Swiping

Not a good email

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Today is the last day of my promo for Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend. My promo ends at midnight tonight.

There was some confusion about the deadline because some people interpret “12 midnight Sunday” to be the first minute of Sunday, rather than the last.

Well, that’s not how I interpret it or have interpreted it, ever. If you want proof, take a look at all my previous promos that end at 12 midnight of day x. I always take that to mean the end of day x, rather than the very beginning.

Still, this is something I will fix going forward, by removing any ambiguity, and ending future promos at 11:59pm.

So far, a healthy number of people have bought this offer, including a reader named Mike, who bought via yesterday’s 4th-of-July, “All experience hath shewn” email.

After buying, Mike wrote me to say:

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Thanks John!

I just bought this. I’m assuming you will need the receipt to get access to your bonuses, so I have attached it.

I also sense that today’s email will go into your bonus of Emails that did well!

===

If you have bought Lead Gen Legend during this promo, no need to send me your receipt.

I will get that info from Lawrence. Just bear with me, because I am delivering the bonuses by hand, and over the past 36 hours, a bunch of people have bought. I will batch all the bonus-delivery into one gruesome task, and will do it as soon as the promo ends.

As for Mike’s comment that yesterday’s email is going into “Emails that did well,” that’s in reference to one of the bonuses I am giving away with this offer, an ever-expanding swipe file of my own outstanding emails.

Yesterday’s email will NOT be going into that swipe file.

Yesterday’s email yesterday was thoughtful, clever, and seemingly persuasive, if I do honk my own honker myself. And yes, yesterday’s email did drive in some sales (Mike’s included). But yesterday’s email underperformed relative to other emails I sent during this promo.

It all goes to support my point that, unless you know the behind-the-scenes results, it’s impossible to evaluate copy as good or not, or to know that you are modeling something that actually worked.

Cue Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

Lead Gen Legend is a massive, searchable collection of winning lead gen advertising.

With direct response ads, you can use a proxy for secret and hidden behind-the-scenes results. That proxy is whether an ad was run hundreds of thousands of times over the span of months, years or decades.

This tracking of winning ads is what Lawrence has been doing, patiently, obsessively, over his career.

In addition to which, Lawrence has a long tenure in the DR industry. He has a ton of insider contacts. He has worked with many ultra-successful direct response businesses.

Lawrence knows more behind-the-scenes direct response stuff than both you and me combined, and he shares some of that as commentary and context inside Lead Gen Legend.

In addition to that addition, I am also offering the following free bonuses if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend by the end of day today, Sunday:

FREE BONUS #1. “Emails that did well”

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as former Agora Financial copy chief Joe Schriefer has said, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. “Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call” recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

FREE BONUS #4. “How to get copywriting clients a dozen at a time”

A recording of of the call I did with Dawn Apuan, grilling her on how she has been able to become the resident copywriting guru in multiple business masterminds, and rake in dozens of clients at a time.

FREE BONUS #5. A lazy, ‘mom & pop’ ad template to add 3-4 buyers to your email list every day, at a slight profit”

Nick Bandy’s lazy but effective way of creating ads to get people to buy his low-ticket front-end offer and get on his email list.

This is part of Nick’s $500 training on running a low-ticket funnel, but it’s just as applicable if all you wanna do is run lead gen ads.

It’s yours free as part of this Lead Gen Offer, though you will have to additionally opt in to Nick’s list to get it.

FREE BONUS #6. “The second coming of Gary Bencivenga” ad and landing page

A few months ago, I found a guy who was running an ad on Facebook… telling you he will write an ad to beat your best performing ad… and if he doesn’t succeed in beating it, he’ll give you all your money back.

The offer started at $97 and has been going up each time he sells out the slots he’s got for the month. It currently sells for $247. It was a brilliant, modern application of the classic Gary Bencivenga agency ad.

I’m planning to model this same approach to get advertorial clients. If you’d like the ad and the landing page copy, they are yours as part of this bonus bundle.

Again, these bonuses disappear tonight, Sunday, at end of day, which I tend to call midnight. If you would like to get them before then, and also benefit from the generous $300 discount Lawrence is offering during this promo, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

P.S. To get $300 off the regular $379 price of Lead Gen Legend, put in the coupon code BEJAKO on the cart page. Lawrence has these instructions on the page itself, but it’s a bit hidden, and some people have written me in confusion about it.

