Direct Marketing

The content is in the list

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For the past week or so, I’ve been stuck writing about aromatherapy diffusers. This is for a book on essential oils I’m about to put out. (Diffusers are the little gadgets that you can use to disperse aromatic essential oils.)

Basically, I needed to write a review article. But I didn’t feel like summarizing thousands of online reviews for hundreds of separate diffusers. To make things worse, many of those reviews are either biased, paid for, or very incomplete. That’s not good enough — I only wanted to make top-notch recommendations to the people who will be reading my book.

So what to do? Well, I didn’t have a good plan, so I kept going back and forth. And back. And forth.

Fortunately, an idea hit me. I decided to write an email to my aromatherapy list, and ask for their experiences. I explained exactly what I was doing — putting together a list of diffusers that work well in practice, rather than just on paper. I explained the trouble with online reviews, and asked for personal feedback.

And to sweeten a deal, I offered a bribe. I’ve asked questions of my list before and the response hasn’t been overwhelming. So I took a page out of Ben Settle’s book, and offered something in exchange for getting people to take action (specifically, I promised them a free copy of my upcoming ebook once it’s finished).

The response has been great. I got lots of interesting feedback, including stuff I would never have found otherwise. Writing the section on diffusers suddenly became easy. I’ll also be able to use the same content (tweaked a bit) for an upcoming email, as well as for an article on my site.

And there have been some unexpected benefits as well.  I got more engagement from my list. I got some in-depth information, which makes it easier to imagine the people who read my emails as real persons instead of just email addresses. Plus I got more people interested in my book than I would have otherwise.

So to sum up:

The content is in the list. Whenever you are stuck for how to proceed with writing a piece of content, canvass your list. Ask for opinions on a specific question, or even better, ask for personal experiences on a specific topic. And give people something valuable in exchange for responding.

A subject line that’s good enough for Groucho Marx

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“Mrs. Briggs… I’ve known your husband for many years, and what’s good enough for him is good enough for me.”

I’ve recently written several autoresponder sequences that culminate with a discount for the product on sale. However, it’s no good to just announce this in the subject line by saying “15% off coupon inside”.

Why not?

Because it’s boring.

Because everybody does it that way.

Because it only focuses on the hyper-buyers, and drives away everyone else.

Because with a little bit of work, it’s possible to get the same message across, while creating curiosity, building a relationship, and thereby actually increasing response.

So how do you do it? Here are a few ideas:

#1 Tease. Announce that you’ve got an incredible offer in the subject line, without saying explicitly what it is. Then carry this on throughout the email as long as possible without pissing the reader off. Example: “A free fermenting offer you probably can’t refuse”.

#2 Testimonial connection. Include a testimonial in the body of the email and find an entertaining way to tie into this in the subject line. Example: “A discount that will disappear like a late-night snack”.

#3 Pop culture reference. Find a movie, TV show, celebrity, PS4 game, whatever — and in some way tie it in to the offer (or don’t tie it in — it’s more important that it’s entertaining than that it ties in perfectly). Preferably, choose a bit of pop culture that won’t seem dated six months from now. Example: “A discount that’s good enough for Groucho Marx”.

How to sell investment newsletters using razor-and-blades

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In one form or another, you’ve probably heard of the Gillette principle:

Give ’em the razor, sell ’em the blades”

This idea is also called the razor-and-blades strategy, and it’s often attributed to King Gillette, the guy who invented Gillette razors.

Only the story doesn’t really appear to be true. Gillette originally priced his razors at $5, a princely sum — a third of a workman’s weekly wages at the time, and roughly equivalent to about $150 in today’s money.

It was only after the patents on Gillette’s safety razors expired, and the competition swooped in offering cheap imitations, that Gillette the adopted its now-famous model.

But where is he gonna get the blades???

However it originated, the razor-and-blades model was a good idea. It increased Gillette’s profits back then, and it’s been a mainstay of a bunch of other industries — printers-and-toners, consoles-and-games, Kindles-and-ebooks.

And that’s not all. In a slightly different form, razor-and-blades is also a part of the information publishing world.

