Direct Marketing

Andre Chaperon peep show, this way ——->>>

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A few years back, a bizarre sandwich board appeared on a street in Melbourne, Australia. It read:

“Ed Sheeran peep show! $2 ——->>>”

Next to the sandwich board hovered a shady looking spruiker, stopping passersby.

“Get yer Ed Sheeran… Who wants some Ed Sheeran…”

He’d point to an unmarked door leading to a darkened room. Unsurprisingly, people avoided him in a wide arc.

So he got more desperate: “We’ve literally got Ed Sheeran sitting on a stage, waiting for you.”

(Ed Sheeran really was there in the darkened room, waiting behind a red curtain, guitar in hand.)

But nobody wanted Ed Sheeran for $2. Or more likely, they just didn’t trust this shady spruiker and his sandwich board peep show offer.

It’s much like when somebody is strolling along the Internet, minding their own business… and they hit upon your optin page. It reads:

“7 steps to fixing your biggest problem now! Enter your email ——->>>”

Do people want their biggest problems solved?

Of course.

So why do so few opt in — and why do even fewer read anything you send them afterwards?

Much like with that spruiker on the street, they don’t know you. They probably don’t trust you. They certainly don’t like you. You’re just some shady character, pointing to an unmarked door, promising an amazing experience behind it.

But that’s just a fact of direct response marketing, right?

​​Unless you want to spend weeks, months, or years cultivating a brand through blogging or podcasting or whatever… then you have to take this hard stance and lose a few people in the process.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

I’ve been going through a newish course by Andre Chaperon. You might know Andre from his course Autoresponder Madness, where he introduced story-based, soap opera email sequences that suck readers in, build a relationship, and simultaneously create anticipation for a paid solution to a problem.

Fact is, story-based email sequences are not the only big innovation that Andre has created.

He also invented something he calls “multi-page presell sites.” These suckers build a relationship and trust quickly, before asking people to opt in (or buy).

Andre’s been using them for years, and he claims they are the bedrock of his business, along with his Autoresponder Madness email approach.

(I’ve also seen some serious direct response businesses switching over to this “presell site” approach — both for getting people onto their mailing lists, and as a replacement for traditional sales letters.)

In case you wanna know more about Andre’s presell site system… or if you wanna see it in action… then you’re in luck. ​​Cuz I got it ready for you, in a darkened room hiding behind the link below. You won’t even have to opt in:

https://tinylittlebusinesses.com/manifestos/product-launch-marketing/

[3-Min DR News] The end of protein, $1M+ email drops, DJ Trump ad spend

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My local radio station has these short, punchy 3-minute news segments.

I like them. So I thought I would do something similar on occasion, but about direct response marketing. Here’s the first edition:

The end of protein?

I just listened to a new interview with Dr. Steven Gundry. Gundry is the face of Gundry MD, a Golden Hippo company. (Golden Hippo one of the biggest direct response health businesses.)

Anyways, Dr. Gundry says in the interview that you should limit your protein to 20 grams a day because that’s all we need and because “protein ages you.” So we’ve come full circle. First fat was bad and carbs were good… Then carbs were bad and protein was good… And now protein is bad and fat is good.

Will a low-protein longevity diet be the new fad for the 2020s, spawning hundreds of new direct response offers, like keto and paleo did before it? Here’s the Gundry interview if you wanna decide for yourself:

https://jamesaltucher.com/podcast/508-dr-steven-gundry

A multi-million dollar email

Justin Goff’s “Wife saves husband — doctors stunned” email drop started running several years, or at least that’s when I first heard about it. In any case, it’s running still. I see it on average twice a month in Newsmax alone. In fact, it ran again today.

Who knows how many millions of dollars worth of business this single piece of copy has brought in? Here’s a version from Glenn Beck’s list is in case you wanna read and study:

https://newslettercollector.com/newsletter/wife-saves-husband-doctors-stunned-by-military-fountain-of-youth-drink(2)/

DJ Trump in 3rd place with ad spend

I wanted to see which advertisers are spending the most on FB ads. Foolish, it turns out. There’s no way FB is sharing that data. But, thanks to Trump and Cambridge Analytica, FB is sharing very clear data about which political campaigns are spending how much.

