Email Marketing

Email marketing strategy for selling DFY services

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Reader Samu Parra writes in with a tough question:

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Hi John!

Here’s a tough one:

I’ve found email marketing to be effective for selling info products and “done-with-you” consulting services. However, I get the sense that selling “done-for-you” services is a different story. I feel the buyer has a different relationship with the solution and their emotional investment is lower.

How do you approach the email marketing strategy for selling “done-for-you” services?

[Bejako here again. My beagle ears perked up at “I get the sense…” so I followed up with Samu to ask what experiences made him get that sense. Samu updates:]

When I look at my own clients, I see a big difference between consulting clients (DWY) and service clients (DFY).

The former usually come from email: they’re subscribed to my newsletter, they read it regularly, and they respond to offers.

Service clients, on the other hand, usually come through referrals and word of mouth. I feel it would have been hard for them to sign up for my newsletter, read it, and respond to an offer.

I think this is even more apparent when you’re offering something highly operational (e.g., an ERP software consultant) or it’s only a part of their responsibilities.

Email marketing probably works in these cases too, but my hunch is the approach should be different.

I might be biased. 🙂

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On the one hand, Samu’s question makes intuitive sense.

Good prospects for DFY services are more likely to be busy and successful, and busy and successful people are likely to be swamped with emails, and therefore less likely to pay attention to any particular email, particularly if it’s an email that features a 1000-word personal story.

At the same time, I have had plenty of busy and successful people sign up to this very email list. A few I know about:

1. One of the founders of the possibly biggest brand in the digital marketing space, who has founded, scaled, or sold over 30 businesses

2. A secretive forex investor whose own clients include people who have been fictionalized in the Showtime show Billions

3. An A-list copywriter with decades of experience in the industry who I have written about dozens of times in these emails

4. An investment fund manager with a billion+ dollars under management

6. The founder of an online photography school that has had over 250,000 paying students worldwide

7. The founder of a mid-8-figure telemedicine platform

“Ok,” you might say, “maybe busy and successful people will sign up for a daily email list like this, but will they read? And maybe more important, will they reply to DFY offers?”

I’ve personally heard from all the people I’ve written about above in reply to my emails. So yes, they will read.

As for buying DFY offers, why wouldn’t they? In any case, I can think of two DFY offers I’ve made over in recent times:

1. DFY book writing and publishing

2. DFY weekly newsletter writing and publishing

For the DFY book, I got a bunch of interested prospects, many of whom were busy and successful. I ended up not working with any of them, but that’s because I had very specific requirements for what I was looking for.

For the DFY newslettter, one of the subscribers on my list above, the founder of the mid-8-figure telemedicine platform, actually took me up on that offer.

I quoted him $2k for four emails a month, and I made it clear I would not be writing these emails but would be hiring a copywriter for it. The busy and successful client said fine without batting an eye, which made me think a higher price might have passed as well.

All that’s to say, if you look for examples that it’s hard to use daily emails like this to sell DFY offers to busy or successful people, you will find plenty of supporting evidence for that. And no doubt, other methods of selling, such as referrals, might sell people who would never read daily emails.

At the same time, if you look for examples that daily emails can sell DFY offers to busy and successful clients, you will also find plenty of evidence for that. In fact, let me look for some evidence now:

Do you provide a service that can help people grow their email lists?

I’m talking about — but certainly not limiting it to — services like running FB ads… social media ghostwriting… book writing and publishing… podcast booking… custom software tools that can be used as lead magnets.

If something like this is your business, and if you have helped people grow their email lists with either qualified prospects or buyers, then hit reply. I want to know who you are and what you do.

I have lots of people with email lists on my own list.

List growth is always a “hungry crowd” topic, even with the busy and successful among them.

And if you are good at what you do and you get results — ie. quality email list subscribers — then I can get you clients for your services, without you having to do anything except accept and deliver the work.

