List Building Archives - Page 5 of 5

Ben Settle’s secret three-act content strategy revealed

July 6, 2022 by John Bejakovic

A few days ago, I sent out an email with the subject line:

“Ben Settle emergency emails in support of Copy Riddles?”

That email officially had the highest open rate of all my emails over the past 10 days. I don’t know if that was because of the subject line. But for my own reasons, I will run with it and pander to your apparent tastes, by telling you a three-act Ben Settle story:

Back in 2016, Ben released a tiny Kindle book titled, Persuasion Secrets of the World’s Most Charismatic & Influential Villains.

The villains book turned into a sleeper hit.

As I write this, the book has 286 Amazon reviews and an Amazon ranking of 42,849. From what I know of Amazon publishing, that means the book continues to sell 4-5 copies every day, six years after its publication.

I reckon the villains book didn’t make Ben a tremendous pile of cash, not directly, not compared to other parts of his business.

But it almost certainly got him a large and constant new source of highly qualified leads. And it certainly gave him positioning and exposure in the direct response industry.

For a while, everyone associated Ben with the villains concept. It truly made him unique. And this probably led many more highly qualified leads trudging towards his hut, banging on his door, and demanding to be sold something.

So what did Ben do next? Perhaps you know act two. In 2018, he released Persuasion Villains, volume II.

Act three came in 2019. That’s when Ben released Persuasion Villains, volume III.

Which brings us to the present day and a tweet I came across a few days ago.

The tweet was written by one Matt Koval, who was apparently a big face at YouTube for over 10 years. Koval was the one whipping those early and confused YouTubers into the all-consuming media machine that YouTube has become.

Anways, Koval was tweeting in response to some YouTube influencer’s new video, and he wrote:

“One of the earliest pieces of content strategy advice we used to give at @YouTube was to try and turn your viral hit into a whole series – and it’s great to see @RyanTrahan do just that. It’s a TON of work, but no doubt a huge boost to his channel.”

But really, what is Koval’s “series” idea more than the standard DR practice of testing out different sales appeals in your ads? And then doubling down on the winners, for as long as they continue to pay for themselves?

As far as I know, Ben isn’t releasing any more villains books. This probably means he has milked this franchise to the point where putting out a new villains book isn’t worth the opportunity cost.

But maybe you’ve had a hit idea that you haven’t milked dry yet. Whether in your YouTube videos, Kindle books, or email subject lines. So rather than trying to be creative and have an all-new hit, turn your proven hit into a series.

In other news:

As I write this, I only have one Kindle book out there, my 10 Commandments book.

The 10 Commandments book hasn’t been as much of a success as Ben’s original villains book. But it has sold a lot of copies, and it continues to make sales. More importantly, it continues to drive highly qualified prospects to my email list.

And who knows? Maybe I will take my own advice.

Maybe I will lumber up the mountain, get a few more stone tablets of copywriting commandments, and write a second installment in this series.

Meanwhile, if you still haven’t read volume I, here’s where you can get your very own copy:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments

Daily email battleship

June 10, 2022 by John Bejakovic

One of the most eye-opening and mind-expanding collections of direct response insights I know of is an interview with Michael Fishman.

For context:

During Gary Bencivenga’s farewell seminar, the only person to get up on stage and present, besides the great Gary himself, was Michael Fishman.

Gary was an A-list copywriter.

Michael was an A-list list broker. (A-list list broker broker?)

In other words, while Gary’s expertise was to come up with creative words…

Michael’s expertise was to find creative lists of people to send Gary’s subtle sales letters to.

But what’s that? You say there’s not much to be creative about in choosing lists?

Well, that’s why that interview was so eye-opening and mind-expanding.

Sure, some of Michael’s work was routine. He had to keep a close eye on which lists were interested in related topics… which lists were hot… which lists were made up of recent, eager buyers, spending good money.

But sometimes, list picking was much less routine. Some of Michael’s work involved a real leap of insight and intuition.

For example:

One offer that Michael worked on is Boardroom’s Big Black Book. This was a typical Boardroom book of secrets — what never to eat on a Greyound bus, that kind of thing.

The Big Black Book was many hundreds of pages long, and it was sold through a sales letter filled with fascination bullets.

And yet, get this:

Michael had the idea to promote the Big Black Book to a list of buyers of manifestation audio course, sold on TV through an infomercial.

Totally different products… totally different markets… totally different formats for marketing… totally different everything.

So why did Michael recommend this manifestation list and why did the list end up working?

That’s the crazy thing. Because this list was made up of buyers of a product called Passion, Power, and Profit.

Get it?

Big Black Book… Passion, Power, and Profit.

Michael had the insight that some buyers really respond to alliteration in the name of the product. That’s why the BBB offer turned out to be a good fit for the PPP list.

Like I said, eye-opening and mind-expanding.

This brings me to my offer to you for today:

It’s a little game that you and I can play. I call the game Daily Email Battleship.

This is how you play:

Sign up to my email newsletter. When you get my welcome email, hit reply and write me the names of all the daily emails newsletters you are subscribed to.

I’m not talking about just copywriting and marketing. Anything. Magic, manifestation, or medicine. Any topic or person or business is okay, as long as they email, more or less daily.

And then:

1. If you tell me a newsletter I also subscribe to, it’s a direct hit. I will tell you that. So if you write me to say, “I am on Ben Settle’s list,” I will write back and say, “Great, so am I.”