All experience hath shewn

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For the past year, I’ve been memorizing, one line a day, various famous poems and speeches and passages.

At some point, I memorized the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.

You probably know the “all men are created equal” and the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of hamburgers” bits.

But have you ever noticed the following piece of psychological insight in the nation’s founding document?

“All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

In short, that passage says that people prefer the status quo to just about anything else, regardless of how bad the status quo is.

That might seem like a trivial observation.

It is not. It reminded me of an issue of the Gary Halbert Letter (another founding document of the great American experiment), in which Gary asks what the three following situations, all very different from each other, all have in common:

1. “A guy buys a beer joint that’s doing a good business in a blue collar neighborhood. His first move is to decorate the joint and give it a little class and to lower his prices.” Result: He loses most of his customers.

2. “A guy who has never broken 100 is shooting a round of golf. After the first 9 holes, he notices he’s doing exceptionally well and has only used up 36 strokes. And, if he keeps this up for the next 9 holes, he’ll shoot par for the first time in his life.” He finishes the course with 103 strokes.

3. A wealthy Cuban businessman has all his wealth confiscated by the Castro regime. He moves to Miami with nothing. Within a short time, he’s rich again.

Says Gary, what these situations all have in common is a primary human driver, even more powerful than sex, greed, and curiosity. That primary human driver is the need to stick with the status quo.

I don’t know about you, but I personally cling to the status quo while also fighting against it daily. It’s hard work, but what else is there?

Anyways, my point today was just to share that line from the Declaration of Independence of you, because it is great, and because it’s been playing in my head for the past year.

It speaks to a fundamental human truth, as relevant today as it was then, as prevalent in politics as it is in business.

Speaking of business… business needs to be done now.

I am currently promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend, a giant swipe file of massively successful lead gen copy, with examples from right now all the way back to revolutionary times (ok, maybe not, but pretty close).

If you need a way to tie Lead Gen Legend into the topic of today’s email, go back to the status quo thing.

We all have our own routine and limited ideas for writing copy and making sales appeals. But status quo inputs beget status quo results.

It takes an outside impetus to push us out of that status quo, and to open up new vistas of conversion and profit. A curated swipe file of winning ads can be just the thing. Gary Halbert would agree.

If you are mildly convinced by that argument, I will warm you up a bit more by including several bonuses with Lead Gen Legend, if you get it before tomorrow, Sunday, July 5 at 12 midnight PST.

The ones I’ve announced so far:

FREE BONUS #1. Emails that did well

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as former Agora Financial copy chief Joe Schriefer has said, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

Again, my bonuses are good only until tomorrow, Sunday, at 12 midnight PST.

Lawrence has also generously agreed to lower the price of Lead Gen Legend during this promo by $300 from its usual $379 price, so it is now a very attractive $79.

If you’d like to get it before it becomes necessary for me to dissolve this offer:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

The 100% Headline Swipe (Raking in Response for 75 Years)

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This week, I’m promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend offer, a giant collection of winning lead gen ads, searchable by category, along with expert commentary and context by Lawrence himself.

I’m also throwing in some exclusive bonuses, one of which is “Emails that did well,” my own private list of emails I’ve written (and will write) that have stood out (and will stand out) in terms of results.

Because all emails are NOT created equal.

And unless you know the behind-the-scenes results, there’s no way for you to know which emails pulled in pulled in 2x-3x the sales of others.

In other words, if you’re swiping, you might be swiping the wrong thing.

Speaking of, when I started to promote Lead Gen Legend, Lawrence sent me one particular email he had used to promote Lead Gen Legend to his own list.

Said Lawrence, “This was a rare, ridiculously successful email multiple times it was sent.”

I am reproducing Lawrence’s email below in full in order to:

1. Share a valuable marketing lesson (the promised “100% headline swipe” that’s been working for 75 years)

2. Give you an email to swipe if you wanna swipe something that was “rare” and “ridiculously successful” on the multiple times it was sent

2. Get you a bit warmer to the idea of grabbing Lead Gen Legend yourself, while my bonus offer and Lawrence’s generous discount are still live.

Play it again, Lawrence:

===

How’s that for a cheesy subject line?

