Handraisers

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:

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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.

How to create a conversation when people just reply “yes”

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Today, I had an exchange with a coaching client who I’d advised to send out some handraiser emails to his list.

(Handraiser email = email that invites people to reply with a “yes” if they are interested in learning more, or if they fit a certain profile.)

My dude sent out his handraiser email. He got a bunch of replies that said “yes.” He followed up with those people but then, like a pigeon with two broken wings, response fell off a cliff. Almost nobody replied.

My dude wrote me to say:

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What I’m coming up against is a sense that I really don’t know how to create a conversation with next-to-no interest from the other person. If the other person gives almost nothing in the form of effort or interest (which fits when I ask them a yes/no question) I’m struggling to manufacture that interest without being manipulative.

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There’s a “glib” and a “responsible” way of dealing with this problem.

The “glib” way is a marketing and business practice I call factoring out.

For my math nerds out there, factoring out goes back to the heady and self-conscious days of 7th-grade algebra:

If you have an expression like 2x + 2y, in algebra they teach you that you can turn that into 2(x + y). You can factor out the 2 so that your inside expression (x + y) remains blessedly free of 2.

Simple enough, right? I hope it’s simple enough to use as an analogy even for the non-math nerds.

In any case, here’s what factoring out translates to your marketing and business:

Rather than hoping that your prospects will do action X at some point down the line, you can force them to take action X as a condition for engaging with you at all.

So for example, rather than hoping for people to reply to your followup question, make answering your followup question a condition to even replying to your email in the first place.

Instead of saying, “Reply to this email and say MORE INFO NOW”… tell people, “Reply to this email and tell me a little bit about your current situation.”

In other words, the factoring out solution to the problem of creating a conversation when people just reply “yes”… is to stop having people reply with just “yes.”

It’s a super effective and practical technique that goes way beyond handraiser campaigns. But maybe it’s a little too glib for you in the present situation.

Like I said, there’s also the “responsible” way of dealing with this problem.

That’s about having a structured way of engaging people who reply with just a “yes,” and guiding them in a proven fashion from that curt reply all the way to an actual sale, even a high-ticket sale, all over email.

Is this something you want more info on?

I have a resource to point you to.

It tells you exactly what to say over 1-1 emails to get people to engage with you in a way that leads to a sale.

It’s not free or even cheap.

If that doesn’t deter you, reply to this email and tell me a bit about your situation when it comes to selling over email.

Question for info product creators

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Have you ever created an info product that sold well to your own list?

Would you like to transform that product into a product that sells well to affiliates’ lists also, mine among them?

If so, hit reply, and let’s talk.

Can I help you make a buncha sales via… an auction?

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I ran an auction in my Skool group back in December.

It brought in $31k (case study here).

I’m planning to run more auctions with my own audience.

But if you have been hearing chatter about auctions, but don’t want to go to the trouble of running one yourself, maybe I can help?

My offer is:

I’ll run an auction for you, with your own offers and your audience.

For every $10,000 I send you in sales, shoot over $2500 to me AFTER the money is in your bank account.

I’ll take care of everything involved:

* Coming up with the offer stack

* Writing posts

* Managing the auction itself to make it fun or even magical for your audience

* Closing all the sales

(Of course, if you wanna be involved in any of these steps, you can be, to whatever extent you want.)

And if you have an email list, but no community where to run an auction?

I’ll set that up and cover it 100%.

If you’re interested, hit reply and we can talk.

Question

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If you have an email list, do you on average get 30 or more new subscribers every week?