2. But if you tell me a daily email newsletter I don’t subscribe to… I will counter. And I will tell you a newsletter I subscribe to, which you don’t subscribe to.

3. And if I can’t do that, because you are subscribed to more novel and interesting daily email newsletters than I am, then you win.

And as your prize, I will tell you why I am collecting these email newsletters, and what this has to do with the Michael Fishman story above.

This information might be valuable to you. Or it might just feed your curiosity.

In any case, if you’d like to play, the opening shot is yours.

Cheap, easy, and definitely worth it

March 17, 2022 by John Bejakovic

A few days ago, I sent out a George Foreman-themed email asking for testimonials. Either for my newsletter and products… or for me personally.

I got back some good responses. Just what I was hoping for. For example, copywriter David Patrick wrote me to say:

“If John is behind anything, then I’m sure it’s going to be good. In fact, he may very well be the best thing to happen to America… at least when it comes to persuasion and influence! No, really!”

Others wrote in to say that I’m not only the best thing for America, but “maybe even the world”… that I am a “vital resource”… and one person, who shall remain unnamed, wrote in all seriousness with:

“John Bejakovic and persuasion. You can’t beat that. He made me like cats. Even though I used to hate them and they used to hate me. So he’s a great person to find out about a new product that’s about persuading stubborn prospects. Or cats.”

I also got less flamboyant, perhaps more useful testimonials. I will drip those out in good time, in upcoming emails and sales pages.

For today, I just want to point out something obvious that you might already know, but that I had to learn. In fact, I didn’t learn it until only a couple years ago, when I was writing a VSL for a get-rich-in-real-estate guru.

In one of his content videos, this real estate guru talked about his “buyers list” — the list of people you can flip a house to.

But a buyers list is so much more than that, the guru said.

He then rattled off all the connections, employees, business opportunities, sources of funding, and personal relationships that resulted from his list, and from the personal emails he would send to them on occasion.

“Huh, interesting,” I said, a dim light slowly flickering to life in my head.

Time passed. I stared into space.

The light flickered a little brighter. “Ohh… yeah… I get it now!”

Because it’s not just a “buyers list” that can do all that. It’s the same with any email list, when it’s built right and managed right.

The fact is, my newsletter list has given me — often without me even asking — business partners… JV partners… copywriting clients… consulting clients… free products… insider tips and valuable ideas I wouldn’t know about otherwise… job offers… podcast appearances… mastermind appearances… and many, many new relationships with people, some of whom even became my friends, mostly online, but in real life as well.

Like I said, I had to have somebody point this out to me. That a list is a relationship, and that it’s good for a lot more than just a certain kind of one-way traffic.

Maybe you’re amazed I could be so dense.

But I am far from a natural when it comes to promotion or marketing or business. And yet it doesn’t matter.

You can find a spot for yourself, and be successful in time, even if you’re not a natural showman, salesman, or “scheme” man.

Lots of people have walked the road before you. Many of them are willing to point out, sometimes even for free, just where you should put your feet to take the next step to success.

Such as for example, starting and running your own email list. It’s cheap. Easy to do. And it’s definitely worth it.

If you want to see, how I do it, sign up to my list. You might learn something about copywriting and marketing and business along the way. Here’s where to get started.

My little-known history as an Amazon ebook hack

April 16, 2020 by John Bejakovic

A-list copywriter Bob Bly just sent out an email about the National Emergency Library. I’d heard of this initiative but I didn’t bother to look it up until now.

Turns out, the Internet Archive is scanning books and making them freely available online during the corona situation. That’s the National Emergency Library. To which Mary Rasenberger, director of the Authors Guild, said (and I quote from Bob’s email):

“[It is] no different than any other piracy sites. If you can get anything that you want that’s on Internet Archives for free, why are you going to buy an ebook.”

I don’t know about you, but to me this sounds like the old argument about sex and marriage. Why buy the cow, when there’s an app that hooks you up with free milk, even at 3am.

And yet… plenty of people are still getting married these days. How come? Riddle me that, Mary.

But seriously, here’s a little-known fact about me:

For about a year of my life, I eked a meager living by writing ebooks and selling them through Amazon Kindle publishing. (Don’t search for the books because they were all published under pseudonyms.)

I actually sold thousands of copies of these books — but it didn’t mean much. Kindle ebooks sell for a couple of bucks each.

Thing is, had I known as much about marketing back then as I do now, I wouldn’t have failed or given up on my Kindle publishing dreams.

That’s because selling books on Amazon (or really, on any outside platform) is not a good way to make money. It is, however, a fantastic way to get highly qualified leads who have tried a glass of your milk, and who want more.

That means you can get these folks over to your site and sell them more milk — maybe at a higher price than what Amazon encourages you to charge.

Why stop there though?

If somebody likes you and knows you and trusts you, why limit your offer to a carton or two of milk?

Instead, take your new-found customer by the hand to the back of your property… open the barn door… and introduce her to your gorgeous cow. It might be just the bovine your customer has been looking for all her life.

In other words, if the National Emergency Library, the National Milk Authority, or any other pirate institution starts giving away samples of your money-maker for free, it might not be the end of the world. It might even be the start of something great. As multi-millionaire marketer Joe Sugarman once said:

“Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem & turned it into an opportunity.”