The cringe factor almost kept me from sending it.

But I’ll tell you something, …

If my head were on the chopping block and I had to come up with a winning lead in 60 seconds or less…

This 1952 vintage headline would be on my shortlist!

Raking in response for almost 75 years

This headline was so good Gene Schwartz reused it himself… the ad below evolved directly from the one above.

It’s been deployed in a dozen markets and it’s a longtime favorite of chiropractors.

Same setup, different market with over one thousand insertions for the 1965 book: “How to Avoid Probate.”

Geographically… demographically… psychographically...

There’s just no limit to how you can use this headline template.

From retirees in Florida… to chiropractors in Kansas… to gold investors in Singapore…

This headline beckons to them like a lighthouse in a sea of clutter.

The “Why hasn’t ‘Group X’ been told these facts?” template…

is a simple yet powerful way to target ideal prospects, suffering from a common problem.

And while Gene Schwartz used it to sell information, today it’s used almost exclusively for lead generation in health and wealth.

If there’s a better problem–agitation–solution setup, I haven’t seen it.

A favorite of chiropractors — this one had multiple full pages in the Chicago Tribune.

12,000+ ad insertions for this reverse mortgage ad (2016–2021)

If you were to read some of these earlier ads today, they might not feel like the most compelling copy on the planet.

And that’s a good thing because it proves just how universal this tested template really is.

It works for copy neophytes and veterans alike. And on that note:

For ​the next two days, you can round up 707 proven ideas ​for lead generation in any market… and take advantage of a $300 credit I’ve reserved for you.

Find it here: ​https://bejakovic.com/leadgen​

Yours for bolder response,

Lawrence (and John)

P.S. While almost nothing is 100%, this offer may be as close as it gets.

On average I write 3.4 good emails a month

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Over the past 8 years of running this daily newsletter, I have had a long line of big-name direct marketers and A-list copywriters come and go as subscribers.

Along the way, many have had good things to say about my abilities as an email copywriter. My favorite is from Joe Schriefer, who at the time was the copy chief at Agora Financial, one of the biggest imprints at one of the biggest direct response publishers. Joe wrote me one time and said:

“Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your emails. I think you’re one of the best email writers out there!”

I’m telling you this to set up the following shocking and quite depressing fact:

Even though I write and send an email every day, I on average write only 3.4 good emails a month.

Here’s how I know:

Earlier this year, I finally did something I shoulda done on day 0 of starting this newsletter. I created a new Google Doc, and I named it “Emails that did well.”

Ever since, when an email stands out in terms of results — usually sales made, but sometimes for other reasons, like getting a lot of qualified leads, or opening an unexpected new door, or simply getting an unusual amount of engagement — I put it in this document, along with a short summary of the results that made me think the email did well.

Over the past 5 months, since the end of January, I have put 17 emails into the “Emails that did well” document. By my math, that works out to 3.4 emails a month. That’s barely over 10%.

What about the remaining ~90% of emails I write?

I reckon they are doing their work still, and are moving some of the people somewhat closer to the hole, as marketer Travis Sago likes to say.

Still, fewer than 10% of my emails appear to be outstanding in terms of their impact. (For the record, none of these “Emails that did well” is a “cart close, last call” email. “Cart close” emails work great, but for reasons other than the copy.)

Would you like to know which of my emails did well this year?

Would you like to have running access to the emails of mine that do well in the future, for as long as I keep writing this newsletter?

If you would, I’ll make you a deal:

I’m currently promoting Lawrence Bernstein’s Lead Gen Legend. This is a massive swipe file of winning lead gen copy and set of special reports on lead gen, which Lawrence normally sells for $379, but which he is making available for $79 during my promo, because that’s the deal I made with him.

I bought Lead Gen Legend myself earlier this because I was sold on it myself, without thinking to ever promote it as an affiliate.

I am promoting it now because I think it’s great, like everything else Lawrence sells, and a sweet deal at just $79.

At the same time, I’ve learned a bit or two during these 8 years of running my own newsletter.

That’s why I’m also including the following three bonuses to Lawrence’s core offer:

FREE BONUS #1. Emails that did well

I’ll give you access to my “Emails that did well” document, now and in perpetuity. You can see which of my past emails did well and why. And as I update the document, you will see which future emails have done well. In a way, it’s a swipe file of outstanding email copy, from, as Joe Schriefer would say, “one of the best email writers out there.”

