Engagement

Huh, that’s possible?

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There’s a terrace on the 12th floor of my building. I tried going up there once. None of the keys that the landlord has giving me fit the lock. I figured the terrace is off-limits and I left it alone.

Then I went traveling for a few days. I asked an acquaintance to come water my plants while I was gone. He did, and out of curiosity, he also went up to the terrace and tried unlocking the door. It turns out one of the keys does fit, you just gotta jiggle it a little.

The terrace opens up to a fantastic view of the whole of Barcelona, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sagrada Familia and back. As you can imagine, I’ve been going up there since.

Last weekend, I did a few market research calls with people who had expressed interest in my new daily email prompts service.

One of these calls was with a reader who only identifies publicly by the code name Misty. After I asked Misty my questions, she asked me one in turn:

“Do people respond to your emails a lot?”

It depends.

People used to respond more back before I started selling in almost every email. I figure that the daily option to buy channels some of that drive.

These days, there are strange lulls and peaks in the replies I get. Sometimes it seems people are responding regularly to my emails, and sometimes it’s crickets (at least until I have a new offer).

I asked myself, why?

My best guess is that I often forget to write emails featuring people who ask me questions and who respond to my emails. And vice versa. The more I make this newsletter feel interactive, the more people respond.

But this goes beyond just getting people to reply to your emails:

You gotta tell people stuff, explicitly, to clue them in. A lot of us, myself included, never think what options are out there, or here, right under our nose.

So if there’s a behavior you want people in your audience to adopt, first of all you have to tell them that it is in fact possible to adopt that behavior… and second that it is in fact encouraged and maybe even beneficial to them.

Maybe this is super obvious. But again, it’s something I personally forget to do.

I’ve experienced it on the other side as well.

It’s not only the terrace that I avoided going to for a year+ because I assumed it was off-limits.

I also almost never respond to other people’s newsletter emails. “Surely they don’t want to hear from me? What do I write? Everybody else must be responding anyhow, I guess they are too busy.”

All that’s to say:

You can hit reply to this email, tell me who you are, share your thoughts, or ask your questions. I don’t promise to have answers for you. But I do promise to read all messages and to reply in turn.

Plus, there’s a chance you get featured in one of these emails — under your own name, or under a code name, as you prefer.

In other words, it’s possible to reply… it’s ok to reply… and I even hope you will do it.

How to 3x your readership and give the right people an excuse to say hi

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A couple weeks ago I sent out an unusual email using my Most Valuable Email trick.

I got a response to that from a former client/partner, the owner of a successful direct marketing agency, somebody who had at one point paid me a sizable monthly retainer to advise on emails and advertorials. He wrote:

===

At first, I thought the [censored] was just a gimmick and part of your email strategy.

But then I wasn’t sure (new CK account and all that).

Finally, on my 3rd read I figured this was actually you being clever and not an issue with your CK setup.

What it DID do is make me pay attention. (Been a loooooong time since I read anyone’s email THREE times).

So I’m voting for “brilliant” vs “haha mistake!”

Also, using this as an excuse to say hi. Hope all is good.

You still doing the coaching gig?

===

The [censored] bit above was my use of the MVE trick in that email.

It’s a new form of Most Valuable Email, one I have started playing with from time to time.

It’s still the same old Most Valuable Email trick, but applied in a new way, one I wasn’t comfortable doing before.

It’s getting results like the above:

People paying more attention… leaning in more… even rereading my emails 3x… and reaching out to reopen dropped business conversations.

If all this sounds abstract, it’s probably because you don’t know what my Most Valuable Email trick is.

You can get it below and find out.

I also have a disappearing bonus to motivate you to act now. The disappearing bonus is simply an explanation of my new way of using the MVE trick, like in the email that drew the response from the agency owner above, and how you can do this too.

If you’d like this disappearing bonus, here’s what to do:

1. Get my Most Valuable Email training at the link below

2. Send me an email by tomorrow, Wednesday Sep 25, by 8:31pm CET, saying you want the disappearing bonus. (After that, no bonus.)

And if you already have Most Valuable Email?

This disappearing bonus is of course open to you too – but the same deadline applies.

Here’s the link to get Most Valuable Email:

​https://bejakovic.com/mve/​

P.S. You might say, “Oh but I want my copy to be crystal-clear like glass, and not to require rereading three times.”

There is something to that.

At the same time, I personally don’t ever want to make what I write scrollable, skippable, and disposable.

If what I write makes people stop, scratch their head, read all the way to the end, reread, I’m good with that.

And in terms of results generated:

Six months ago, the agency owner above and I were talking about working together again.

At that time, I had just started as a coach in Shiv Shetti’s PCM mastermind, and I didn’t have the time to take on a new project.

The new-style MVE email above got the agency owner to reach out and pick up the thread of that conversation… a win in my book, particularly since, as of last week, I am no longer working with Shiv’s PCM mastermind.

The oddest info product creators on my list

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Last night, I sent an email asking my readers if they sell their own info products. That email got a LOT of response.

Of course, most people on my list sell familiar info products — ebooks and courses on marketing, writing, bizopp.

But some people wrote in and managed to surprise me. A few standouts:

#1: “My wife and I are developing theatre training courses, mainly to sell to school teachers who are not drama teachers by trade, but have been ‘elected’ to teach the courses and put on the productions.”

#2: “Am currently writing some digital reports requested by our specialist cancer research audience although I have no real idea how to do this!”

#3: “I sell Numerology info products, such as relationship forecasts, life forecasts, name adviser, lucky numbers and in depth reports. I sell to business owners, individuals and women looking for alternative angle to motivate and advise on current situation.”

This morning, I sat down to reply to these folks and to everyone else who had written me. But before I did so, I asked myself:

“What do I want out of this interaction? Why did I even ask this question?”

The following reasons poured out of me. Maybe they will be of some interest or value to you:

1. Find out who’s doing well

2. Connect with more people

3. Find out what problems people are having

4. Find out what problems their customers are having

5. Find out if they have [CENSORED but keep reading, trust me]

6. Find out what’s currently working for them, what’s not working

7. Maintain or rather enhance my reputation

8. See if any opportunities [CENSORED again, but still keep reading, I promise I won’t keep doing this much more]

9. Get possible ideas for new offers to create

10. See if there are any good offers that [CENSORED, last censored thing, keep reading to find out how to uncensor]

11. See if there are people I could connect with each other, either as some kind of broker or just to help out

I’m not sure whether the list above can be useful to you in any way.

Whatever the case may be, my offer from yesterday still stands.

So if you sell your own info products:

1. Hit reply

2. Tell me what info product or products you sell and who you sell it to

When I get your message, I will reply and tell you a genuine secret way to sell more of what you’ve created.

I’ll also tell you about a special, free training — free as in not even any optin required — that lays out real gold about how to actually run this secret selling strategy in practice.

If you watch this free training, the CENSORED bits above will become clear as day.

And who knows. If you just reply to this email, maybe we can connect or exchange some ideas along the way.

I just wanted to help

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Today, I found myself watching a YouTube underwater livestream from the bottom of a murky river. 993 other viewers were watching along with me.

The YouTube livestream showed impenetrable green water, with the only change being the digital clock in the upper right corner, which counted away:

2024-03-26 12:52:28… 12:52:29… 12:52:30…

I was on the fish doorbell site.

Apparently, every spring, fish migrate upstream through the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

But there’s a river lock in the city. The fish cannot swim past it.

For reasons of their own, the Utrecht city government created this YouTube livestream, and allowed people to press a digital button once they see a fish on the livestream. This I suppose will somehow cause the river lock to open and will let the fish through.

Like I said, I and another 993 bipedal simians were intently watching this unchanging livestream of murky river water, hoping to be the one to press the stupid fish doorbell and the let fish through on its way.

I thought my willingness to sit and stare at nothing was notable because I am currently in the middle of preparing my presentation for Brian Kurtz’s Titans XL mastermind this Thursday.