For example, when companies like Agora are selling their financial advisory newsletters, they don’t focus their marketing on the newsletter itself. Instead, they focus it on a sexy bonus — which is given away for free — when you subscribe to the newsletter. Typically, even if you unsubscribe from the newsletter, you get to keep the bonus.

As an example, look at the End of America. This was a massive promotion for Stansberry Research, an Agora subsidiary. After spending an hour convincing you how American society is about to collapse because the dollar will soon be devalued, this promotion offered several related bonuses.

The End of America promotion keeps changing to adapt the bonuses to current needs and fears. The version I saw offered ones like “The Four Investment Assets You Do Not Have To Report To The U.S. Government” and “The Gold Investor’s Bible”. You got these intriguing titles free, once you subscribed to Porter Stansberry’s investment newsletter.

I thought of this today because I’m working on a sales letter for a crypto investing membership program. The essence of this membership program is tried-and-true wisdom about investing, culled from books written by the likes of Warren Buffet, along with a review of the current state of the crypto market. Good stuff, but not too stirring.

So I recommended a razors-and-blades model to the guy behind the course. In his case, I think something along the lines of “Top 3 Crypto Investment Opportunities For Q4 of 2018” could work well.

This doesn’t have to involve a lot of work. For example, for this membership program, the current market reviews this guy does already have this “Top 3” information. It simply needs to be pulled out, labeled with a sexy title, and given away to anyone who’s interested in trying the membership course.

Interesting guarantees, part 1

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“You’re going to like reading this post. I guarantee it.”

Guarantees are a penny-a-dozen throughout marketingworld. And even double-your-money-back guarantees aren’t so unusual. Typically though, they are reserved to fairly small offers.

Today however, I came across a version of a double-your-money-back guarantee that’s pretty enormous. I heard about it on a conference call put on by Justin Goff and Ian Stanley. Both of these guys are very successful marketers and copywriters, and they were on the call sharing their experience and answering questions about marketing.

At the end of the call, Justin made a pitch for his Beat Your Control Seminar. This is a $25k affair where he will share his 18 “control beaters” and work with businesses to improve on their marketing funnels.

And that’s where the massive guarantee comes in. Justin’s promise is that he will beat these companies’ controls within 48 hours, and make them an extra $100,000 to $5 million this year. If he doesn’t, he will write them a check for double the money they spent to attend — a $50,000 guarantee.

Now I’m not sure whether Justin is really so experienced that he can beat every control out there. Or whether it’s a marketing strategy. Or whether he is simply ok losing that money with a few customers because he will recoup it with others, especially down the line.

Perhaps he’s simply counting on the quality of information that he’s sharing, and on his skills as a consultant, so that for anyone who attends his seminar, the promise and the guarantee will become irrelevant.

I remember reading something similar about Gary Bencivenga. When he joined an upstart marketing agency, they ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal that said they will run a test — either they beat your control or they will refund your ad spend costs. Apparently they got a ton of business from that ad, but nobody was interested in running the test — they just wanted to hire Gary’s agency outright.

A similar offer from 40 years ago.

Anyways, Justin’s guarantee was big and specific and impressive enough that I wanted to record it, in a similar way that I recorded an interesting offer last time. I’ll keep recording interesting guarantees and offers going forward. Which brings to mind something else Gary Bencivenga wrote:

So, Top Gun, what “red shirt” should you be looking for in your marketing campaign? What do you think is the one thing that could most easily double your response? A breakthrough headline? Hot new premium? A lapel-seizing lead for your letter?

Decide what it is, then start looking for it today. And don’t close your eyes until you find it.

Creative offers, exhibit 1

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I was talking to a friend yesterday and explaining how I’ve been doing well with sales copywriting.

“So what’s the trick to success?” he asked.

“Honestly, I said, “it’s to work with a client who’s got a great offer that people love. Even mediocre marketing will sell a great product easy, while brilliant marketing won’t sell a bad offer.”

I guess I must have internalized that from Gary Halbert, who put it this way:

Know this: Strong copy will not overcome a weak offer but…

In Many Cases, A Strong Offer Will
Succeed In Spite Of Weak Copy Written
By Marketing Morons!

In this vein, I decided to start collecting creative and interesting and effective offers that I come across.

The first of these is from Matt Stone AKA Buck Flogging. Starting with his 180 Degree Health blog, Matt has had a a bunch of successful online businesses over the past decade.

(I’ve been on Matt’s various email lists for a while, and aside from Ben Settle, I think he has some of the best emails, even though he only emails when he wants to pitch something. Unlike Ben, though, Matt isn’t a copywriter by trade. He simply honed his skill by tireless writing of books and blog posts and emails and managing the herds of people who interact with him daily.)

A couple of years ago, Matt made a course where he shared his approach to starting an online business and having it make money. Interesting — due to Matt’s history of success online — but pretty standard so far.

Here’s the creative bit about this offer comes in. Matt made the price of his course flexible. How flexible? It was one day’s wage, whatever that may be for you.

The list price was $300. But right in the email where he was announcing the course, Matt sent a bunch of coupon codes for discounts from 10% off to 90% off. He even had a “BANGLADESH” coupon code, which I presume reduced the cost down to a dollar or so.

Could this possibly work? I remember getting this email and being almost instinctively carried away to buy the course on the spot. I didn’t, because I figured I simply wouldn’t use it at that time.

However, I did buy the next year’s version, in part because I remembered this email from a year earlier. And during that version of the course, Matt shared that this particular offer, and this particular email, were one of the most successful he ever ran. So I’m filing it into my drawer of creative (and successful) offers as example no. 1.

Stuck on the emotional rollercoaster with nowhere to go

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On May 28 of this year, many visitors to the Cedar Point amusement park, “The Rollercoaster Capital of the World,” got a special thrill.

They boarded the Millennium Force “giga coaster” — the biggest rollercoaster in the world at the time of its debut in 2000 — expecting a fast and gut-wrenching ride. Full of expectation, they started climbing the initial 300-foot ascent, and were preparing themselves to rush down the other side at 93 miles an hour.

Instead, what they got was a long wait. Halfway up the climb, the power went out. A car somewhere hit a utility pole, knocking out one third of the rides at Cedar Point. The folks on the Millennium Force sat up there in the air for two hours, cooking in the 90-degree heat.

Now a few days ago, I made a case against indoctrination emails, meaning emails that aim to build good will without trying to sell anything. My argument in that post was that people don’t read all your emails, so when they do actually read your emails, it makes financial sense to give them a chance to buy from you.

Today, I have a second argument against indoctrination emails (and other emails that don’t sell). This second argument has to do with the situation of being stuck on a rollercoaster, ready to scream and laugh — but not actually going anywhere.

“WOOHOOO!!! A way to resolve emotional tension!!!”

The rollercoaster I’m talking about is an emotional rollercoaster. In my experience, the best emails stir emotion. This emotion can be curiosity, frustration, anger, disgust, fear, greed, outrage, inspired benevolence, whatever.

Why emotion in emails? If you want people to open your emails day after day and to read them, you have to give them an emotional jolt, and do so frequently. I don’t have a much better way of explaining it than saying it’s simply what people want. I guess emotion gives color to an otherwise drab day.

(Interesting and useful information is great once or twice. But without a little emotional color mixed in, useful information quickly becomes a burden rather than a gift.)

Of course, emotion also makes sense from a different perspective. That’s because when people get emotional about something, it’s much easier to get them to take action. Meaning it’s much easier to get them to buy.

And here’s the thing. Getting people to buy when they are emotional isn’t just good for you. It’s good for them. The act of buying resolves the tension that the emotion stirred up. And it replaces it with a sense of purpose, hope, and resolution.

If you don’t believe me, think about the feeling you yourself had the last time you made a sizeable purchase online. I know I’m usually relieved that the indecision of shopping has been resolved, and I’m optimistic about what my new purchase will alow me to do.

So emotion + selling = good. But emotion without selling is like being stuck high up on a rollercoaster, not moving and not being able to finish the ride. At first it might just be puzzling, after that it becomes annoying.

What’s the alternative? Well, one option is to send out bland and boring emails that don’t stir anybody up. A better option, in my opinion, is to get people a little emotional, and to then give them a chance to buy a product or service that allows them to complete their rollercoaster ride.

My checklist for email copywriting

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In 1935, Boeing demonstrated its new plane, nicknamed the Flying Fortress, to military observers.

The demonstration was a mere formality, because the plane, a four-engine behemoth, exceeded the army’s requirements in every way.

Except for one problem. During the demonstration, the plane took off, climbed steeply, stalled, and crashed, killing the two pilots inside.

An examination determined that nothing mechanical had gone wrong. The crash was due to pilot error. It seemed that the Flying Fortress was simply too much plane for one man to fly. Nonetheless, the air corps purchased a few Flying Fortresses and tried to figure out what to do.

Their solution was very low-tech. Instead of changing anything about the plane, or insisting on more training for the pilots, they simply came up with checklists to handle the complex procedures for each operation: takeoff, landing, cruising, bombing…

Thanks in part to these checklists, the Flying Fortress eventually wound up playing a key role in World War II, and became the third most produced bomber of all time.

I thought of this story today, because I came up with my first checklist for email copywriting.

Even though I’ve written hundreds of sales emails by now, I haven’t systematized the process, and sometimes, I find myself crashing and burning for no good reason. Today, I became aware of how the process goes when it goes well, and I want to write it down to make sure I don’t ever forget it ever again.

So here it is, along with an example (one of the emails I was working on today, for a home fermenting kit):

STEP 1. Get an idea for an angle or topic

I normally do a lot of research for the emails I write. This includes going through the sales letter, testimonials, transcripts I did with people from the company, examining the product itself, digging around on forums online, etc. As I do this, I write down possible topics and angles for emails.

For this particular project, I also went through a few hundred customer surveys. A lot of customers mentioned that they were interested in fermenting because they wanted to lose weight.

My first idea was simply to try to connect fermented foods to weight loss. While I had a good testimonial on this topic, the science seemed fairly vague and tenuous (more on this in step 2 below). However, a related and relevant topic — antibiotics and weight gain — seemed very solid, so I decided to go with that.

STEP 2. Search around for more details

If I know a lot about a topic, or I have a personal story I can share, I can skip this step.

However, I can’t simply riff about antibiotics and weight gain. It’s not a topic I know enough about, so I needed to do more research. In particular, I wanted to find some kind of supporting scientific study that actually made the connection. And ideally, I also wanted to find a story to kick off the entire email.

I have a few go-to places for both kinds of resource. For scientific research, ScienceDaily seems to have reliable summaries of recent research. For stories, articles that appear in The Atlantic and The New Yorker tend to be good sources. Beyond this, a bit of googling will usually solve all research problems.

For this particular email, I found a study from Johns Hopkins University that effectively said, “the more antibiotics, the more weight gain.” The story I found was about a woman who went to the doctor to get rid of her hormonal acne, but wound up with an extra 14 pounds, thanks to the antibiotics he prescribed her.

STEP 3. Write up different subject lines

Keeping In mind the topic I want to cover, and the details of the research I want to include, I start to write a bunch of different subject lines.

At this point, I have a fairly large stack of index cards with good headlines that I can use as templates or inspiration. These aren’t “classic” direct response headlines (eg. “They laughed when I sat down at the piano”).

Instead, they are the titles of articles I’ve found myself clicking on over the past sevreal years (eg. “De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds”). Most of these are general-interest articles that originally appeared on the front page of Hacker News, so they are vetted for being curiosity-inducing.

I force myself to write down 10-15 of these subject lines, even if I think they sound stupid. Then I just pick the one that I think sounds the best, ties into the content I want to share, and ideally, gives me a bit of edge I can use in the email (I can’t describe this any better right now).

For this particular email, the subject line I ended up with was “Antibiotics are shockingly good at causing weight gain”.

STEP 4. Write the body of the email

At this point, all that’s left to do is to tie the pieces together. That means starting off with the story, developing this a bit (in the example I’ve been using, that means talking about the supporting science study), and then tying this in with the product I’m promoting.

I won’t include the entire completed email here. But it looks something like this:

Smooth sailing thanks to a checklist

The “Rule of One” applied to email copywriting

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In the 2006 version of Casino Royale, there’s a classic James Bond pickup scene.

Bond is talking to the beautiful wife of one of the bad guys. After a bit of flirty banter, Bond looks her straight in the eye and says, “What about a drink at my place?”

He stares at her. She stares at him. The tension builds.

“Your place,” she says breathlessly, “is it close?”

“Very,” says Bond.

Now imagine if Bond couldn’t play so cool. Instead of throwing out that one proposal, imagine if he threw out three:

“What about a drink at my place? Or maybe some nachos? How about breakfast tomorrow in case you’re busy now?”

Even with his ice-cold stare, odds are he wouldn’t get the same response.

“Bond. James Bond. You can call me Jim. Or James. Whichever is easier.”

A while ago, I was reading “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. This is the best book I’ve come across  on how to present ideas clearly and in a way that people will remember. One of the things the Heaths say is, “Say one thing. If you say three things, you end up saying nothing at all.”

Michael Masterson and John Forde’s “Great Leads” emphasizes the same concept, which they call “The Rule of One – One Big Idea.”

In fact, the book opens up with the story of two speeches that were given by two Agora copywriters. One speech focused on one idea, the importance of clarity in writing. The other was something like “12 rules I follow when writing copy.”

The audience thought both speeches were terrific. But at the end of the night, people were only talking about the single idea in the first speech.

I’ve recently been working on some emails for a cool product. The product helps people make their own fermented food. And the emails I’m writing are specifically for people who’ve stated that they want to ferment for health reasons.

I’ve been going around in circles writing these emails. I need to get across a few ideas. One is that fermented foods are important for your health. The second is that fermenting can be a hassle. A third is that store-bought fermented foods aren’t a great choice compared to fermenting food yourself.

The problem is I’ve been trying to do this in the same email. This breaks the “Rule of One.” No wonder I’ve been re-reading the emails and thinking they are somehow weak and unconvincing.

The fix is simple. Pick one idea. Develop it in detail. Present it clearly. And then do the same for the other ideas, but in separate emails.

Bejakovic’s hierarchy of email marketing

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What’s the most important thing in email marketing? Ben Settle, in my opinion the top guy teaching this topic, has said that the number one thing he strives to do with email is to build a relationship.

It made sense to me when I first read it. But it seemed to click in my mind in a different way today, when I got an email from somebody in Ben’s sphere of influence.

The email had a Ben-style curiosity-drenched subject line. And yet, I purposefully chose not to open the email, because I know from previous experience that I don’t care too much for what that sender has to say.

That made me think a bit (specifically about the difference between levels 4 and 5 below). And the conclusion is the following hierarchy of email marketing.

The levels are ranked from least sophisticated to most sophisticated. For each level, I’m including a few examples of subject lines that represent that level, which I managed to dig up in my own inbox.

Level 1: Pointless

These tend to be emails from corporations and big organizations that have heard email marketing is important. However, since these organizations have no idea of what to put in their emails, they usually blast out pointless newsletters that are focused on random aspects of their own corporate existance (best case) or nothing at all (worst case). This is the lowest form of email marketing.

Example subject lines:

“New Bestcare website”
“#MakeBaobabFamous”
“What’s new in MailChimp?”

Level 2: Sale

The next level up is when the sender makes an offer. The offer can be a sale, a coupon, or a new product announcement. This works — if your readers are ready to buy and they just need to be nudged with the right kind of carrot. Unfortunately, many companies doing email marketing (especially in ecommerce) only ever send out these kinds of email.

Example subject lines:

“Your favorite mist, on us”
“Save 25% Now + Win a Trip to Maui”
“Get 33% OFF Absolutely EVERYTHING + FREE Shaker”

Level 3: Benefit

Now we’re getting into copywriting territory. “Sell the sizzle, not the steak!” This is where much of the Internet Marketing world lives. This category of emails is all about announcing (and frequently screaming) benefits — though I would also include transparent fear-mongering or urgency-based emails here.