FREE BONUS #2. Core Promise Workshop and Q&A call recording

I recently sold this workshop recording for $97, along with some bonuses. It’s yours free (minus the bonuses) if you get Lawrence’s Lead Gen Legend for $79.

FREE BONUS #3. “Perfect Lead Gen Offer”

Not my idea. Also not a specific offer template you can swipe. Rather, a simple but counterintuitive process for figuring out what offer to make in your lead gen ads to maximize lifetime value and minimize ad costs.

If you want it, or at a part of it, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

P.S. To get $300 off the regular $379 price of Lead Gen Legend, put in the coupon code BEJAKO on the cart page. Lawrence has these instructions on the page itself, but it’s a bit hidden, and some people have written me in confusion about it.

Make this your hobby

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Yesterday I started promoting Lead Gen Legend, “the world’s most powerful lead gen library.”

Lead Gen Legend is a giant swipe file plus much other stuff of value, put out by Lawrence Bernstein.

I bought Lead Gen Legend myself when it first came out, with no thought of promoting it as an affiliate, simply because I was sold on the value of it myself.

I am promoting it now because I think it’s great, and because I think you can profit from it.

My email yesterday managed to convey this, and actually made sales from several forward-looking marketers. It also drew some questions, such as the following:

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Love the Lambo garage joke. You mentioned you’d address this in the next couple of days, but quick question now, is this library mostly historical context, or is it easy to swipe and adapt if I’m actively building out a cold email/digital agency list right now?

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Being myself an opportunity seeker, I am sympathetic to the search for things that are “easy to swipe and adapt.”

But the fact is, a swipe file is not a template library, where you just plug in the name of your offer and come out with a ready-made ad or email.

That happens to be the great value of a swipe file, particularly of historical, possibly forgotten ads.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from Dan Kennedy, at one point the highest-paid copywriter on planet Earth, and almost certainly the most knowledgeable direct marketer on said planet. Says Dan:

===

I am an advocate of spending a lot of time looking backwards in order to go forwards, because the people that did it a decade ago or longer, everybody had to be better than we have to be now to get the results, because they didn’t have tools.

So the guy who managed to sell a $200 “get rich in real estate” course in 1923, what had to happen?

By the way, his process wasn’t much different than our process. Just he didn’t have any tools.

So he ran a lead generation ad and people wrote in or sent in a dollar or sent in four postage stamps in order to get his free report.

He then sent them his sales letter, and then they had to read, and then they had to get a postal money order, and not talk themselves out of it while they were getting a postal money order, and then they had to mail in the postal money order to a stranger they didn’t know from Adam’s house cat, and know they were gonna wait a month before they ever saw anything.

What that guy did was much harder than what we have to do today. He HAD to be better.

So there’s a good chance of discovering something he was doing that has been kind of lost through the years, that nobody feels compelled to do now, but if they added it to what they’re doing it would help their results considerably.

So I’m very big on going backwards in order to go forwards. So dredge up the old stuff. Make that your hobby if you’re serious about this thing.

===

All that’s to say, Lead Gen Legend contains old stuff. It also contains new stuff. (I’ll give you an example of both in another email during this promo.)

One way or another though, new or old, you’ll have to play with these ads and ideas a bit, to spot stuff that has been lost on others, to make them pay for you.

Like Dan says, make this your hobby, at least if you’re serious about this marketing thing. And your results will improve considerably.

If you’d like to get Lead Gen Legend now, and profit from the experience and skill of generations of direct marketers who simply HAD to be better than anyone working today, so you can get results that your competition can only look at with envy and frustration, then here’s where to go to start your new hobby:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

Announcing: The world’s most powerful lead gen library

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Today I have a new offer for you.

It’s what in the business is called an “affiliate offer.”

Meaning, I didn’t create this offer. And yet here I am promoting it, and if you buy it, I will get a cut of the money you invest.

With that damaging admission out of the way, here are the key facts about this offer:

1. The offer is called Lead Gen Legend.

It is, according to its maker, “the world’s most powerful lead gen library.”

2. Lead Gen Legend is a Swipe File+.

Meaning, you get a lot of curated, proven ads, but you also get much other stuff of value (hence the ‘+’) that I’ll tell you about in a second.

3. A swipe file though? Who needs a swipe file??? Isn’t that so 2021?

Well, I need a swipe file. I actually bought Lead Gen Legend when it was first offered earlier this year, without any thought of promoting it as an affiliate.

I bought it because 1) I am a hoarder of direct response materials, 2) because the promise of “the world’s most powerful lead gen library” sounded too good to pass up, and 3) because this offer is put out by the world’s most obsessed ad archivist, Lawrence Bernstein, and after already buying a bunch of stuff from Lawrence, I am predisposed to buying whatever he puts out, because everything I’ve bought so far has been frankly great.

4. The “other stuff of value” I mentioned above comes in the form of Lawrence’s experience, obsessiveness, and knowledge.

Lead Gen Legend isn’t just a bunch of lead gen ads.

First off, these are ads that worked, often to the tune of millions of dollars, across dozens of industries like “Agency & Copywriting”… “Anti-Aging & Beauty”… “Real Estate Investing”… (and of course) Dental Implants.

Second, these are ads that are commentated upon by Lawrence, who fills in the historical context, highlights what’s most important.

5. Also included in the (+) are several custom reports Lawrence has prepared, including but not limited to:

• “The Affluent Buyer Model”

• “The Inertia Breaker”

• “Free Plus Shipping”

• “Catalogue of Killer Lead Gen from a $386 Billion Firm”

6. The price, the huge price that I get a huge cut of.

When I bought Lead Gen Legend myself, not thinking to ever promote it, it was selling for $79. Lawrence has since Martin Skhreli’ed the price up to $379. And why not?

Lawrence’s list is full of big-time direct response operators, people who are spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars A DAY on lead gen. One good idea that they peel out of Lead Gen Legend could make them a 100x return on Lead Gen Legend by tomorrow.

Maybe you are at that level yourself, or maybe you are not there yet.

In any case, I’ve struck a deal with Lawrence so that, during this promo, the price if Lead Gen Legend drops a healthy $300 from its current $379, to a modest and quite manageable $79.

That’s my argument for Lead Gen Legend today.

I realized I probably haven’t convinced you yet.

After all, you might still legitimately be wondering how I am using this lead gen library myself, or if it’s simply sitting in my imaginary garage, along with my imaginary collection of hundreds of books, right behind my imaginary Lambo.

You might be wondering how you could possibly use Lead Gen Legend, given that you are a new in the business/too experienced/tall/short/a wine drinker/a beer drinker/a teetotaler, or are unique in your own magical way.

You might also be wondering why you should possibly act now, since I haven’t announced a deadline.

For all that and more, stay tuned. I’ll attempt to address it in my emails across the next day or two.

If, on the other hand, you happen to be a big-time direct response operator, or are angling to become one soon, and you want to take advantage of the world’s most powerful lead gen library today, before others get their greasy mitts on it, and profit before they can, while saving yourself $300 before the offer disappears, then here’s where to act now:

https://bejakovic.com/leadgen

How to make direct marketing FUN for yourself

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OLD, DULL WAY OF DOING DIRECT MARKETING

You get bombarded with direct response ads, whether via Facebook, in your inbox, or via your physical mailbox. And if you’re anything like me, your reactions as you flip trough these ads is…

“Not for me… not for me… God this is ugly… this COULD be for me except they are talking to me like I’m an idiot… not for me… not for me…”

On the flip side, you bombard others with direct response ads, whether actual ads or emails or sales letters. And if you’re anything like me, you dutifully stuff your ads full of the old DR chestnuts you have read about in books and courses:

“Buy now… amazing… secret… our warehouse manager just called… my accountant says I’m crazy… maximum money… minimum time…”

FUN, NEW WAY OF DOING DIRECT MARKETING

You open up a new text file. And when you get bombarded with DR ads, you treat each one like a riddle, a puzzle, or a scavenger hunt. You look for curious or interesting patterns or phrases. You write down any that you find in your text file.

“Why isn’t this number lower”… “You can’t buy anything here”… “A month from today, you can be nothing more than 30 days older”… “It costs you nothing to learn about this opportunity…”

On the flip side, you take your curious or interesting patterns and phrases from your text file, and you find ways to test them out in your own marketing.

