Email Marketing

My results on cold traffic vs. email

by

This morning I woke up and checked my email to find a new sale notification. Daily Emails 101, $5. “Damn it,” I said.

For the past week, I’ve been running my “Daily Emails 101” offer to cold Meta traffic. Results as of this morning, when I shut the campaign down:

Outbound clicks: 195

Sales: 6

Conversion rate: 3.07%

I was doing this because I wanted to test if this offer had legs on cold traffic. It apparently does — only barely.

I was told that 3% to an ugly, unoptimized page, selling a $5 offer, is the minimum you should get if have any hope of eventually having the optimized funnel break even on cold traffic.

With today’s sale, I managed to squeeze in right at the buzzer. (I was going to run the campaign until 200 clicks and then stop.)

Compare that to the results I had when I made the exact same offer to my list about a month ago:

Outbound clicks: ~470

Sales: 155

Conversion rates: ~33%

The same dude whose “offer validation” process I’m following said that if you’re testing an offer to warm traffic like your email list, you should get at least a 20% conversion rate.

I got over 30%, which I think is a reflection of the quality of my list and the relationship I have with that list, thanks to emailing daily.

My point today is not about how wizardly I am at email marketing. My point is how email marketing, even when done at an average level, completely transforms the math of selling.

Same offer. Same copy. Only difference is cold audience vs. an audience that’s gotten a bunch of emails from you… and the result is 3% vs 20% conversion rate in the average case, or more if you’re willing.

This morning, when the 6th sale came in via cold traffic and I realized that my offer still has legs, I said “damn it” because it means I will now have to do all the work of building out the cold traffic funnel for real:

Better copy… order form bumps… upsells… more ads… constantly monitoring results… watching money drain out of my account and then maybe get replenished, maybe not… family drama… increased blood pressure… rising oil prices… basically pandemonium.

All that sounded exciting before I got started. Of course, now that I’m in it, it just seems like a ton of drudge work.

I’ll still do it, primarily because of ego. Because after being in direct marketing for 10+ years, it bothers me that I’ve never really “mastered traffic,” whatever that might mean.

But logically — logically — things are just so much easier and better on the back end.

It’s 10x easier to a sell a $5 offer to your email list than it is to cold traffic.

It’s perfectly legitimate to sell a $5k offer to your list with just a few emails (I’ve done it multiple times this year), while it’s impossible to do on cold traffic, at least directly (yes, you can do it as an upsell, but even that’s likely to require sales calls).

And the back end is just more fun — not everything needs to be a “template,” “swipe,” or “AI prompt,” the way it does on cold traffic.

It all starts by emailing your list regularly. Actually, not regularly. Daily. I don’t want to shortchange you.

You can get average results by emailing regularly, but you get top-tier results simply by showing up every day.

It’s not hard to do. In fact it’s even fun and after a while, liberating. You can get started today if you like, and if you want my help, there’s my Daily Email Habit service, which gets you writing daily emails, daily. For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

How I run 36-hour promos that make between $2-$6 per newsletter subscriber

by

This morning I woke up unusually late, at 9:30am. As soon as I came out of the bat cave that is my bedroom and into the blinding light of the living room, I opened my laptop and turned off the shopping cart for the Age of Insight promo, which had been running for the past 36 hours.

The results of the promo:

* 27 sales

* 8 of those 27 paid in full

* $8,100 total ($4,200 collected, $3,900 in future payments)

Good? Bad?

In my book, whenever I can make $1k from my email list in a day, I figure it’s been a good day at the office. And by “office,” I mean the couch.

In this case, the promo effectively ran for 3 days – one announcement day to pre-sell the offer, and two days of actually selling. I’ve collected $1,400 per day already, and will be collecting more in next couple months (my readers have diligently paid me whenever I’ve offered payment plans).

This is the third such 36-hour promo I have run.

All in all, I have made $31,312 from these three 36-hour promos. That’s 31k I ascribe to a single idea, common to all 3 of these promos, which I got from marketer Travis Sago.

About that, I’ve prepared a report I’ve creatively titled:

“How I run 36-hour promos that make between $2-$6 per newsletter subscriber”

This report summarizes what I’ve done in these 3 promos, and tells you how (and when) you might be able to do the same.

I’m willing to give you this report for free. I’m wanting to give it to you for free. I’m WAITING to give it to you for free.

Here’s the deal:

Like I said, these 36-hour promos were all built around a single idea I got from marketer Travis Sago.