Example subject lines:

“Higher T in 14 days”
“Boost your ranking with these SEO hacks”
“Closing: On-Demand Video Views = Sales”

Level 4: Curiosity

This is still a higher level of email copywriting, which is trying to persuade more skeptical, more sophisticated readers. At first blush, there can be overlap with emails in level 3, but these curiosity emails tend to be less direct and more broadly interesting than the benefit emails. Email courses (think Andre Chaperon) also go in this category.

Example subject lines:

“Do NOT do keto if…”
“The shocking truth about exercise”
“Why drug expiration dates don’t matter”

Level 5: Relationship

Finally, there is the highest level, relationship email marketing. That’s when readers open up your email and read it simply because they’ve grown to like and trust you over time.

This is the only kind of email marketing where you’re not living “email to email” — in other words, you can get away sending all sorts of random and personal stuff, even in the subject line, and people will still read on. In some way, this is coming full circle to the “Pointless” level — except that people actually want to hear what your opinions are and what’s new with you, because you’ve built that relationship.

Example subject lines:

“Bensplaining the importance of daily emails”
“BUSTED!”
“My new project”

“One weird trick for reaching the top of the ziggurat”

Now, there’s an important distinction between levels 1-4 and level 5.

Levels 1-4 are under your control. It’s simply a matter of what you put in the email.

However, you can’t force people to have a relationship with you. All you can really do is write good emails that will hopefully resonate with some of the people on your list.

Technical note: Being at the Relationship level doesn’t mean you only send out personal updates or rants. Quite the opposite. You can and should still frequently mix and match content from the different levels — even within one email. That’s how you get to — and stay at — the top.

The case against steak upsells

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“Hell yeah we’ll take five more steaks if you cut the price”

Imagine going into a restaurant. You’re hungry and you’re raring for a steak. So you look over the menu, find your steak, wince a bit at the price, but decide to get it.

“I’ll have the 12-ounce steak,” you say to the waiter. He writes this down patiently in his notebook and then says,

“Would you like 18 more ounces of our fine steak at 50% off? You can always take it home with you if you don’t finish.”

Because you’re hungry and it’s a tempting deal, you order the extra slab of meat at a discount. But of course, when it arrives, you can’t finish it. You take it home, where it becomes more of a responsibility than a joy, sitting there cold and hard in your fridge. A few days later you toss it out.

Next time, you stay away from that restaurant. Somehow, you have a bad feeling. You spent too much money. You were emasculated by not finishing the steak. And you don’t need the temptation a second time.

I’ve recently heard a couple of contrasting positions on upsells. Just yesterday, I listened to an interview with successful copywriter and marketer Justin Goff. He talked about how the best upsells are often more of the same.

“Buying one bottle of supplements? How about 3 more at a discount?”

At the same time, Justin talked about the incessant need most direct response businesses have for new customers. According to Justin, new customers are the ones who buy the product, and even the ones who take up affiliate offers. That’s position one.

Then there’s Sean D’Souza. Along with a copy of his Dartboard Pricing book, I got a copy of a talk Sean did for the Ken McCarthy’s System Club. This talk is on the topic of consumption. And one of the things Sean says explicitly is that you don’t want to overwhelm your customers with product, even if they are willing to buy it.

Sean also talks about treating customers the way you would treat your kids — that is, looking out for them and charting a path for them down the line.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Sean’s business seems to rely on a much smaller number of customers, who happily keep coming back year after year and forking over thousands of dollars for Sean’s courses and trainings. It’s what Sean calls a focus on consumption over conversion. That’s position two.

So what’s the conclusion? I guess it depends on what kind of business you’re looking to run. If you want to scale quickly and max out revenue, then aggressive “steak” upsells make sense. If you want to have a long-term business, another strategy might be better.

For example, even in Sean’s way of running a business, the right kinds of upsells can have a place.

Imagine if in that restaurant, the waiter did something different. Imagine if instead of upselling you on more steak, he recommended a special beer on tap, and his favorite salad off the menu. This would still be an upsell, though it wouldn’t make as much money as selling more steak.

Your consumption experience would be much better. You’d be more likely to return. And the restaurant wouldn’t have to constantly worry about digging up new customers.