How my work day looks when I’m not ferrying around Stockholm

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My Stockholm trip continues. (I know. A fascinating opening sentence.)

Yesterday, I went to a large park in the middle of town with “the world’s oldest outdoor museum,” which is apparently filled with bears and cows and little houses collected from different parts of Sweden.

I’m saying “apparently” because I showed up too late to make it worthwhile to go inside the outdoor museum. I had to be content to simply walk around the park in the balmy weather and gawk at handsome Swedish people strolling around and looking happy and well adjusted.

I will be in Stockholm for a few more days, ferrying around the many islands and bays that make up this city.

After that, I’m going to my home country of Croatia for a few days to visit family. Then I will finally get back to Barcelona, where I live, so I can get back into my daily routine.

And about that, a reader who goes by “Captain Jack” writes in with a question:

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Hi John.

I’m sure you have addressed this in your previous emails… but what does your day look like?

Your perspective on all things, marketing and non marketing, always seems fresh to me.

And your copywriting and marketing prowess is second to none.

So I wanted to ask.

What does a typical day look like for you apart from writing a daily email?

How much time daily do you spend on sharpening your marketing and persuasion skills and learning new things?

And what you recommend a person do, working a full time job, who wants to level up these skills?

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I actually don’t think I’ve ever explicitly addressed my daily routine in a previous email. My typical day on the routine schedule, which I repeat seven days a week, looks something like this:

1. Wake up and roll out of bed (usually around 7am-8am)

2. Daily “10 ideas” practice I got from James Altucher, if I can remember to do so, or some journaling, and then a shower (by about 8:30am)

3. Walk down to the beach and back (maybe 9:30am)

3. Write this daily email (ideally by about 10:30am)

4. My routine breakfast, which is literally the same every day, and which I have written about before (done by about 11:30am or so)

5. More work (such as new promos, bonuses, courses, communities, books, software projects, or other schemes I am excited by at the moment)

6.. Gym (get there around 2pm-3pm)

7. Lunch/dinner (around 4:30pm-5pm)

8. Unless I’m really behind on work, leisure time for the rest of the day (maybe go out into the city, or meet some people, or go for a walk, or stay at home and read)

9. Bed around 11pm-12pm

Captain Jack asked what my routine day looks like aside from writing the daily email. But the fact is, the only part of my routine that’s truly routine and non-negotiable, whether traveling or not, even if I’m sick, hungover, or dying, is this daily email I write.

A daily email like this one takes about thirty minutes to an hour a day of actual writing.

It also consumes some of my time and attention throughout the rest of the day.

For example, writing these emails forces me to read more and more broadly than I might otherwise, because my ideas for daily emails start to dry up otherwise.

The good news is, writing these daily emails isn’t just about making occasional sales or keeping readers engaged until the next promo, either. Because I write about marketing ideas and because I look to implement those ideas whenever I can, this daily email sharpens my skills each day.

And so if you are working a full-time job, or even if you’re not, my best recommendation to level up your skills and expertise is to write a daily email about a topic that interests you and that other people find valuable as well. Again, it takes just a half hour to an hour max.

The crazy thing is, if you keep at it, people will eventually want to read even those emails that are entirely have nothing to do with the core topic of your newsletter. Such as, for example, the topic of what your daily routine looks like.

If you want to get going writing daily emails like this one, and profiting from them, then I got a course for that. It’s called Simple Money Emails. Here’s what big-time course creator Kieran Drew said after he went through Simple Money Emails for the fifth (5th!) time:

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John’s strategies aren’t pushy. They won’t teach you how to squeeze every drop of revenue from your audience. But they are simple, and they’re bloody effective (they helped me hit two 6 figure launches during the summer).

I’ve taken his course 5 times in 5 months. It’s an hour read yet every time I come out noticeably better at copy.

The best email writing course I’ve ever taken.

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If you wanna write daily emails and level up your marketing and persuasion skills:

https://bejakovic.com/sme/

17 ideas to salvage a huge cold list

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Yesterday, I sent out an email asking for advice on what to do with a huge cold list that someone I know is in secret possession of.

This list is not only huge, not only cold, but there are also a bunch of other strange restrictions. Can anything be done?

After asking for advice yesterday, I got a buncha responses, including from people who manage email lists as a job (one guy for 20 years) and from others who have been in similarish situations and shared their experiences and suggestions.

I was honestly grateful to get so many thoughtful, detailed, and helpful responses. I read them all. I selected the ones that sounded feasible to me, and boiled related ones to get 17 separate ideas, most of which were new to me. I then organized them in three categories:

1. Technical ideas (how to email)

2. Content ideas (what to email)

3. Out-of-the-box ideas (how not to email)

I don’t know a better way to say thanks to everyone on my list who wrote me than to “pay it forward” and share the total collection of ideas with my whole list. You can find it below.

If you yourself are in secret possession of a list that’s huge, cold, possibly dead but maybe not, then read these ideas, and if you find them valuable, pass them on.

And in case you take any of these ideas and apply them, let me know — I’d love to hear about it and update the doc. Here it is:

https://bejakovic.com/salvage

Your advice on salvaging a huge email list?

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One big lesson I learned long ago, from a former client in the real estate investing space, is that your email list can do much more for you than simply provide you with income.

The email addresses on your list stand for, more often than not, real, living, intelligent people, with experiences and skills and connections.

These people can help you with all sorts of stuff, including partnerships, referrals, and advice.

So let me ask you for advice on the following email list puzzle:

I’ve been talking to a FB ad agency owner who happens to read these emails. She has been patiently sitting on an email list, which was part of her payment for a revshare deal with a client (ie. she has full rights to use this list).

The bad/terrible:

– This email list hasn’t been emailed in the past 1-18 months (depending on when they bought)

– The guru who was the face of the offer is no longer involved

– His name or his offers cannot be used or even mentioned

– Emails can’t be sent from his account/domain

Bad, right?

Yes. There are only two positives to offset the four negatives I’ve just listed:

– There are 115k email addresses on this list

– All are buyers, with some spending as little as $27 and some as much as $15k (it’s a finance list)

So do you have any experience or advice with something like this?

If these were physical mail addresses, we could mail a small segment of the list as a test and see what happens.

Is that the thing to do here as well? Is our best bet to set up a new domain, and start slowly spamming people and see where it leads us?

Or should we throw away the whole list?

Or is there some third option I’m not seeing?

If you have any advice for me, or even better if you’ve been in a situation like this before and can share your experience, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

Ben Settle & Dan Kennedy both said it — but who was the original source?

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Here’s the history of the men who influenced me to be where I am today, writing you this email:

Patient readers know my susceptibility and fondness for the phrase, “The only real security is your ability to produce.”

I read that idea in a Ben Settle email back in 2017, which got me to sign up to Ben’s Email Players newsletter, which eventually convinced me to start sending daily emails myself.

As Ben wrote in that email, he himself got the “ability to produce” idea from an even older Dan Kennedy newsletter. I thought it stopped there, even though I always felt that “ability to produce” is an odd phrase for Dan Kennedy to invent. (Perhaps that’s why it stuck in my mind so.)

But, as I found out only last week, this phrase is not a strange Dan Kennedy construction.

The quote about “ability to produce” actually goes back to Douglas MacArthur, one of only five 5-star generals in the history of the United States.

MacArthur’s quote, such as I could trace it, was “Security lies in our ability to produce.” MacArthur was speaking quite literally, about national security and the importance of industry and agriculture to that.

But I’m not here to talk tariffs. I’m telling you this because this is a newsletter about ideas, specifically insightful ideas, even more specifically, insightful ideas that you can apply and bring into reality and profit from.

And on that note, I have a new offer for you. It’s a $3.99 ebook called Click Send Earn.

This book is written by Igor Kheifets. I’ve known Igor for a while. Back in 2021, I gave a presentation inside his List Building Lifestyle mastermind, which eventually turned into my Simple Money Emails course.

I bought Igor’s book last week because, frankly, I was curious about the funnel he was using to sell it.

But I read the book as well. And I was surprised, in a very positive sense.

As Igor said somewhere (in private, not inside this book) he could charge $97-$297 for the info that’s inside. And I believe it. So I reached out to him and asked to promote his book, for the following three reasons:

First off, this book is very clearly written by Igor, not by AI, not a ghostwriter.

Second, it lays out how Igor walked the familiar rags-to-riches route — which in his case was literal, because he used to clean toilets at a hotel once upon a time, and now makes millions a year via email.

The book lays out lessons learned along the way and gives you the business blueprint that Igor uses today, and which he teaches others, for how to build and grow and monetize email lists.

Third, this book has ideas in it that were new and insightful for me. For example, it was early in Igor’s book (p. 11) that I learned that that “ability to produce” quote is not from Ben Settle or even Dan Kennedy, but from Douglas MacArthur.

Like I said, when I bought Igor’s book, I bought it out of curiosity around the marketing.

But I thought my audience — “MY audience is different” — is too sophisticated when it comes to email marketing to profit from a book titled Click Send Earn.

Well, like I said, I’ve since read the book. I’ve learned new things and gotten value from it. I can get behind and endorse everything he teaches inside this book. That’s why I asked Igor to promote it.

And that’s what I’m doing right now, recommending it to you.

If you’re looking for a proven (by Igor, and his students) blueprint for a successful email-based business, then buy this book, read it, apply it, and profit. Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/clicksendearn

How to stay off Reddit and improve your productivity

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In short, sign up to my Daily Email Habit service. Explanation plus proof:

I put in a funny image or meme at the top of each DEH email, to make it fun to keep opening up these emails day after day, and to put you in the right frame of mind to write your own daily email.

At least that was my reasoning for putting the funny image or meme in each DEH email. But apparently there are other benefits too. From email marketer Logan Hobson, who subscribes to Daily Email Habit:

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I find the daily meme an extra benefit to DEH. I started noticing that I recognized some of your images from reddit, and I wanted your images feel fresh, so I stopped browsing reddit as much and have improved my productivity, knowing I will receive a high-quality curated meme each day in your email without having to endlessly scroll to find one in the wild.

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Of course, the goal of Daily Email Habit goes beyond just improving your productivity and keeping you off Reddit. The real goal is to get you writing your own daily emails consistently, both so you make sales today, and so you build up a relationship with your audience, so they open and read your email tomorrow.

And about that, here’s marketing strategist Nick Bandy, who also subscribes to Daily Email Habit, and who has been emailing his list of buyers daily:

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DEH is the biggest ROI I’ve ever gotten on any course or product I’ve ever purchased. It’s incalculable.

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I have a bunch more testimonials from subscribers who praise Daily Email Habit. I also give away a sample 0th Daily Email Habit email, so you get a sense of what it looks like and what you’d be signing up for, including the funny image/meme up top. For all that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Scientists shocked to discover AI does what it’s supposed to

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I’m signed up to get the weekly newsletter of Nature, the big science journal. The deal is, I give them my email address, and each week they send me a summary of the most interesting science breakthroughs.

But here’s what they sent me yesterday, reporting on new research from MIT:

“The brains of people using the artificial-intelligence bot ChatGPT to write an essay are less engaged than those without access to online tools.”

At the risk of sounding crude, no shit, Sherlock. Isn’t that the whole point? In the words of a smart dead guy, Alfred North Whitehead:

“It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy‑books and eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.”

The MIT research is only newsworthy because we all respond to anxiety-stirring and fear-mongering. If it’s not second-hand smoke, then it’s parabens in the water, or now, ChatGPT. “It’s coming for your brain!”

But let me turn this email around to be constructive instead of destructive:

I use ChatGPT daily. My brain is very little engaged while it’s happening. And I don’t think any kind of a problem.

At the same time, I also force myself each day to perform a kind of mental cavalry charge, specifically, to write an email like this.

There’s value in such a daily routine from an outside standpoint. I think people can sense that I write these emails, for real, flaws and flops included, live every day.

There’s also value from an inside standpoint. Writing a new and fresh email each day keeps what little brain I have sharp, active, and engaged.

All that’s to say, if you are worried that your brain is going to mush, or even if you aren’t, then start writing, regularly, and your brain will get fit right quick.

And if you put what you’ve written into an email like this one, and send it out to the world, then there’s extra value to that, even if it’s just you reading at the start.

If you want some guidance and help with that, take a look at my Daily Email Habit service.

A key idea behind Daily Email Habit is that there’s value in writing, even if AI could do it for you.

Daily Email Habit helps you get that value by sending you a new email prompt or “puzzle” each day, and narrowing the scope of what to write about.

If you think of a daily email as a cavalry charge, then Daily Email Habit gives you the direction to charge in, so you and your mental horse don’t stay locked in place due to indecision, and so you don’t half-heartedly trot here and there and back again, tiring out the poor beast without getting anywhere.

For more information on Daily Email Habit:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Why Parker Worth has got me beat in email marketing

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Back in January, I got a message from Parker Worth that said:

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I just did a list swap with Chris Orzy.

Was wondering if you’d be down to trade lead magnets?

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In case you don’t know Parker, he is “just a guy with a neck tattoo,” as per his Twitter bio.

In reality, Parker is a bit more than that. He’s got an online audience of over 70,000 people spread across Twitter and LinkedIn and his email list, and he’s built a 6-figure business on the back of it, teaching people how to write online. And most impressive:

Parker has done it all starting in 2023, in under 2 years.

I replied to Parker to say yes to his offer of a list swap and… five months later, here we are, finally getting it done.

What to say? Parker lives in Brazil. I live in Spain. I guess we’ve absorbed the wrong things from the local cultures.

Anyway, the reason why I introduced Parker by talking about how short he’s been in the game, and yet how well he’s doing, is that nobody gets results like this without being systematic and strategic about it.

I know whereof I speak, because I myself am anything but systematic and strategic.

I like novelty. I like to improvise. I like to prove to myself I can do something and then move on to the next thing. It’s the only way I can live long-term, but it’s got its downsides. For example:

The first 2 years of this newsletter, from 2018 to 2020, in the same time that Parker built up an audience of 80k people and sold $250k worth of stuff, I managed to build up an audience of 100 people, and I earned precisely 0 dollars from the 100+ emails I had written to that mega-list.

That’s ok. It worked out for me in the end.

But my point is that maybe Parker has something worthwhile to teach you (did I just manage a pun), specifically, how to be more strategic and systematic when it comes to email marketing.

Enter Parker’s 3-Minute Email Template.

Parker wrote an email once that made him money. So he ended up reusing it over and over. It has made him tens of thousands of dollars since.

He has given this email to others. It has made them tens of thousands of dollars as well.

Parker has turned his email into a template, along with couple real-life examples, and has recorded a video explaining the psychology of why it works, if you really wanna go that deep.

He’s giving it all away if you sign up to his list below.

Yes, sign up for the profitable email template.

But really, sign up to Parker’s list for a different perspective than you might get in my own emails, one that can make you more strategic and systematic about what you do, so you can get to success with your newsletter or email list more quickly than I did with mine.

Here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/parker

When not to use stories in your emails

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Stories in emails are great, except when they’re not. Here are five situations when not to use stories in your emails:

#1. If you’re in a marketplace of one (as far as your prospects are concerned), or in a marketplace where nobody else is sending regular, conversational emails.

It might seem like there are no such marketplaces any more, but there are plenty, particularly in various local service businesses — think lawyers, doctors, morticians.

In such marketplaces, no need to go nuclear by telling stories in emails, and it might even seem tryhard or unprofessional. (“Why is my lawyer writing me about his grandfather again? Why is he not working on my divorce settlement?”)

#2. If you’re in a marketplace that’s driven by current news. For example, if you are selling anything to do with finance or investing.

#3. If you’re selling done-for-you vs done-with-you or do-it-yourself.

Stories, particularly personal stories, are really there to allow the reader to identify with you and align with you, so you can congruently tell them what to do and how to live their lives.

But if you are providing a DFY solution and you aren’t asking people to change who they are, then you have better options than telling stories — and so you shouldn’t use stories as your go-to.

#4. If you have a hot new offer or some other important message and you don’t want to bury it under a drawn-out story that most people will not read.

#5. The inverse of #1 above: if you are in a crowded marketplace where everybody else is telling stories, where storytelling has become the norm, and where your audience is likely to be hearing from a bunch of your competitors.

In such a marketplace, you end up in an arms race of storytelling. Your stories have to be more vulnerable, more shocking, more engagingly told. And yet, readers are glutted and paying less and less attention, and they’re looking for the signal among the storytelling noise. As I wrote in an email a couple months ago:

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I’ve noticed I practically never read the infotainment part in the newsletters subscribe to any more. Instead, I just scroll down to see the practical takeaway, and maybe the offer.

Granted, I’m a rather “sophisticated” consumer of email newsletters (meaning, I’ve been exposed to a ton of them, particularly in the copywriting and marketing space, over the past 10+ years of working in this field). Still, that just makes me a kind of owl-eyed canary in a coalmine, and maybe points to a bigger trend that will be obvious to others soon.

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All that’s to say, story emails are bett, but other kinds of emails can be even better.

And for that, may I remind you of my Daily Email Habit service, which sometimes prompts you to send a story email, but most days (like today), it does not.

For more information on Daily Email Habit:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Offer

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A few days ago, I was listening to a call put on by Internet marketer Travis Sago.

I’ve promoted Travis heavily over the past couple months as an affiliate for his Royalty Ronin community, which I am a member of and happily pay for.

In case you somehow missed all that promotion, the background on Travis is that he used to have a big Clickbank business in the relationship niche.

He then started working with other online business owners to help them pull more money out of their own customer lists. He made millions for them and for himself doing this. He eventually started teaching other marketers how to do the same.

Travis also happens to be a master of email copy. I always describe him as a “nice guy Ben Settle.” Travis is the one who first turned me on to the power of insight in marketing, because he both teaches it and practices it.

Anyways, in that call I was listening to, Travis said the following about the kinds of emails his list likes the best:

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I see this in email lists too. They’re like, “Oh, I’ve gotta keep giving them amazing content all the time.”

My best stuff, what people people like best, is when I make offers.

Now you have to wrap — ever pill a dog? You have to put the pill in some cheese, right?

But they love it. I think people want to solve problems.

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Maybe Travis’s “pill a dog” analogy doesn’t read very elegantly here in a transcript. It sounds cuter in the live call with Travis’s perpetually cheery voice saying it.

In any case, taking a cue from Travis, I got an offer for you today.

Last year, Travis wrote a book called Make ‘Em Beg To Buy From You. That books sells for $9.99 on Amazon right now. It’s frankly a steal, because it contains large and key excerpts from Travis’s $2k course Phoneless Sales Machine, which is all about how to persuade people to buy expensive offers in the most efficient and easy way possible.

So, $9.99 on Amazon right now, and worth much more than that.

But I got a deal for you:

I made an agreement with Travis, and you can get a free copy of his Make ‘Em Beg To Buy From You (in PDF format) if you have already bought my new 10 Commandments book. Just sign up to get the “apocryphal Commandment XI” (link at the end of my new 10 Commandments book) and follow the instructions at the bottom of that extra chapter.

And if you haven’t yet gotten a copy of my new 10 Commandments book, you can do so here:

https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments