Direct Marketing

The 10-word hangover jingle that doubled sales

by

This morning, I was reading Frank Luntz’s Words That Work. That’s how I came across the following ancient marketing anecdote, with a very modern takeaway:

Back in the 1960s, Alka-Seltzer, the upset-stomach effervescent tablet, wasn’t selling well. And advertising wasn’t helping.

Then the company ran a new ad with a new jingle:

“Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is”

Result:

Sales almost doubled. Customers were happier. Alka-Seltzer as a business was rescued and was eventually sold to Bayer in 1977, for about $1.4 billion in today’s money.

WTF happened?

Plop plop fizz fizz…

Sure, the jingle was catchy. But that’s not what rescued Alka-Seltzer. Instead, it was simple economics.

Until this ad, most people, hung over on a Sunday morning from the Saturday night’s bender, would plop one Alka-Seltzer into some water, stare while it fizzed up, and then chug it down to feel less awful.

After all, that’s how Alka-Seltzer was sold, and that’s what the instructions on the box said.

It worked ok. Clearly not great though, considering the straits that Alka-Seltzer was in.

Then a doctor at the Alka-Seltzer labs named Dorothy Carter suggested taking two Alka-Seltzer instead of one, in order to “break through the pain barrier.”

Sure enough, two pills made the hangover more bearable. Customers were happier. And so were Alka-Seltzer execs, after the plop plop fizz fizz campaign spread the message to the public, and nearly doubled Alka-Seltzer consumption and sales.

The very modern takeaway, as relevant today as it was in the days of Madison Avenue jingles:

Educate your customers on consuming more of your product. Increase the transaction size, not by telling people they’ll save money, but by telling them how to get better results.

This ancient anecdote and the modern takeaway have nothing to do with my upcoming Daily Email Fastlane workshop.

Well, they have something to do with it, but I will save that for the actual workshop instead of giving away everything in this email.

In case you’re curious about this workshop, here’s what to know:

This workshop will cover the common elements I’ve seen in three uniquely successful daily emailers I’ve coached over the past year and a half.

These daily emailers have stood out to me — in terms of the money they make, the stability of their income, and simply in how much they seem to enjoy their business and their life.

My claim is that, once you know the common elements of three very different, and yet very successful daily email business owners, you can take what has worked for them and have it work for you. You can get to success with daily email for your personal brand, in the fast lane.

Daily Email Fastlane will happen next Thursday, May 23, at 8pm CET, 2pm EST, 11am PST.

The deadline to sign up is Wednesday, May 22, at 8:31pm CET.

In case you’d like to sign up now, so you can be sure not to miss out:

Click here, sign up, get ahead fast, never stop

Announcing: Daily Email Fastlane

by

Next Thursday, I’m putting on a workshop which until now did not have a proper name. I’m sure you were on pins and needles because of the uncertainty. I am writing now to set you at ease.

I’ve settled on a name. That name is Daily Email Fastlane.

Hear me out:

Over the past year or so, I’ve coached a dozen or so people who write daily emails as a central part of their business strategy.

Out of that dozen or so people, three stand out in my mind — based on the money they make, the stability of their income, and simply in how much they seem to enjoy their business and their life.

I won’t name these people. But I’ll tell you this:

These three daily emailers all move fast. They write emails fast. They spin up offers fast. They go from “good idea” to “let’s see if it works” fast.

“Yeah that’s swell for them,” you might say. “But what about me?”

Well, that’s actually why I’m calling this workshop Daily Email Fastlane.

I can’t motivate you to move any faster than you normally do. That’s up to you.

What I can do, in fact what I’ve done, is to look at what else these three daily emailers have in common, such as:

– how they write their emails and make those emails good, even when they are not feeling creative

– how they structure their offers in a way that makes those offers 17.4x more likely to succeed (that’s my inexact estimate, but it’s in the ballpark)

– how they get their leads and how they think about leads

– plus what I advised them to do to take their already successful daily email businesses and make them even more successful

So that’s why this training is called Daily Email Fastlane. ​​Not because you have to move fast. But because I’ll show you the commonalities of three very different, and yet very successful daily email business owners, so you can take what has worked for them and have it work for you.

Do this, and you will get to success with daily email for your personal brand, in the fast lane, regardless of your natural speed.

Daily Email Fastlane will happen next Thursday, May 23, at 8pm CET, 2pm EST, 11am PST. It will be recorded if you cannot make it live. Though if you can be there and I can see your handsome mug live on Zoom, that’s even better.