Looking over the past 30 days, the top spender, at around $4.3 million, is one Tom Steyer, a billionaire Dem candidate for president I had never even heard of. No. 2 is Mike Bloomberg who entered the race only two weeks ago, but already spent $1.5 million. In 3rd place, we have DJ Trump, with around $1.4 mil in ad spend.

If you wanna see the full list, which links to the ads for all the candidates, and also includes other high-integrity advertisers such as Goldman Sachs and Planned Parenthood, here’s where to go:

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/report/

Got a hot tip?

3-Min DR News wants to hear from you. You can submit your industry news or gossip, on the record or off, by clicking here and writing our editorial team (of one) an email.

How to make friends on Twitter

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A while back, Ben Settle wrote that if you go on Twitter right now, you can find pockets of people sharing really good ideas and trying to improve themselves.

So I created a Twitter account. I followed some people who seemed intelligent and reasonable. And after watching them bicker and henpeck each other for a few days, I gave up and closed down my account again.

I’m not sure what pockets of positivity Ben Settle was talking about, but Twitter ain’t it. Or so I thought, until today.

I was reading an article, which linked to another, which finally led me upon the site of one Alexey Guzey. I don’t know the guy from a hole in the ground, but he seems intelligent and reasonable. He writes well. And he’s very enthusiastic about the power of Twitter for meeting good people, learning interesting stuff, and improving yourself.

I’m not 100% convinced yet, but I might give Twitter another try. If I do, I’ll start by following Alexey Guzey.

If this has got you somewhat curious, then take a look at Alexey Guzey’s guide on how to make friends on the Internet. It includes pointers about using Twitter in a smart way, as well as a bunch of motivational case studies of valuable relationships he has made through the Great Twat. Here’s the link:

https://guzey.com/how-to-make-friends-over-the-internet/

My biggest email mistake of 2019

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A couple of days ago, I sent out an email with the subject line, “How is your vagal tone?”

​​It was a dumb subject line. I should have used “Agora’s new health blockbuster” instead.

I say this because that email did worse than average in terms of opens. And yes, I know that sales are a vagillion times more important than opens. But since I’m not selling anything with these emails at the moment, then even open rates are interesting to look at.

And that’s one thing I’ve noticed with email opens throughout 2019 — they tend to be consistently lower with bizarre headlines like “How is your vagal tone?” I’ve also noticed that pure curiosity subject lines underperform as well.

And yet, such subject lines are as common in marketing emails as broken ankles are at the Walmart entrance on Black Friday.

No surprise there — these kinds of subject lines are easy and lazy to write. But I think it’s time to change.

I’m personally throwing out pure curiosity subject lines and  bizarro angles — RIP 2019.

​​In their place, it’s time come up with subject lines that are clearly of interest to people on the list. It’s not rocket surgery, but as my “vagal tone” email shows, it’s still easy to screw up.

2020 Prediction: FB ads will get scammier

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This summer, I wrote a unique piece of sales copy for a client.

​​It was a video ad, telling a story over 3 or 4 minutes, using stock footage and text overlays. The goal was to have this run on Facebook and then link to an advertorial and then an order page.

The product in question was “eco-friendly bags” — basically, reusable produce bags to replace the ones you get at the store. People are crazy about the dangers of plastics these days, so I wrote up an inspirational story about how one brilliant inventor saw the need to help the planet and presto, eco-friendly bags.

Anyways, about a week ago, I remembered this project. And I followed up with the client to see how the video ad performed.

​​Here’s what he wrote back:

“We unfortunately ran into some issues with that product – Facebook now flags and doesn’t allow ads that address political or social issues. Since the ad talked about pollution / the environment it was, unfortunately, flagged.”

Wow. It didn’t even occur to me that talking about pollution or dead seagulls could be a compliance issue. Sure, I heard from many different sides that FB is cracking down on ads. This summer seemed to be the high point. Anything that looks ugly, scary, or is too full of hype couldn’t run. But I guess “social issue” ads became a problem also.

That’s rough. Things are getting really strict out there…

​Or are they?

Because let me tell you a second FB ads story:

A few days ago, I saw an ad, written in English (I live in Croatia), featuring some Croatian celebrity, with a classic clickbait headline along the lines of, “He went on TV to reveal how anyone can make 54,319.44 Croatian Kuna in just minutes — and it’s got the National Bank terrified!” The actual advertorial page promoted some Bitcoin trading platform.

Several other versions of this ad, run by other FB pages, also appeared on my feed that same day, and for several days after. There were dozens of comments on each ad. Some were by people simply talking about the Croatian celebrity (“what does this moron know about making money”) while a few pointed out this is clearly a scam.

And here’s the staggering thing:

​​All of these ads had been running for several weeks. It got so bad that the Croatian celebrity gave a newspaper interview to explain he has nothing to do with this Bitcoin scam. Nonetheless, the ad continues to run, in various iterations, right there on Facebook.
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I think this is a sign of things to come.

Over the past couple of years, Facebook has made a show at regulating ads. And it will probably continue to censor ads that push certain hot buttons or that target certain markets.

​​But the moment has passed. Nobody expects any integrity or accountability from Facebook any more. And at the same time, scammers as well as more legitimate businesses figured out how to run edgy FB ads, or downright duplicitous FB ads.

As this year wraps up and we enter the glorious 2020’s decade, I expect this will continue and intensify. And if I’m right, this means we’re all in for a wild show.

A creative way to justify a continuity product

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I wanna quickly dissect an email I got today from one Chris Masterjohn, PhD. Two reasons why:

1. It describes a creative offer that’s interesting if you’re into marketing

2. It offers a lesson in halfway-there copywriting

First, a tiny spec of background. Over the past 10 years, I’ve spent a lot of time reading alternative medicine sites, both for work and for my own own hypochondriac reasons. I’ve become jaded and skeptical because most of them are junk, and because most of the “doctors” who promote them aren’t doctors at all, but chiropractors, podiatrists, or at best, English literature PhD’s.

But not Chris Masterjohn, PhD.

Chris is not a medical doctor but he has a legit doctorate — in Nutritional Sciences, from the University of Connecticut — and that’s relevant because he mostly talks about the latest science behind nutrition and healthy living. And these days, he’s one of the few people I read and trust when it comes to matters of, which vitamin, which diet, etc.

So Chris Masterjohn, PhD sent out an email today to his list, and he announced an interesting offer:

If you’re part of his $15/month continuity program (monthly Zoom call + other stuff), and you buy any of the products that Chris endorses (supplements, mail-order beef, blue-blocking sunglasses), he will, via PayPal, refund you the affiliate commission he gets.

In other words, his continuity program acts like a discount club for the health-obsessed. If you’re already buying dung heaps of pills and powders and sleep optimization gadgets, you can now get between 5%-50% off their regular price, assuming you buy the ones that Chris recommends (and why wouldn’t you, since he’s smart and he digs through the research for you).

I thought this was a great idea. People love discount clubs to begin with. For the right kind of person, this can easily pay for the monthly subscription fee, even several times over. And even for the non-right type of person, it might be a sufficient reason to justify joining Chris’s continuity program.

In fact, I think that with a bit of massage, this discount club idea could be positioned as a standalone product. That might be something for you to think about, in case you’re looking for a continuity program to add on to your existing business.

But there was a second thing in Chris Masterjohn, PhD’s email, and that’s a copywriting lesson. But my one-track mind can’t handle that different direction today. So let’s talk about it tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you wanna save money on your Wild Salmon Subscription Boxes or your $600 chiliPAD, here’s where you can find Chris and his health-conscious Costo club:

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/

Jumpcut and the future of video sales letters

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A few weeks back, top-shelf copywriter Dan Ferrari sent out an email with 35 direct response lessons he’s learned in his 35 years on the planet. At no. 29, there was the following:

29) The best copywriters are able to work in really high-production formats. You’re now a creative director. Get used to it.

Honestly, I didn’t really know what the hell Dan was talking about here. But fortunately, I listened to a podcast a few days later, with another copywriter, and it all became clear.

The second copywriter is named Brandon Shrair. Brandon is all of 23 years old. In spite of that, he has a nice, deep, resonant voice and more importantly, he also has high-level marketing experience as the Director of Marketing at Jumpcut.

Never heard of Jumpcut?

They are an online training portal, started by the guys who ran the popular Simple Pickup YouTube channel. They sell $1k+ courses that teach people how to become successful YouTubers.

Anyways, the interesting bit is the kind of marketing that Jumpcut is doing. That’s what Brandon is responsible for, and that’s what he talked about on the podcast that I listened to.

Jumpcut is using long-form video sales letters to sell their courses. This, in spite of the fact they are targeting 20-something-year olds, who grew up on the Internet, who are supposed to have the attention span of a horny goldfish, and who are immediately allergic to anything that has a faint whiff of salesy stank.

So how does Jumpcut do it?

How do they sell 8 figures’ worth of information products to broke millennials who don’t wanna watch ads, much less a 45-minute VSL?

Well, they use the fundamentals of copywriting and direct response marketing. And they wed this to high-production formats, just like Dan Ferrari wrote above. Here’s what I mean.

If you listen to a Jumpcut VSL, it will sound much like any other bizopp promotion. “I was broke… I was doubting myself… then by accident, I discovered a powerful secret that I’ll tell you about in a moment… and good God, look at me now… so much freedom it’s practically pouring out of my pants.”

But here’s the thing. If you watch that same Jumpcut VSL, it won’t look anything like your run-of-the-mill bizopp offer.

There are actual people talking on screen, and not just a series of typed-out sentences. It’s professionally edited, with multiple camera angles. Most importantly, it’s shot on location, such as a fancy villa or a yacht, giving credibility and color to the big claims in the VSL script.

So is this the future of video sales letters? I think so, at least if you want to work with big brands or with businesses that have the potential to make lots of money.

Of course, Jumpcut isn’t the only company that’s already using this style. But they are a good example of it. And if you want to see what the direct marketing of the future looks like, you can get it delivered to your inbox by signing up below:

https://jumpcut.com/viral-academy

The “daily email marketing” starter pack

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There’s a popular subreddit called starterpacks where people post made-up starter packs like…

“Every cheap Italian restaurant” starter pack
“1960s American scientist in a film” starter pack
“The “every Chevy commercial” starter pack

So here’s one for daily sales/marketing emails. Some of the following starter pack items are genuinely stupid practices, others are just overused. In any case, I’m guilty of having exploited all of them at some point. So I’m not pointing fingers. I’m just putting this starter pack together for your use and abuse.

The first daily email starter pack item is perhaps the most obvious. In fact, a friend who reads these emails called me out on it just a couple of weeks ago. So let me show you:

Daily email starter pack element #1. VSL formatting

You know what I’m talking about…

Or maybe you don’t…

But in any case…

The point is…

That a line in an email…

Can’t hold…

More than a sentence fragment.

Even a short sentence…

Is apparently too much.

Daily email starter pack element #2. Outlook 1997 styling

A daily email has to look just like a friend sent it to you, right?

Right. And that friend is writing to you from a murky past, back when email couldn’t contain html, certainly no embedded images, or any colors or markup. But even though you’re hearing from a close friend, he still feels the need to include a…

Daily email starter pack element #3. Mandatory signature

There is a girl I know who got her name tattooed on the back of her shoulder. I guess to help out one-night stands in case they forget her name. There must be some similar reasoning for people who sign each email they send out, day after day. And if signing your first name and last name isn’t enough, then you can always spice it up with…

Daily email starter pack element #4. Your made-up nickname in quotes

I first saw Andre “Whatever happened to ya?” Chaperon writing his name with a nickname jammed halfway in between. It’s a cool trick. Made less cool each time somebody copies it.

Daily email starter pack element #5. Stupid deliverability tricks

Now that I’ve got your attention, here are three things I want you to do right now:

1. Add me to your contacts
2. Drag this email out of the spam folder and into your inbox
3. Hit reply so I know you’re getting my messages. No need to write anything, because I won’t read it anyhow.

Daily email starter pack element #6. Telling it like it is

Look, unlike all the other bozos out there writing daily emails, I’ll be straight with ya. I’ve seen other people do it, and I like how tough it sounds. So even if I really have nothing to say, you can count on me to dispel myths. As soon as I actually spot one.

And there you have it. I got more of these, but these are the most widespread ones. If you want more, just hit reply. But don’t write anything.

And I’ll be right back…

In your inbox…

Same time, tomorrow.

And in just in case you forgot…

My name is…

John “Starter pack lover” Bejakovic

How is your vagal tone?

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“Well I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?”
– Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

Gary Halbert once wrote that if you’re in the marketing business, you always have to do two things:

1) Keep the fundamentals in mind
2) Keep an eye out for what’s working right now

Well, right now, one specific health offer seems to be working like crazy. I’m assuming this because I’ve gotten dozens of emails promoting this offer over the past two months.

Many of these emails came from various Agora health brands (the offer in question also seems to come from an Agora brand). Others came from 3rd party newsletters that I suppose are affiliates. And I’ve even seen email drops in Newsmax promoting this offer.

I’m listening to the VSL right now, and two things stick out as possible reasons why this offer is doing so well at the moment.

First, it has a unique “problem mechanism” (that’s a term that I first heard from top-flight copywriter Stefan Georgi). In this case, the problem mechanism is “low vagal tone,” which as the VSL will tell you, will do everything from shriveling your nuts to corroding your cells and even burning out your brain. Do you have a health problem right now? Maybe it’s time to get your vagal tone checked.

But how do you check your vagal tone? Well, the VSL has an answer for you. It’s even got a solution in case you find that your vagal tone is low.

And that’s the second possible reason why this VSL seems to be killing it right now. The “solution mechanism” (your run of the mill, Gene Schwartz mechanism) is not a pill, not a supplement, and not even a newsletter. instead, it’s a special sound, or as the VSL says, a “healing frequency discovered between 85-255 Hz.”

Maybe that’s the secret chord that David played to increase the vagal tone. Anyways, if you’re in the marketing business, and you’d like to see this offer that’s working so well right now, here’s the link:

https://pro.donovanhealth.com/p/OV6SSSPKG1I/EOV6VB48/

Dainty copy killer

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“Good afternoon?” the man asked me with a faint smile.

The normally busy cafe was empty except for one table. As soon as I walked in, the people around this one table stopped talking to each other and turned to face me.

There were five women and the one man with the smile. He seemed to be in charge. He repeated his greeting, which was really a question.

“Good afternoon?”

I looked around. There were plates of food laid out. No music was playing. The lights were dim.

“Is there a private event going on?” I asked. He nodded.

So I excused myself and stepped out of the cafe back into the rain. And then, on the door, I saw a dainty sign on a piece of A5 paper:

“Cafe Lav is closed to the public until 9pm today.”

A nice, clear message. But who has time to read all the notices, warnings, announcements, and advertisements out there?

Nobody.

And maybe that can be a lesson to all the copywriters out there. You might spend days and weeks and even months crafting your message perfectly. But if it doesn’t catch your prospect’s eye, he won’t read it, regardless of how good your copy is.

So how do you catch somebody’s eye graphically? I’m hardly an expert on direct response design, but here are some tips I’ve picked up along the way:

1. Don’t put crucial information in the pre-headline (aka “eyebrow”) because people will read that part of the headline complex last, if they read it at all

2. Don’t use reverse type (white letters on black background) unless you want to hide the message (“This is a paid advertisement”)

3. Don’t use highlights other than yellow

4. Use arrows, circles, and “handwritten” notes to draw attention to important elements

5. Use photos of faces looking at the viewer to draw attention

6. Use photos of faces looking in the direction of an important element you want to draw attention to (eg. an offer or headline)

7. Don’t be afraid to make your headline enormous even at the expense of cutting down body copy

Maybe this last one would have helped at Cafe Lav today. Or maybe they should have just locked the door.

Anyways, if you have other direct response tips, please send them my way. After a long layoff, I’m getting back in the groove of working on my own offers, and that means I act as designer as well as copywriter.