I’m scheduled to talk about writing emails that elicit engagement — that get people to hit reply and write you something in return to your daily emails.

Eliciting engagement might seem like a foolish endeavor — “sales emails are there to make sales, bro.” But in my experience, writing for engagement does in time boost sales, plus it has lots of other good knock-on effects.

So how do you write for engagement?

The fish doorbell gives a clue. One big reason that people will engage with you is simply to feel helpful.

Just ask people for help. Give them the opportunity to feel smart and useful. More often than not, you will get engagement.

This can be taken to extremes or exploited to make people do foolish things, such as, for example, getting them to watch a livestream of nothing, in order to press a button that does nothing, with the ultimate goal being something completely absurd or intangible — “swim on little fish, godspeed.”

Of course, this is a newsletter about influence and persuasion.

​​And so you can bet that my conclusion is that appealing to people’s better sides, their desire to feel helpful or useful, is not the only way to go, or the most effective way to create engagement.

Maybe I will one day turn this Titans XL presentation into some kind of training on how to write for engagement, and make this info available more broadly.

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Whatever may happen, if you would like more ideas here and now about how to write for engagement, plus see specific examples of it in action, you can find that in my Most Valuable Email Swipes #8, #9, #11, #23, #24, #27, #31, #42, and #48.

MVE Swipes is a swipe file I include with my Most Valuable Email training. This training shows you how to help your readers understand and experience abstract ideas in first-hand, intuitive ways, which stick with them for years to come. For more info on that:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Take your likes to the bank

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A couple days ago, I sent an email about an email trick to get more engagement. To which, I got a response — an engagement!

The response came from Jakub Červenka, who runs an info publishing business in the men’s sexual health niche.

First, Jakub just replied to tell me he liked that email about engagement. Then we got into a bit of an email conversation. Then he told me about the trouble he was having with his Facebook ad agency.

And then he wrote:

===

So I learnt I am decent marketer and cannot let go of this part in my company.

Also, started writing daily emails again recently and looking at the mails I am writing now and I did year ago… it is as if 2 different people wrote them and that makes me happy.

And this is the main reason I am writing this to you, John, I think me improving so much is lot thanks to you. Yours is the only newsletter that I read almost daily and is amongst the 3 that survived my brutal opt-out-from everything. I don’t mean this to sound bad, I bought your Copy Riddles, Most Valuable email, your 2 pump-postcard newsletter and your latest Sales emails training.

I like all your courses, a lot, probably best spend money in copywriting courses, but still I think I learn most from your daily emails – probably due to the fact that it does not seem like I am working, I enjoy reading your stuff and it is small bites daily.

Keep up the good work,

Your grateful student and zealous reader,

Jakub

===

I once had a reader write in to tell me he always skips the quoted parts of my emails, the parts in italics that start with ===.

In case you also skipped what Jakub wrote, I can tell you it was a testimonial, with good things to say about my courses and in particularly about these emails.

And here’s something I’ve noticed about getting nice testimonials like this:

It rarely happens that somebody writes in just because they want to tell me how great they think one of my courses is, or how great I am.

Yes, it does happen from time to time. But it’s kind of like finding a Black Lotus in hundreds and hundreds of packs of Magic The Gathering cards — valuable yes, but also rare.

A little more common is when I explicitly ask for feedback on a course or training, and offer an incentive to reply.

People then reply in a pack. But even then, it’s not an overwhelming number of responses, and not everything I get is a great testimonial I can feature.

Really, the bulk of the good testimonials I’ve gotten, and that I’ve featured in emails and on sales pages, came like Jakub’s message above.

They came as an “oh by the way” that people tacked on when replying to one of my emails that had to do with an entirely unrelated matter. It’s been a steady drip-drip over the years that’s eventually filled up several buckets.

It’s popular to say in the direct response world that only sales mean anything, and that you can’t take your likes to the bank.

Except you kind of can.

True, a great testimonial like Jakub’s above is not cash. I can’t go and buy cans of beans and bags of rice with it today.

But a good testimonial is like a check, and eventually it will clear. Somebody somewhere will eventually be converted into a new and loyal customer because of testimonials like Jakub’s above. We all look to others when making our own decisions.

So my point is, if you work to increase engagement with your emails, you will get more testimonials, and you will be able to take those to the bank, in time.

Of course, for that to happen you do have to feature your testimonials so people can see them.

Sales pages are one place.

But really, emails are the main place, because emails are kind of the headlines for your sales pages.

Which brings me to the my latest Sales emails training, as Jakub put it, aka my Simple Money Emails course.

I’m probably giving away too much in these emails and I’m probably killing some sales for my courses like Simple Money Emails.

Maybe I will fix that in time.

For now, if you want to see how I’ve used emails to make (up to) tens of thousands of dollars in sales per day, and still kept readers coming back tomorrow, then Simple Money Emails will show you, and will show you how you can do it too. For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

I was wrong yesterday, and I will do it again

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Yesterday, I talked to the self-proclaimed dinosaur of direct marketing, Brian Kurtz, about doing a presentation to his Titans XL mastermind.

Brian and I agreed that I’d give a talk to his group some time early next year. The topic will be… email, of course, but more specifically, engagement in email.

(I’ve been told by various people that I should take all the different tricks I use to tease out and engage my readers and put them together into a training. So that’s what I will do in front of Brian’s group.)

This morning, as I was standing in the shower, pretty much the entire presentation came together in my head.

I carefully stepped out of the shower, toweled myself off not very well, and tiptoed to a notebook to write all the ideas down.

I won’t share the whole thing here — you’ll have to be there in Brian’s Titans group when I give it live.

But I will tell you one way I spark and kindle engagement.

It’s something you can do today. It’s something that might not come naturally to you, but that you can force in the interest of creating more interesting content.

And that’s to be wrong.

The more often you are wrong, the more engagement you will get.

For example, yesterday I wrote an email about “The most famous copywriter, real or fictional.”

I did so knowing that, whoever I named, I would be certain to omit others. And I got replies telling me so:

#1: “The world famous rapper Lil Dicky (Dave Burd) was also working as a copywriter before he became a rapper. He even has an episode about it in his HBO show Dave.”

#2: “Elmore Leonard also has copywriting background. His novels are amazing.”

#3: “Salman Rushdie – 8.34 million results :)”

#4: “Did you know that Chandler also becomes a copywriter in season 9 of Friends?”

I did not know. Any of that. But now I know.

You might say these replies aren’t pointing out that I’m wrong. And you might be right.

The replies above are all helpful, playful, looking to complete my incomplete message from yesterday.

But I still say the same underlying psychology of correcting somebody who’s wrong applies.

​​In fact, I insist on it.

And if you don’t agree with me, then you can always hit reply and tell me so.

Meanwhile, you might like my Most Valuable Email course. Why? Because it’s most valuable.

I know a thing or two thousand about writing daily emails. That’s one of the reasons I can go in front of an experienced group like Brian’s Titans mastermind and still tell them something new.

And one thing I know is that my Most Valuable Email tricks produces emails that I personally find most fun to write. And maybe most fun for readers to read.

​​​If that turns you on, here’s how you can start writing your own Most Fun Emails in an hour from now:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

How to seek out testimonials

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Yesterday I held a coaching call with a coaching client. At the end of it I asked if he had any last questions for me. He did:

===

Do you do anything to seek out testimonials? Because I don’t feel I’ve gotten anything since I’ve purchased your course that enticed me to do it. But maybe I might have missed it. I feel I don’t do a great job of it. I have one follow-up email for people who purchased my [course] a week later and another one for [his other course].

===

Great question.

Testimonials are super important, both for possible future buyers and for that person who just bought — it makes it more likely they appreciate what they just bought, and get value from it, and stick around.

Beyond that, testimonials are super important for you, the person who created the course — or at least they are for me.

Making a sale is nice, I won’t lie.

​​But hearing that somebody actually appreciates your work (as I’ve had happen lots of times) or genuinely had a life-changing experience due to it (as I’ve had happen on a few occasions) makes you feel good about what you do… makes you more likely to stick with it for long term… makes you more likely to put in extra effort with the next product you launch, because you realize what can be at stake.

So how do you seek out testimonials to benefit your present customers, your future customers, and yourself?

Here are three different strategies, ranked in terms of how effective they’ve been for me:

One, like my coaching client said, is an automated followup process. It’s better than nothing, but I’ve found it pretty weak in general.

I had a followup email for my Copy Riddles course back when it was delivered as a “live” course that went out one email a day. After the complete batch of course emails had gone out, I would let a couple days pass, then send out an extra “what feedback do you have for me” email.

​​I did get a few testimonials that way, but it was nothing to write to a motel, hotel, or houseboat about, and certainly not to home.

The second strategy I’ve used is a request for a testimonial inside the product itself. I usually end my courses with a little signoff. Here’s how I end my Most Valuable Email course:

===

We’ve reached the end of this course. I want to say thanks once again for your trust in me, and for getting this course. And I’d like to commend you for making it to the end — most people never do that.

I hope you will apply this Most Valuable Trick for yourself, because it really has been that valuable to me, without any hyperbole. And it can be the same for you. If you do apply it — when you do apply it — write in and let me know the results. I’d love to know.

Good luck, and I hope to hear from you soon.

===

I have had a fair number of people finish courses and write in with feedback after I prompted it like this. Perhaps it’s a better moment than when a followup email arrives — the end of a course is an emotional high, at least if the course is good.

But the third and most effective way I’ve sought out testimonials is simply engagement, as in:

1. Writing engaging emails (the recent “Even numbers for the dead” email drew a lot of replies, including some that were effectively testimonials)

2. Using engagement bait (as I do often, see my “Magic boxes” email from a few days ago for that)

3. Actually engaging directly with readers, in some limited but real way

And of course, when people give you testimonials, you want to encourage more such behavior. That means you feature the testimonial not just on your sales page, but in your emails. Name the person. Say you appreciate what they’ve done for you. And mean it.

Let me give you an example:

A few days ago, out of the blue, I got an email from a new subscriber, Pete Reginella.

​​Pete had bought my 10 Commandments book on Amazon without being previously on my list. He signed up to my list to get the little-known, apocryphal 11th Commandment. He read the welcome email which delivers the bonus, which starts out like this:

“First off, thanks for reading my 10 Commandments book all the way to the end. I’d love to hear what you thought of it, particularly if you thought it was wonderful. Just hit reply and let me know.”

Pete did write in, and I’m grateful to him for it. Here’s what he had to say:

===

Hey John,

I’ve read lots of copywriting books in my short time as a copywriter and I must say…

Yours was actually the only one I couldn’t stop reading.

I actually read it all in one sitting.

It was very easy to consume and well written.

===

So that’s a short how-to course on seeking out testimonials.

As for a short how-to course on the supreme element of your copy to worship above all others…

… ​​​and a short how to course on getting everything you want in life, at least the material stuff…

… ​​and a short how-to course on making your copy easy to consume…

… ​​for all that and more, check out my 10 Commandments book:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Magic boxes

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Last year, specifically on May 29 2023, I wrote an email about Dan Kennedy’s book The Phenomenon. In that book, Dan says:

“There will always be an offer or offer(s).”

I sighed, hung my head, and finally started adding an offer at the end of each email I sent out to my list.

Not surprisingly, I made more money from my list over the past year than I had in the four years prior.

You probably know to put an offer at the end of your emails. After all, everybody does it, and it’s kind of the point of sending out daily emails.

But what if you don’t have a product or a service to sell yet? Or what if you only have a few bum offers, which your list has stopped responding to every day? Should you still insist on a call-to-action at the end of each email?

I covered one aspect of this earlier this week. I gave you a great Dan Kennedy idea about selling “options” on your shiny future offer.

But what if, for whatever reasons of your own, you don’t even want to sell future options?

Here’s what I’ve found:

There are many ways to drive people to valuable action, even if you have nothing good to sell today.

Example:

My first ever one-on-one coaching student sells a $4k training for dental practices. While she was preparing that training, she was writing emails to a list of dentists. And her emails were falling into a void — zero response or engagement.

On our first call, I told her to make a tweak to her next email, and to put in a “magic box” CTA at the end of the email. The result, in her own words:

===

Haha, I like that.

Better ingredients, better emails.

I got my first response to an email today from an owner of a fairly large dental practice here in Melbourne.

Thanks for pushing me in this new direction re trying to wrap things up in magic boxes instead of just getting them nodding along.

Excited for the year ahead 🙂

===

I don’t know if that dentist ended up buying my student’s $4k training. But when people do respond, you can start a conversation with them. You can get into their world. You can build a stronger relationship. Often, that translates into sales down the line.

That might be something to keep in mind if you have valuable prospects on your list, but you haven’t yet built much of a relationship with them yet.

Meanwhile, if you’re curious about “magic box” CTAs, I’ll make you a deal:

Reply and tell me the size of your email list. If you haven’t got a list, that’s fine, no judgment, you can write in and tell me that. On the other hand, if you do have a list, or if you have multiple, or if you manage a list on behalf of somebody else, write in and tell me how big your list or lists are.

In return, I’ll tell you how a “magic box” CTA works. There’s a good chance you’ve figured out how it works, but you might still learn a tip or two from me that you hadn’t thought of. And besides, maybe we can get into an interesting conversation.

The hidden benefit of the disappearing bonus

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A few weeks ago, I offered a 24-hour disappearing bonus for previous and new buyers of my Most Valuable Email course. One of the people to take me up on that disappearing bonus was Al Donaldson, who wrote to say:

===

I recently bought your MVE and I’d be keen to see the disappearing bonus offer (before it vanishes).

You asked for my opinion on the MVE course and I have to say I’m impressed. It’s a beautifully simple idea that has many layers to it. And, as you mention, there are an almost unlimited number of ways to apply it.

Thanks for laying it all out so clearly.

===

Of course I’m telling you this to promote Most Valuable Email. But I do also have the slightest and lightest of practical takeaways for you.

I curse myself whenever I do one of these disappearing bonuses.

I always get dozens of emails to respond to, personally. And since I make a policy of responding to everyone within 24 hours max, it’s often a hectic, email-blizzard day.

But I noticed that, along with simple requests for the disappearing bonus, I also inevitably get testimonials coming in, like Al’s testimonial above. Maybe those testimonials would have come in time anyhow. Or maybe they wouldn’t.

The fact is, people often need that extra push, that extra bit of motivation, to tell you what they think of your products, particularly when that feedback is positive.

This is nothing more than the most fundamental direct marketing truth — that people often put off all kinds of actions, even ones they mean to take, even ones that align with what they want.

Engagement-baiting emails, the kinds I’m slowly becoming known for, are a very manual-labor way to give people that extra push.

But the testimonials that come in make it worthwhile.

Besides, even though I’m always a bit horrified to send out one of these emails and come back an hour later to see an inbox filled with replies I have to attend to, it’s actually very nice to get in direct contact with my readers.

But now back to Most Valuable Email:

There’s no disappearing bonus today.

But if this course is something you’ve been meaning to buy, you might as well get started today.

If I do offer any disappearing bonus in the future, it will be yours if you want it, since I always make all disappearing bonuses available to previous buyers also.

And you will have that much more of a head start. Most Valuable Email is most valuable because of what it gives you if you use it, not because of the $100 I will get paid.

Besides, you might just like to prove me and every other direct marketer wrong. You might like to take action on something positive today, of your own volition, and not wait until tomorrow, next week, or next year, even without the whip of a deadline or the future pacing of certain ruin and misery that awaits you if you don’t.

If that’s the case, then here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/