In case you’d like to sign up:

https://bejakovic.com/daily-email-fastlane

Are you writing daily emails for your personal brand? Or no?

by

I’ve been writing daily emails for myself for the past 5+ years. ​​For about 5 of those 5+ years, I’ve been regularly writing daily emails about how great daily emails are.

You know, the usual arguments. How daily emails help you:

… make sales… turn yourself into an authority… make price a secondary or tertiary issue… sort out your own head trash… build up your real and perceived expertise… yadda yadda.

You prolly know all that.

And yet, odds are fantastic or better that you’re not writing daily emails for yourself right now.

Or you’re not doing it regularly.

Or it’s a struggle. Or it’s taking way too much time. Or you’re not getting the kinds of results you’ve been promised.

Why is that?

I don’t know. ​​But I’m willing to put in time and mental energy to figure it out, and figure out a simpler, superior system for you to write daily emails and get results fast.

So here’s the nothing-down deal I have for you:

I’m gonna put on a workshop next Thursday, May 23rd. The tentative title is “Daily Emails For Your Personal Brand.” The tentative topic is daily emails for your personal brand.

I’ll have an order form set up by tomorrow. But today, I have a different offer for you, one that doesn’t cost anything.

For today, if you’re interested in this workshop based on the little I’ve said about it so far, hit reply and tell me so. But beware.

If you do express interest, I will follow up with you. One on one. Via email.

​​I want to find out your situation in regard to daily emails, where it’s aching or itching or burning, what you’ve tried before to get it to stop, how that’s working out or not for you.

I will use what you tell me to actually guide the content for this workshop, so that it’s as superhumanly useful as I can make it.

Plus I have a bit of a contest with a prize right now:

I will pick one person at random and give away a free ticket to this workshop.

The only requirement to be entered for this free ticket is that you reply to this email and express your interest by 8:31pm CET tomorrow, Tuesday, and that you engage with me when I follow up with my questions.

So there’s literally one thing to do right now. Ask yourself:

Are you writing daily emails for your personal brand? Or no?

​​And if no, could you potentially use some help or guidance or advice?

If so, then hit reply and tell me so. It doesn’t oblige you in any way. You might win a free ticket. And best of all, you may actually help me create something that makes the itching and burning stop.

Why I won’t use BerserkerMail

by

Yesterday I wrote about an “unwilling unsubscribe” issue that’s been haunting me for a few years. I asked readers for suggestions on how I can keep good subscribers from getting accidentally kicked off ActiveCampaign.

Lots of people replied with lots of good ideas.

But a fair number of people also pitched me on switching from ActiveCampaign to Ben Settle’s BerserkerMail service.

From what I can tell, many of those people don’t actually use BerserkerMail themselves. Instead, they just berserk on behalf of Ben about how great BerserkerMail is.

I’ve never used BerserkerMail and have no plans to switch. I thought somebody out there might want to know why. Three reasons:

#1. Switching would be a pain in the ass.

One reader wrote me yesterday to say how easy it is to switch over to BerserkerMail “in just a few clicks.” That sounded like a kid trying to sell his parents on a weeklong trip to Disneyland by saying “it’s only a 4-hour flight away.”

Looking at the flight time only ignores all the packing… the booking of the hotel… the taking of the dog to the dog kennel and watching his big eyes as he accuses you of abandoning him… and the fallout at work after a week away and a few thousand accumulated small fires that have gone untended.

In less Disneylandy terms:

I have a few dozen automations set up in ActiveCampaign that run a large part of my product delivery.

I have a few dozen integrations with my website membership software… with optin forms in various places… with my cart software.

And I suspect that, in spite of the “just a few clicks” to switch my contact list to BerserkerMail, I would still be left with days of prep work and weeks or months of things breaking and me having to fix them.

​​And if that’s not enough…

#2. BerserkerMail has the same problems I want to run away from.

A couple people tried to sell me on how “simple” BerskerMail is to use. But I’ve never had a problem with ActiveCampaign because it’s complex.

I have had a problem with ActiveCampaign when it crashed right when I ran a classified ad and got hundreds of new subscribers in a matter of hours.

I’ve had a problem with it when I scheduled an email that never got sent out — still my one missed day of emailing in the past 5+ years.

In other words, I’ve had a problem with ActiveCampaign because of occasional reliability and tech issues.

But BerserkerMail has its own reliability and tech issues. I know, because people who use BerserkerMail have told me so, and because Ben has written about BerserkerMail’s tech issues in his own emails.