“Will it work for me, I wonder… and if it doesn’t work for me, I wonder why that other ad was using it and if it worked for them… and if it does work for me, I wonder how else I can use it…”

I’ve done this in many forms, with many ads, over many years.

When I just got started with copywriting, I did it with sales letters my clients wanted me to model.

Later, on my own, i did it with emails. (I went for a month in 2019 reading Ben Settle’s emails not for the content, but with an eye to patterns in the hooks he was using and the offers he was promoting.)

And just yesterday, I started doing it with Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin group.

I’ve been promoting Ronin regularly, because I’m in it and because I’ve profited mightily from being in it.

If you’re not as much into Ronin as I am, you might not realize that Royalty Ronin is basically one big direct response ad. I mean the content inside the group.

Travis Sago, the guy behind Ronin, is a master of direct marketing. And everything he does inside Ronin is done with a purpose, and that purpose is selling.

Ronin, for all the education, inspiration, and value it delivers along the way, is effectively a giant, ongoing, direct response sales letter for various of Travis’s new offers.

Some of Travis’s direct response experiments work. Some don’t. Some he ends up codifying and sharing with others, often in the form of an expensive new training. Some he keeps to himself for years, or maybe forever.

For my own benefit, and in order to make direct marketing more FUN for myself, yesterday I sat down and started looking for phrases and patterns inside Ronin that caught my eye.

I made a list of 10 ideas, looking over just a few of Travis’s recent posts.

One of these 10 ideas, a subject line Travis used, led to the offer behind my email yesterday, about an auction to get investors to purchase your newsletter or group.

Other ideas I spotted I might use in other emails, or in sales letters, or on live workshops, or maybe in one of my communities.

So my advice for you is to do likewise.

Make direct marketing more FUN for yourself.

Turn it into a game, and you will enjoy yourself more, and make more money. (In minimum time!)

I also got an offer for you:

Try out Ronin yourself. Travis offers a week’s free trial. If you find it’s not for you, you can cancel before the week is out and get charged nothing.

If you do sign up for a trial of Ronin, forward me your welcome email from Travis.

In turn, I will send you a list of the 10 valuable ideas I noted in Ronin yesterday, along with how I am planning to apply a few of them.

I’m making this offer good until tomorrow, Tuesday Jun 9, at 8:31pm CET.

If you’re interested, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

How I write emails and create offers using Ad Money Machine

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Yesterday I got an email from Robin Timmers, the “largest copywriter in the Netherlands”. Robin just got Copy Riddles during the current “Unannounced Bonus” promo, which comes with a lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money machine (normally $997). About that, Robin wrote:

===

Hey John,

I got the offer, and I was wondering…

(I’ll start after finishing up CopyHour, which is +-3 weeks left.)

How do you (both in general and specifically you) use the Ad Money Machine?

===

Well, it’s about time somebody asked.

I’ll tell ya, and it will be relevant whether or not you get Copy Riddles or Ad Money Machine.

It will be just as relevant if you want to do all the endless and tiring legwork yourself that Lawrence has done on your behalf, and masochistically spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to find out what best direct response marketers across industries are doing.

Here are four ways I personally use Ad Money Machine:

#1. Subject lines and email hooks

Nobody has called me out on it, but all the subject lines I have so far used during this promo have come from ads and sales letters in Ad Money Machine:

* Copy Riddles customers hit jackpot with “Unannounced Bonus” scheme (“U.S. residents hit Jackpot with ‘Old Vegas’ Casino Rolls”)

* Over $1M ($1,000,000) and 20 years of loving labor went into this brilliant Unannounced Bonus (“£125,000 ($300,000) and 2 years of loving labour went into this sumptuous Centennial Edition of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF DICKENS”)

* Exposed: Gary Bencivenga’s “100x its price” marketing investment (“Exposed: Warren Buffett’s $39 Billion Black Gold Bonanza”)

* The magnificent obsession that produces A-list copywriting skills (“The Magnificent Obsession That Produced The Coffee Favored By Kings”)

* Dead for 34 months — now alive again (“Outlawed For 41 Years — Now Legal Again”)

* Copy Riddles is expensive… or maybe not (“Life is short… or maybe not.”)

* How I write emails and create offers using Ad Money Machine (“How I Make $327 Per Hour Practicing Real Estate”)

The bigger point is that good hooks, and good ways of crystalizing those hooks in words, are eternal. It makes sense to be a student of your market, and other markets, and reuse what’s worked.

#2. Marketing ideas I can port from one industry to another

Just one example: Gary Halbert’s 4 steps for turning $39.95… into $289… into $4,046.

Yes, Lawrence has the front-end ad that Gary Halbert ran in the WSJ, selling a Halley’s Comet commemorative silver coin for $39.95.

But the ad copy was not the story.

The story, which Lawrence got direct from Gary himself, is how those $39.95 front-end orders were turned into $289 sales, and how those $289 sales were turned into $4,046 sales, in 4 simple steps.

In spite of this being Gary Halbert, this 4-step process is perfectly legal and even ethical. It also applies to any field, including info products like courses and memberships. It’s something I have been using in part and will be using much more going forward with the offers I create.

#3. Uncovering core appeals in an industry

Until last year, I ran an email newsletter on the topic of longevity. I regularly went into the Ad Money Machine “Beauty and Anti-Aging” category (~100 winning direct response ads) to search out what appeals sell (“Look 10 years younger in 10 hours”), what words and phrases people respond to (“thinning hair”), and what hooks to use (the French).

#4. Curiosity, entertainment, and inspiration

Like I keep saying, Ad Money Machine is not simply a huge collection of winning direct response ads, with a new ad popping up each day.

What makes me keep going back over and over is Lawrence’s commentary, knowledge, and experience, which put these ads in their fascinating (at least to me) context.

If you’re actually interested in copywriting and marketing… if you’re intrigued by the history of the field…if you are amused by or have at least heard of some of the characters who made it what it is… then Lawrence’s site is addictive.

As just one example:

Last Sunday, I went on Ad Money Machine, looking for a headline I could repurpose for a subject line.

I came across that “U.S. residents hit Jackpot” ad.

But then I started reading Lawrence’s commentary, where he casually mentions that Vic Schwab (author of “How To Write An Advertisement,” one of the best books in the field, and the copywriter behind Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends And Influence People”) helped start a gold and silver coin company.

Lawrence had a post on that as well. So I got sucked in, clicked through, and started reading that instead of writing my email. That’s ok. Not only was it fun and interesting and inspiring, but I learned something (going back to point 2 above) that I will use in the future.

The deadline to get Copy Riddles along with the “Unannounced Bonus” of Ad Money Machine is this Sunday, just two short days away.

As a reminder, I also will be running a live cohort for Copy Riddles, one last time, never to be repeated, as part of the offer for this promo, to help you actually go through the program so you benefit from it and start owning those A-list copywriting skills.

Plus, there’s a payment plan if you want to take out some of the sting of paying in one lump sum. That also goes away on Sunday.

To take advantage of all that before the deadline makes it disappear forever:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Over $1M ($1,000,000) and 20 years of loving labor went into this brilliant Unannounced Bonus

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This week, I’m running an “Unannounced Bonus” promotional event for my Copy Riddles program.

Copy Riddles, as you might know, uses a clever mechanism to download A-list copywriting skills into your brain, over the course of a few short weeks.

I’ve been selling Copy Riddles since 2021. I have had a lot of customers go through the program. I have had only glowing feedback.

But I’ve been talking about all that for years. Odds are, you know it already.

So today, I want to share with you the special “Unannounced Bonus” I’m making available if you join Copy Riddles before this Sunday, July 20, at 12 midnight PST.

That bonus is a lifetime subscription to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine.

I’ve written about Lawrence lots of times in my newsletter — he’s “the world’s most obsessed ad archivist.”

Ad Money Machine is Lawrence’s subscription service where, each day, he shares direct response winners from the past and the present. Two points to highlight about that:

First off, these are not just random screenshotted ads from newspapers.com. As Lawrence says on the Ad Money Machine site:

“I’ve invested over a million bucks on subscriptions and products to keep my name (and aliases!) seeded on direct mail lists.”

The vast majority of these ads, packages, and promos are not available online — anywhere, except inside Lawrence’s membership site.