If you are interested in running money-making email promos, whether for yourself or for clients or partners, then you should be in Travis’s world, because the man has many excellent ideas, not just this one. I estimate that, all in all, implementing Travis’s stuff over the past few years has been worth on the order of $200k to me.

Travis’s world today is a paid Skool group called Royalty Ronin. I myself am a paying member, and I keep promoting it because it keeps making me money.

Ronin has a 7-day free trial.

My deal to you today is:

1. Sign up for the Ronin free trial using the link below

2. Read the “Welcome! Plz START HERE” post linked to in the sidebar

3. Introduce yourself in the comments to that post

4. Send me an email or a Skool DM to let me know you’ve done steps 1-3

That’s it. Do this and I’ll hook you up with my “How I run 36-hour promos that make between $2-$6 per newsletter subscriber” report.

This offer is good for the next 24 hours, until tomorrow, Sunday, at 8:30pm CET.

If you’d like to make more money from your email list, or from the email lists of others:

https://bejakovic.com/ronin

P.S. If you’re already in Ronin, my offer extends to you. So does the deadline. Just write me and let me know you want the report before the deadline, and I’ll get it to you.

Pumpkin deadline for Daily Emails 101

by

Today at 11:59pm PST I’m closing down my Daily Emails 101 offer. This is the last email I will send about it before the deadline.

Over the past four days, 100+ people have taken me up on Daily Emails 101.

What will happen with this offer in the future? We will see. Like I say on the sales page, this offer was an experiment. The experiment was successful, so now we’re moving to stage two. But more about that maybe another time.

For now, one last pitch about Daily Emails 101, before this offer turns into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.

Daily Emails 101, in its pre-pumpkin stage, walks you through the first 101 days of writing daily emails and making money from your email list.

If you’ve never written daily emails before, you might (reasonably) think, “Oh nobody wants to hear from me every day! It’s just too much!”

Well, just yesterday I sent out a reminder about this ongoing offer, to which I got a reply from a reader:

===

Thanks for the reminder, John!

I saw your first email about, got distracted, and meant to get back to it.

But this one caught me at my computer. So I got it!

===

That’s the value, or one part of the value, of following up relentlessly. You make more sales, because people legit missed your earlier messages or they simply got distracted.

But that’s not the only benefit of daily emails.

With daily emails, you become more an expert and an authority in your field.

You build up a stronger relationship with your audience so they even look forward to your daily emails, instead of being puzzled or annoyed when they hear from you once every three weeks.

And maybe most important to me personally, you end up with much more security and stability both in your work and personal life.

Anyways, Daily Emails 101. Good until tonight at 11:59pm PST. If you wanna grab it now, before you get distracted and pulled away from this popular offer:

https://bejakovic.com/de101/

Is it Kit or something else

by

Two days ago, I got the following message from a puzzled and spam-quarantined reader:

===

One crucial detail I noticed with your emails – they always end up in my ‘focused’ inbox in outlook rather than the ‘other’ where all my subscriptions end up. I use mailerlite and even when I’m using my hostinger mailbox to direct email I have heard people saying the reminders for my workshops have ended up in their spam. Is it Kit or your template or something else that makes your email go to inbox and everyone else’s go to spam? Looking forward to hearing from you!

===

I’ve debated long and hard about revealing what I’m about to reveal.

In the end, in the interest of building everlasting goodwill with my audience, I’ve decided to share with you my closely guarded Secret to Perfect Email Deliverability.

No, it’s not my email software.

No, it’s not the template I use.

Instead, my Secret to Perfect Email Deliverability, and the reason why I always land in the most prestigious inboxes…

… is this ugly Times New Roman font, in combination with a column width of precisely 140 characters.

I don’t know why it works. My guess is that when Gmail and Outlook get my emails, and see how ugly they are, they assume I am either the IRS or your high school teacher, and so I consistently make it into the primary or the focused inbox.

Ok. All right. That was… a joke, or maybe a non-joke. In any case, don’t take me seriously. I’m visiting family, it’s a glum situation here, and I’m trying to lighten the mood for myself somehow.

The fact is, I have no idea why my emails (or some of them) land in “focused” or “important” or “primary” inboxes.

Another fact is, I pay precisely zero mind to email deliverability.

My whole mind is instead taken up with writing for and to humans.

I figure if you build a relationship with your readers, many of them will seek you out, whether you land in the “focused” inbox or in spam. And if enough people seek you out, you start showing up in the preferred spots, without doing anything about it.

If that sounds reasonable to you, and if you wanna start writing emails that build trust for you and desire for your offers, while creating curiosity and forming a relationship that keeps your audience reading day after day, you might like my current offer Daily Emails 101.