It’s kind of like that famous Disneyland commercial on TV:

“Are you tired of your kids screaming at home? Take them for a weeklong vacation to Disneyland and have them scream here! It’s only a 4-hour flight away and buying the tickets is super simple.”

(By the way, as for unsub issue I wrote about yesterday, it seems the most likely culprit is simply Gmail and Apple Mail unsubscribe features. If that’s the case, it would affect BerserkerMail emails the same as those sent from any other service.)

#3. I already have an easy-to-use, technically reliable alternative to ActiveCampaign.

It’s not BerserkerMail.

​​Instead, it’s Beehiiv, which I used for my health newsletter.

I loved everything about Beehiiv so much that I actually thought about switching this newsletter to use Beehiiv. I decided against it because of point 1 above.

However, if I do ever start any new newsletters, they will go on Beehiiv by default.

If you want to start a new newsletter, you can try out Beehiiv at the link below.

I won’t try to sell you on Beehiiv, beyond saying it’s free — not just during a 30-day trial period like BerserkerMail, but forever — as long as you’re below 2,500 subscribers, and you don’t start coveting advanced features like the referral program and the ad network.

If you want to try out just how simple it is to sign up to Beehiiv, and how pleasant, and how short of a flight it is:

https://bejakovic.com/beehiiv

Please help me staunch the unsubscribes

by

Over the past 5+ years of daily emailing, I’ve trained myself to shrug as my default reaction when people unsubscribe from my list.

Most of the time, people who unsub have never bought anything from me, weren’t a good fit for what I sell in the first place, weren’t even reading my daily emails very often.

If those kinds of subscribers go, that’s ok. The world is packed full of people, and my email list is not the right fit for most of them.

But!

It sometimes happens that the people who unsubscribe from my list have bought stuff from me, did read my emails, even seemed to be fans.

Sometimes, these unsubscribes are the result of a fermentation process — people move on, their circumstances change, or perhaps they just get sick and tired of me.

Other times though… take for example what happened yesterday.

I got a message from a reader who had bought my Copy Riddles program, my Most Valuable Email program, and my Horror Advertorial Swipe File. A reader who had replied often to my emails. A reader who had given me glowing testimonials for a few of my offers.

And yet…

ActiveCampaign has this reader marked as having unsubbed 8 days ago. Last night, this same reader wrote me to say:

===

John, I’m somehow kicked off your list again. Hah! I have no idea how this keeps happening. This is the last email I got from you.

I signed back up via your opt-in form just now, but thought I’d let you know in case this is happening with other subs.

===

Normally, this would be an opportunity to say something like, “and that’s what happens when you write emails every day… it becomes like appointment TV and people seek you out if you don’t show up on time. This is why you should buy my courses on writing daily emails blah blah…”

Actually, that’s exactly what I did write the first time the reader above wrote me to say he got kicked off my list, a couple years ago.

But now, I’m actually a little anxious to root out this phantom unsubscribe problem once and for all.

Because the reader above is not the only one who has told me he was unsubbed from my list for no good reason.

I have a few real-life friends who are also subscribed to get my emails.

A couple of them have also told me they stopped getting my emails at various points. I checked, and ActiveCampaign says they unsubscribed. My friends deny it. I trust them over ActiveCampaign.

And I figure that if I already know of a handful of cases where people got unsubbed from my list without willing it, there might be more cases where it happened and I don’t know about it.

So I’m appealing to you for any help or advice you can give me.

Again, I use ActiveCampaign. That seems to be the only technical thing I can point to.

Have you had something similar happen to you? Or to one of your clients? Or do you have any advice for me on how I could start debugging this “unwilling unsub” feature?

Write in and tell me what comes to mind. I’ll be grateful for any advice or pointers. Thanks in advance.

Idiots competing for a job

by

“As you can see, it’s just not working.”

I recently watched an old but still funny Mitchell and Webb skit. In the skit, the comedy duo play two TV execs. They are reviewing a failing Apprentice-like show, in which a group of office workers compete for a prestigious job.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” says Mitchell.

“Go on,” says Webb.

“How would it be if instead, it was idiots competing for a relatively junior job?”

“Idiots?”

“Yeah. We deliberately pick sixteen idiots. Real idiots. Assholes as well. And then we get to watch them screw everything up.”

At this point, I had to pause the skit so I could write down the thoughts that had bubbled up in my head. Like several other times during Mitchell and Webb skits, I realized this was a comedy illustration of a genuine and valuable marketing trick.

I wrote that down and then I clicked play again.

“Maybe it can work,” says Webb. “But only for a season, right? Once people can see that all contestants are idiots, no one will want to apply.”

Mitchell shakes his head and smiles. “Idiots will. In fact, it will make the application process a lot easier because we’ll only get idiots.”

So there you go:

A valuable marketing trick hidden inside an old but still funny Mitchell and Webb skit.

If you think on it for a bit, maybe your own thoughts will bubble up, and you will see how you use this trick to transform something in your own business that’s just not working.

Or if you can’t figure that out, I got an offer for you:

This same idea is discussed in much more detail inside my Copy Riddles program, specifically in round 17.

Because this trick applies to copywriting as well as to marketing.

This trick is not hard to do, but it’s also not something you will see people doing instinctively, or might want to do instinctively yourself.

And yet it makes copy better, and can be used and applied way beyond the words you use to sell more, or to sell some, if you’re selling nothing right now.

For more info on this trick, and on Copy Riddles:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

I asked for ideas to fail, and I got ’em

by

The results are in. Well, some of the results.

Yesterday, I wrote an email asking my readers for ideas. On how I could make more money. And I offered a $100 reward — if I run with the idea and it fails.

Result:

I got a small number of replies so far. Almost all the replies were thoughtful, serious ideas that could legitimately make me more money.

I’ve decided to try out an idea sent to me by Modern Maker Jacob Pegs. I’ll report on the final result of that — $100 or glory — by the end of this month.

The thing is, I would like to do more. Try out two, three, all of the ideas people sent me. All at the same time.

I’d also like to finish that book I’ve been working on for a while. Plus I’d like to go through my existing emails and package those up into even more books.

I’d like to create a couple new courses, or maybe a half dozen. I have ideas for a few workshops as well. Plus I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a community for a while.

I’d like to find new affiliate offers to promote… I’d like to come up with some sort of continuity program… I’d like to build up my list with more people with money.

And that’s just for this little info publishing business.

There’s a whole big world of money-making opportunities out there that regularly calls my attention and tempts me with the thought of cool new projects using skills and assets I already have.

All that’s to say:

I’m a moderately successful dude. And I have a moderately infinite list of possible projects to do, all of which sound cool, all of which which could make me a ton of money, all of which could be good for me in other ways.

But there are people out there who are vastly more successful than I am. And those people have vastly infinite lists of possible projects to do, all of which sound cool, all of which could make them a ton of money, all of which could be good for them in other ways.

You see the problem:

Infinite opportunities…

Finite time. Finite energy. Finite head space.

And that’s pretty much the argument for going to business owners and saying, “Hey. You. How about I just do this for you? Don’t pay me anything. Don’t stress about this at all. I’ll handle all of it. Just, if it makes money, you give me a share?”

These kinds of offers work. I know, because I’ve made them, and I’ve had them accepted.

I can vouch first hand that these offers can collect you — as the party doing the work — a lot of money.

You can go out now and start reaching out to business owners and saying “Hey. You.”

If that works, great.

But if not, then consider Shiv Shetti’s PCM mastermind.

Shiv’s got a whole system for how to find business owners to partner with… how to approach them… what to say to them… and how to deliver on work that makes the business owner free money, which they are then happy to share with you.

Oh, and there’s also coaches inside PCM to help you along. I’m one of those coaches.

If you’d like to find out more about PCM:

https://bejakovic.com/pcm

The allure of ecom

by

Today, I’m preparing a hot seat for one of the copywriters inside Shiv Shetti’s PCM mastermind.

So far, the dozen or so hot seats I have done were all for info products — high-ticket coaching, courses, a live event.

This hot seat is not for an info product. Instead, it’s for an ecom product, a strange $1,200 metal contraption that’s apparently selling well to an audience of middle-aged men.

As so often happens, this ecom business has a list of tens of thousands of past buyers and prospects.

And yet these guys never, ever, ever get an email from this business.

It makes me think I should go back to what I was doing a few years ago, and simply seek out such businesses, and write their emails on commission only.

It’s an alluring thought, but one to pursue another day.

Anyways, in situations like this, when a business has not been emailing their list for a while or at all, it’s common practice to send out a few warmup emails before a full-blown sales promo.

Those warmup emails typically deliver “value” — as in, they make it impossible for the prospect to buy anything.

It’s not my favorite approach. But in the case of info products, I am willing to run with it.

However, in the case of these ecom buyers, my recommendation as the resident promo expert will be to sell something even in those warmup emails, even in the very first email after a silence of who knows how many months or years.

My reasoning:

Unlike with info product lists, where the intent is often vague and shadowy, the intent for this ecom list is hard and concrete.