The reason is that he’s spent the time, effort, and money to get himself on the lists of the biggest and most successful direct marketing companies, so he can see all their marketing — the front ends, being mailed out to specialized direct mail lists, as well as all the mysterious stuff that goes on in the back, to customers only.

Because of this, Ad Money Machine is effectively a collection of “businesses in a box” — the winning ad copy, offers, and funnels across a range of markets, from health, wealth, self-help, along with a bunch of quirky ones thrown in (fishing, stamps, “grass plugs”).

Second off, Lawrence isn’t “just some guy,” and Ad Money Machine is not even his primary business.

For over two decades now, Lawrence has been working as a direct response copywriter and operator, focusing on direct mail.

That means that, when it comes to Ad Money Machine, Lawrence doesn’t just share winning ads and promos. He also puts them in context, using his own decades of experience, and he explains why these ads worked and how they connect to deeper principles of copywriting and direct marketing.

A few bits of feedback Lawrence has gotten about that, from top direct response copywriters and marketers who have paid him thousands of dollars for his ad archives and commentary:

“Brilliant examples, great commentary. This one just gave me an idea for a newsletter we’re about to launch that I think will hit large. I don’t know where you find this stuff, but I’m glad you do.”

— John Forde, A-list copywriter and co-author of Great Leads

“My jaw is literally black and blue from hitting the floor over and over again as I got to see the techniques you’ve uncovered. I never dreamed many of these things were even possible, let alone how easy you’ve made them. The word ‘miraculous’ comes to mind.”

— Ken McCarthy, founder, System Seminar

“If Lawrence has got a product for sale, you should get it!”

— Marty Edelston, founder, Boardroom Inc.

About that last comment from Marty Edelston:

Ad Money Machine normally sells for $97/month. I subscribed to it at that price for over a year, starting in 2023. At that time I even promoted it to my list, for free, without being an affiliate, simply because I thought it’s such a valuable service.

Then back in 2024, Lawrence offered a rare opportunity to buy a lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine for $997 one-time. I knew I’d keep paying Lawrence monthly for a long time, so it was a no-brainer to take him up on this offer. I paid the $997 and bought the lifetime subscription.

Now, I’ve partnered with Lawrence so people who buy Copy Riddles during this week also get a FREE lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine, the same subscription I paid $997 for. I also got him to agree to extend the same benefit to previous Copy Riddles buyers.

(If you’re wondering why Lawrence would possibly agree to this, it’s because I’ve made the same deal to his lifetime subscribers — they can get Copy Riddles for free. Being a savvy direct response guy, Lawrence knows the value of growing his list with a bunch of people who are 1) interested in direct response copywriting and 2) have paid $997 to get better at it.)

Over the course of the coming week, I’ll have much more to say about Copy Riddles, about Ad Money Machine, and about Lawrence himself.

But frankly, I’ve never offered a deal this good before, at least if you too are interested in direct response copywriting and want to get better at it. In case you already know you want this deal, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

P.S. If you are already a Copy Riddles member, I sent you an email about how to claim your free lifetime subscription to Ad Money Machine. In case you didn’t get that email, write me and I’ll get you set up.

Is this the most immoral email ever written?

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Or is it the most sensible, the most practical, the most revolutionary thing you will read today?

To find out, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Is your business or career a source of annoyance or frustration instead of a source of pleasure and fulfillment?

2. Have you become tense and irritable because of the incessant, nagging demands made upon you by others?

3. Do you remember my email from last week, the one where I had a little story from Drayton Bird, about how he and Gene Schwartz independently wrote the exact same ad headline, word-for-word?

Well I tracked that ad down. By the tone of it, I guess it’s the Gene Schwartz version.

This ad sells a book — “the most immoral book ever written?” — which was initially published in 1937, then went through a lot of reprints, then went out of print, and was finally resurrected in the 1960s by Gene for his mail-order book-selling empire. Gene is still supposed to be the guy who has sold the most books by mail in history.

I invite you to check out the full ad on the page below. If, after 10 days, you do not believe that Gene Schwartz’s masterful cold reads can dramatically transform your marketing, you may return the ad and owe nothing. Otherwise I will bill you for $0.00 plus postage. Click the link below and then read the page that opens up:

https://bejakovic.com/most-immoral