The deadline for that is tomorrow, Sunday, at 11:59pm PST.

For the full details:

https://bejakovic.com/de101

P.S. Part of Daily Emails 101 is a short report I’ve prepared titled Email Tech Starter Pack. It will tell you the email software I recommend if you’re just getting started, and will tell you about the few one-time steps you will want to take when first setting up an email list.

People are buying

by

Two days ago, I launched a new experiment offer called Daily Emails 101.

I’ve been intentionally vague in my emails about what this offer is, what’s inside, and how much it costs. I’ve reserved that for the sales page.

Here in this email, I’ll tell you this:

The sales page is selling, and people are buying. So far, 27.2% of the people who have hit this page have bought Daily Emails 101. Here’s what some of that have written me after they bought. First, from a curious and patern-interrupted reader:

“Whatever you are doing, you got me super curious. I have never seen something like this. Talk about a pattern interrupt. Now I can’t wait for the rest of this story am in 😅“

Second, from a long-time customer who is now flirting with buyer’s remorse:

“It was a tough decision – that’s a lot of money. Sure hope it’s worth it…. Seriously though – I’m stoked. Thanks, John.”

Third, from a copywriter looking to get back to the basics:

“Thanks John! Excited for this offer, I just purchased it… feel like I definitely needed this and need to get back to the basics. Looking forward to implementing this and sharing my results.”

Do I have you intrigued? Would you like to get the full details on Daily Emails 101? Are you strong enough to resist the siren-pull of the order form linked to on the following sales page?

There’s only one way to find out. If you are game:

https://bejakovic.com/de101/

2 email marketing tips

by

Here are a couple email marketing tips:

#1. When you run a promo, run a promo

Don’t announce your offer and your deadline, and then, in subsequent emails, promote other offers while the clock for your big promo offer ticks down.

(If your offer is good, and why would you promote it otherwise, you will have people in your audience who will be pissed that you didn’t repeatedly and clearly let them know about it, and now it’s gone.)

#2. Don’t bury the lead or the close of your promo

The start and end of a promo should be super clear and direct. Don’t hide a sexy or important new offer under a clever but irrelevant subject line and a ton of unrelated copy… and don’t pussyfoot when the deadline is nigh.

(Again, you will get audience members who will be pissed that they missed out on the offer because you were too indirect and effectively snuck the offer past them.)

You might think these tips are super obvious.

But I have seen smart people violate these two rules in email promos, to their own detriment, in the last week alone.

Maybe it’s because they don’t know better, or maybe it’s some subtle self-sabotage going on.

In any case, my point is that seemingly obvious stuff is easy to miss (or ignore) when you are promoting your own offers and your own business.

Which brings me to my own new offer, which I announced yesterday with a big bright “Announcing!” subject line.

One part of this new offer is my Price Increase Promo SOP.

This is the SOP document as well as the recording of a presentation I prepared for a small cohort of folks back in April, who were doing a price increase promo with my guidance. Here are the results that Chris Howes, owner of the online music teaching platform Creative Strings Academy, got from applying this Price Increase Promo SOP:

===

JB- I’m fucking swimming in sales over here!!!!!

63 sales of the $30 product based on PIP (“get it before it goes up to $67”) Remember I originally sold 74 of them at the launch in December. That’s almost as many as I sold the first time. So thats $1900.

===

Running a price increase promo isn’t hard. Still there are some subtleties and traps to be mindful of. This SOP will help you manage the subtleties and avoid the traps.

And that’s just one part of my current offer, which I’m calling Daily Emails 101. For the full details on Daily Emails 101:

https://bejakovic.com/de101​

P.S. So far, with that one brief announcement email only 12 hours ago from the time I’m writing this, I’ve made 35 sales of my new offer.

I’m telling you this 1) to highlight that being direct about your offer works and 2) to highlight that this offer is something you might want to look at before the deadline, so you don’t end up pissed at me. If you’re curious, the link is above.

Announcing: Daily Emails 101

by

What I’ve got for you today:

Daily Emails 101, a walkthrough of the first 101 days of writing daily emails and making money from your email list.

Daily Emails 101 gives you to tools to start writing status-building, desire-creating daily emails, without taking 2 hours per email… to make money from your email list, your expertise, and your personal interests… and to repeatably grow your list with qualified, engaged readers.

The pre-sale for Daily Emails 101 is on right now until this Sunday. If you wanna get it or want more details:

https://bejakovic.com/de101

Today: Simple Money Emails + a $297 bonus

by

I have this course, called Simple Money Emails, about how to write sales emails that make money today and keep readers reading tomorrow.

Simple Money Emails sells for $197.

You can buy it today, via the affiliate link below (yes, affiliate link, even though it’s my course), and get a bonus that “sold nearly 100 copies at $297 when it debuted several years ago.”

In case you’re curious or confused about this unusual offer:

This morning, I woke up to see a broadcast email by the world’s most obsessed ad archivist, Lawrence Bernstein. Lawrence decided to promote Simple Money Emails today to his list as an affiliate offer. The background as to why Lawrence is promoting Simple Money Emails, in his own words:

===

Back in September of 2024, I ran a quick campaign to my house file for a compilation of ads from the great fascinations copywriter, Mel Martin.

The price for the compilation was a princely $7. I’m a big believer in having as many names of people in your database as possible…

Who’ve given you money

…versus a legion of free opt-ins. There’s something magical that happens, even with such a seemingly trivial transaction, and that seven-dollar buyer can turn into $100,000 in business. I’ve seen it happen.

As far as I can tell, John Bejakovic has a similarly sized list to my own.

And we sent approximately the same number of emails to promote the exact same product.

The difference?

Bejakovic bested Bernstein by 44.34%


153 sales vs. 106 sales

===

What made the difference?

Why did I make 153 sales to Lawrence’s 106, even though our lists are the same size… even though we sent the same number of emails… even though it was Lawrence’s offer on sale, which if anything should sell better to his list than to an affiliate’s list?

Lawrence’s answer to this conundrum is that it all comes down to the kinds of emails I send.

That’s why Lawrence is promoting Simple Money Emails today, because that course lays out how I write simple, effective, daily emails like the ones I used to promote Lawrence’s offer… and my offers… and dozens of offers for clients, including some for whom I made $4k-$5k worth of sales via email, every day.

And to sweeten the pot, Lawrence is also throwing in a training called Airmail Advantage, which he says “sold nearly 100 copies at $297 when it debuted several years ago.”

Airmail Advantage is a collection of proven direct marketing ideas and campaigns, all direct mail, some of which go back 100 years and all of which — gasp — are still being used today by undercover and smart direct response businesses.

Do you wanna write simple money-making emails, or know how I advise people to write such emails?

Do you wanna get a bunch of little-known direct marketing strategies, tricks, and hacks, which you can legitimately use today?

You can get both today, at the following link:

https://lawrencebernstein–desertkite.thrivecart.com/simple-money-emails

P.S. If you buy Simple Money Emails today, I’ll send you a link to get Lawrence’s Airmail Advantage. You don’t need to do anything extra, just bear with me, because I’m doing this by hand. And if you bought Simple Money Emails in the past… sigh. I asked Lawrence. He agreed to extend the same bonus offer to you as well. Just write me and ask.

A non-zero amount of sales

by

This morning, I woke up to a ThriveCart sale notification.

“What’s this?” I said. I ripped it open like Dudley Dursley ripping open his 36 Christmas presents.

The notification revealed its secrets, and told me the new sale I made:

===

Emails That Did Well – $79

===

“Emails that did well” is an offer made earlier this week, in one email only.

After I made that offer and sent that email, I got a reply from expert email marketer and superior fractional CMO Nick “Jolly” Bandy, who wrote:

“Actually laughing my ass off reading this. So you are selling the SAME bonus stack as last week… without the main offer…for the same amount of money…and this will most likely make a non-zero amount of sales.”

Yes, it’s pretty much like Nick says, minus the laughing.

I first offered “Emails That Did Well,” plus all the free bonuses eventually included with it, as free bonuses to an affiliate offer.

After the affiliate offer closed, I offered the same bonuses for $79, which happened to be the price of the affiliate offer.

And I made a non-zero amount of sales as a result. As for how non-zero?

That’s for me to know and you to find out, at least if you have gotten yourself access to my Emails That Did Well document.

But before I send you to a page that outlines all the details of that offer and possibly entices you to buy it, a bit of marketing insight:

The first email I ever wrote to my list on the topic of positioning came in 2020.

In that email, I compared your positioning to a spear, which needs to have a very small and very sharp point, in order to pierce your prospect’s thick defenses (his skull) and lodge in the soft gray matter inside.

The thing is, if you fuse together several very small and very sharp points, they lose their “very small” and “very sharp” qualities.

Your positioning becomes less like a spear, small and sharp, and instead becomes more like an iron, flat and heavy.

An iron will hurt somebody if you throw it at their head, but it won’t pierce anything or create any kind of new understanding.

In short, positioning is not additive. A plus B plus C is not always greater than A alone, and often it is less.

That’s why a non-zero amount of people have taken me up on the Emails That Did Well offer.

If you’d like to get that offer, so you can find out how well that email has done so far, and to keep track of my other successful emails, now and in the future, here are the full details:

https://bejakovic.com/announcing-emails-that-did-well/

The best course on selling via email I have personally found

by

Yesterday, I teased, without revealing, the best direct marketing book of the past 15 years.

This got more people to take me up on my Tour de Commandments offer than the previous days combined.

In part, that’s the cumulative effect of an email promo, which in this case has been going on since Monday.

In part, it’s the power of teasing info, curiosity, and that itching, nagging, bothersome mystery and information gap that a secret creates.

If you need a valuable marketing idea for today, let this be it:

When trying to sell info, use the takeaway sale.

Let me now take my own advice. Let me tease a second bit of info today. Let me tell you about the best course on selling via email I have personally found.

This is NOT a course about email copywriting. Rather, it’s a course about making sales via email.

These are two distinct things.

Most people who try to make sales via email only blast out offers (“New! Discount! NOW!”) or they only try to be funny and informative and valuable in the hope that one day, somehow, people on their list will buy out of good will alone.

Both of these approaches can work from time to time. But long term, both are suboptimal and even unsustainable.

Fortunately, there is a THIRD WAY, which is laid out in the best course on selling via email I have personally found.

I have been going through this course and implementing it myself and helping coaching students implement it.

I happen to know the information in this course has influenced a ton of people online, indirectly.

Yet I never hear anybody talking about this course directly, or implementing the complete system inside, rather than just one fraction.

If you like, you can be among a select elite of people who both know about this course and who profit from it.

Because, if you take me up on my Tour de Commandments offer, I will tell you where to find this best course on selling via email, for FREE, and completely legally.

The course consists of several audio recordings, and one document which lays out the philosophy behind the case studies.

It’s not fill-in-the-blank templates. Rather, it’s made up of a dozen or so case studies that illustrate the many ways to implement underlying ideas in this course, which are both profound and simple.

Also, here are the other bonuses I am offering as part of my ongoing Tour de Commandments event:

#1. “Manna for Marketers” live workshop and implementation call

Happening next Wednesday at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST. I will cover how I’ve consciously applied these 10 Commandments of Con Men etc. in my biz. I’ll also offer you my help and input if you want to raise your hand live on the call, and ask me how to apply any of these commandments to your biz (or life).

#2. “3 lessons after $18,487 spent on running Amazon book ads”

Over the past 7 years, I’ve spent $18,487 on Amazon book ads. The majority of those ads have been for my two “10 Commandments of SOMETHING” books. I’ve put together a report on the 3 main lessons learned after 7 years, thousands of copies sold, and $18k+ in ad spend.

#3. “40 Pages to Authority: A $1k article series”

Back in 2023, the the Professional Writers Alliance paid me $1,000 to write a 4-part article series about my experiences writing, promoting, and profiting from a 40-page book (my first 10 Commandments book).

PWA made these articles available to their paying members only. But you can get them as a free bonus for taking me up on my Tour De Commandments offer.

#4. “How I made an extra $1404.53/month in Amazon royalties at the push of a button”

This report outlines a hack, which involves the push of a button — literally, that’s all there is to it — and which made me an extra ~$1.5k per month in Amazon royalties. I used this hack once, over the span of a few months, or rather a few weeks. I made money with it. And I never used it again.

I’m not saying anybody else should use this hack. I’m not saying anybody else should NOT use it either.

All I’m willing to do is to tell you what this hack is, why I’m no longer using it myself, and how you can try it out yourself, if you so choose, to make easy money off Amazon.

#5. “The best direct marketing book of the past 15 years”

That’s according to me, somebody who has read and reread all the great direct marketing books, and some of the not-so-great, and who has made millions in sales via the ideas I’ve learned in those books.

Odds are excellent you have not read this book or even heard of it. But I will tell you what it is so you can grab it on Amazon, and I’ll even give you $15 in Bejako Bux so you can get it effectively FREE.

If you want to take me up on this Tour de Commandments offer, here’s what to do:

1. Grab five paperback copies of the 10 Commandments book (or four, if you’ve already got a paperback and can dig up that receipt as proof)

2. Forward me your receipt (or receipts, if you already got one) from Amazon

3. I’ll get you in for the Manna for Marketers workshop, and get you access to the above bonuses, as well as others I release in the coming days.

If you’re in, here’s where to take me up on this offer:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments