I don’t agree.

At a fundamental level, this is how humans prefer to communicate, or at least how they prefer to consume information.

This same structure works for everything from hard-core sales letters to technical webinars.

Of course, you have to adapt to your market.

For example, if you are in fact doing a technical webinar (as a friend of mine might be doing soon), you wouldn’t start with a coked-up topless hooker jumping to her death.

But you would want to shock and startle your audience a bit — in the appropriate dose. So you could start off the webinar with a dramatic case study, or a cautionary tale from one of your existing customers.

The key is to shake up and disturb your audience a bit, before you get to the more reasoned, serious, and boring content.

At least that’s my opinion.

Of course, technical webinars are not my forte. However, sales emails are. And if you want sales emails that shake up and disturb your audience, then Riggs, here’s what to do:

Click on the link below. And see whether you want to sign up for a free copy of my upcoming book on email marketing, specifically for the health space. Here’s where to point your lethal weapon:

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

Stinkbug surprise

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Last autumn was the first time it happened.

Stinkbugs, invading my apartment. Flying around aimlessly. Bumping into lamps and walls.

Fortunately, stinkbugs are easy to scoop up and dispose of. As a girl I used to know would say, “They have no instinct for life.”

As stinkbugs kept appearing in my living room, I started to wonder, how can such a stupid creature be taking over the world?

It turns out stinkbugs are not always this slow and useless.

They only come inside homes when the weather turns cold. They then enter a state known as diapause, a kind of insect hibernation.

I found out about this from an article titled “Home Invasion,” written by Katharine Schulz, a Pulitzer-prize winning author.

But don’t worry. I’m not here to talk about stinkbugs. Instead, I want to talk about an interesting writing technique that Schulz used in her article.

While talking about the diapause, Schulz writes:

“It is also thanks to diapause that stinkbugs, indoors, seem inordinately graceless and impossibly dumb. But, as we all know, being graceless and dumb is no obstacle to being powerful and horrifying.”

Did you catch it?

There in the second sentence. That unresolved allusion to something “graceless and dumb.”

For reference, this article is from 2018 and was published in the New Yorker, a left-leaning magazine.

When I read the above passage, a wave of pleasant surprise passed over me.

Not because I am outraged over “graceless and dumb” creatures being horrifyingly powerful.

Instead, I was just satisfied at having solved a little puzzle. After all, Schulz didn’t spell it out who or what she was talking about.

This little puzzle spiced up the article for me. It certainly seems to be a good tactic for Pulitzer-winning New Yorker writers.

But should you ever use unresolved verbal puzzles in sales copy?

It seems crazy.

After all, you want sales copy to be as transparent and easy-to-read as possible. As copywriting coach David Garfinkel likes to say, “Either you work and get paid, or your reader works and gets paid” (ie. he keeps his money and doesn’t buy what you’re selling).

And yet, there might be occasions when posing a little intellectual challenge for your readers can work in copy.

Here’s what Joe Sugarman, who ran and wrote copy for a 9-figure mail-order business, has to say on the topic:

“If you make your copy too obvious, the reader feels either looked down on or bored. Provide a little suspense so that the reader has to come to a conclusion on her own using intuition, thought, sensation, and emotion, and you’ve got a very good force working for you.”

And sure enough, old Joe used to pepper in such bits of “mental engagement” in many of his wildly successful ads.

Something for you too to consider.

Of course, there are places in copy where you never want to leave the reader thinking or scratching his head. Such as, for example, that call to action.

That’s why, in case you are looking to make your sales emails stink less, here’s exactly what todo:

Head on down to the page below. And then make a decision whether you want to opt in with your email. If you do opt in, I’ll send you a free copy of my upcoming book on email marketing — once I finish it in the next couple of months. Here’s the link:

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