The only thing we know for sure about these guys is that they are in the market to buy this physical gadget or something like it. And so I will recommend to give them opportunity to buy something physical in every single email.

Of course, this won’t go out in a typical ecom email, with a big red coupon or even a picture of the product.

I’ve written and sent hundreds of ecom emails.

​​They’ve all looked and sounded very much like the email you’re reading now. And those emails have sold a few million dollars of physical stuff, from shoe insoles to weight loss pills to dog harnesses.

Do you have have an ecom business?

If you do, and you want to see how I wrote such emails, including a few dozen examples of the ecom emails that brought in the most sales, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme

Waiting list hell

by

Last May, I started a waiting list for a group coaching offer I was planning to run.

I promoted the waiting list with a few weeks’ worth of emails.

I hoped to use the waiting list to effortlessly fill 5 spots in the planned group coaching program.

But when I opened up the cart, a grand jumbo total of two people signed up.

I ended up canceling the group coaching program and refunding the two people who had bought.

This meant that, on top of the injury of having spent a few weeks sending emails to promote an offer that went absolutely nowhere, I also had the insult of having to pay Stripe a good amount of money to process the sizeable refunds.

Compare that to this past January.

I also created a waiting list.

I promoted the waiting list with a few weeks’ worth of emails.

I hoped to use the waiting list to effortlessly fill 5 spots in a group coaching program.

And that’s just what happened.

​​I opened up the cart. And with a couple of emails, I managed to fill the group coaching program. I even had people left over who were knocking on the doors but couldn’t get in.

What was the difference between those two waiting-list promos?

Actually there were lots of differences:

The offers promised in the emails were different… the actual coaching programs were different… the sales processes I used were different… the prices were different — the one that sold out was almost 2x the price of the one that flopped.

All that’s to say:

Are you using a waiting list for an offer right now, and is it giving you some stomach cramps?

Or have you used a waiting list for an offer before, and did it flop like an fish tossed onto the dock?

If so, then hit reply. I have an offer for you that you might like.

How to launch offers that almost never fail

by

Last week, I was talking to Steve “License to Quill” Raju. Steve’s a very smart guy who has over the past year transformed himself from a direct response copywriter into an AI consultant for big corporations.

Steve was telling me how he used AI to augment his problem-solving ability.

​​For example, the problem of direct response offers that fall flat.

Steve wanted to see if there’s a way to reduce the risk of offers falling flat. So he asked the AI if this problem has already been solved in other industries.

“The AI came up with the TV industry,” Steve told me with some enthusiasm, and he went on to explain how the TV industry apparently makes sure its shows are hits.

I didn’t say so at the time, but I had my doubts. Not of Steve, but of the AI’s advice.

From what I know, the TV industry is riddled with failure — pilot episodes that never get picked up, shows that get canceled after the first season, spinoffs that go nowhere.

​​Same thing holds in the movie industry. (William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything.”)

Ditto for the publishing industry. About that:

A couple days ago, I read a 4,425-word article that summarized a 1194-page book called The Trial.

The Trial itself summarizes a yearlong antitrust case that came up when Penguin Random House tried to buy Simon & Schuster, and reduce the Big Five publishing houses to the Big Four.

As part of this antitrust case, the heads of all the major publishing companies testified, and revealed the failure-ridden and frankly sad state of the traditional publishing industry.

For example, only half the books published by these companies make any money. A much lower percentage actually pay back the money advanced to the author, and make any kind of profit.

However!

There are two categories of books where the odds are much, much better.

​​These two categories do not quite guaranteed successes. Failures still do happen. But these two types of books are as close to guaranteed as it gets.

The first are books by celebrities. Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan.

The second are franchise authors. Tom Clancy, James Patterson, Brandon Sanderson.

Of these two categories, the franchise authors produce far more reliable successes. And no wonder.

Franchise authors have already built up an audience that’s demonstrated demand for a specific character or concept. This audience remains highly dedicated and forgiving, as long as the author keeps giving them more of what they already said they want.

When I put it in these terms, the lesson is hardly surprising.

But surprising or not, the fact remains that, in spite of literally hundreds of years of experimentation by established billion-dollar industries, this is still the best recipe for new offers that are an almost guaranteed success:

1. Build up an audience that’s demonstrated demand for a specific promise, product, or persona…

​2. ​​… and then give them more of what they already said they want.

​​Of course, you don’t have to write books. Short emails will do.

And if you want to see how I’ve done this using short emails, in several different industries, from supplements to pet supplies to high-ticket coaching and courses, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/sme