Direct Marketing

Climbing the customer palm tree to pick one coconut

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I recently heard from an ongoing client in the ecommerce space.

He has a couple of different brands selling niche physical products (I won’t say exactly what because that’s part of his success).

Anyways, the branded physical products seem to offer steady but limited profits.

And so he is looking to launch a few “one-off” products. These are popular, trendy things, the likes you can see on FB or Amazon all the time (think wifi repeater). He wants to launch one of these campaigns each week, in hope of scoring some quick wins to pad out the income from ongoing branded product sales.

Which is ok for me, because it means I get ongoing work writing copy for all these products, as well as feedback on what’s working and what’s not.

At the same time, I feel it’s a bit like climbing a tall palm tree to gather some coconuts, one at a time.

Getting up to the top of a palm tree is rough, scary, and dangerous work.

And so imagine you somehow climb all the way up to the top, where there are about a dozen ripe coconuts.

You roll one back and forth in your hand until it comes loose…

You let it fall to the ground…

And then you start your own scary and dangerous descent, ignoring all the other coconuts in the canopy, to repeat the same thing over at the next coconut palm.

You can see where I’m going with this.

Getting a customer to buy something from you is rough, dangerous, and expensive work.

So once you’ve climbed that palm tree, it doesn’t make sense NOT to pick all the coconuts that are up there.

In part, my client is already doing this, by offering day-zero upsells.

But there’s more he could do.

Specifically, he could keep trying to sell other things to these same customers, days or weeks after that first sale.

That might seem blindingly obvious to you. But what’s really obvious is that some otherwise smart and successful businesses — like my client’s — aren’t actually doing it.

Perhaps the reason is that they really don’t know how.

Or they simply don’t have the resources to do it.

That’s why I’m making my client a risk-free offer — either he will get some “free” sales or he won’t. But either way, there’s no cost to him.

And I’ll make the same offer to you right now. If you’ve got a customer list that’s sitting idle after the initial sale, get in touch with me and we can talk about how you can get some “free” profits out of your customer list — with zero cost to you.

6 sneaky ways to use reciprocity in marketing, part 2

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… continuing on from yesterday, here are 3 more ways to “give with the one hand while holding the other hand ready”:

#4 Take ’em out to a banquet

Claude Hopkins was at it again, selling Cotosuet, the fake butter. This time, he showed up at a client’s doorstep and said, “I’d like to take you to a banquet tonight.” The client pointed to his dusty work clothes and said he wasn’t dressed for a banquet. “No matter, I’m also going in my plain clothes,” Hopkins told him, and whisked the man away to the banquet.

The client had a great time. “Please don’t come to my office on Monday, he begged Hopkins when it was done. “I can’t refuse you anything after tonight and I’m loaded with your product already.”

But come Monday, there was Hopkins again — not to talk about Cotosuet, but about how he could help the client with his regional advertising. Which, incidentally, included buying more wagonloads of Cotosuet.

#5 Take a bet on ’em

I have one more Claude Hopkins story, and if you’re wondering why I keep going back to that guy, it’s because he worked so hard and did so much. In his career, he profitably advertised chicken incubators, automobiles, cough medicines, felt boots, beer, tires, soap, oatmeal, toothpaste, “germicides” (for people, not plants), plus probably a hundred other products.

And each time old Claude had to advertise something, his go-to method would be to offer a free sample — preferably a cut-out newspaper coupon, which could be redeemed for the full-price item at a local grocery store or pharmacy. In other words, the advertiser would actually pay retail to have prospects try the product.

Crazy? Likely to lead to ruin? Not if you think long term, says Claude:

“Try to hedge or protect yourself, and human nature like to circumvent you. But remove all restrictions and say, “We trust you” and human nature likes to justify that trust. All my experience in advertising has shown that in general people are honest.”

#6 Take an interest in ’em first

Zooming forward to 2019, here’s one I saw from email marketer Josh Earl. Josh has his own email list where he talks about marketing and copywriting. But at one point recently, he turned off his automated welcome email that people get first thing when they subscribe.

​​Instead, Josh goes in, does a bit of Internet sleuthing about the new subscriber based on the email address, and then writes a custom welcome email just to that new subscriber.

Costly? Yes. Not scalable? Yes. Likely to kick off the relationship on a much stronger note? Yes.

And there you go — 6 ways to use the principle of reciprocity in your marketing: give them your trust first. If you take a bit of time and put in a bit of thought, you should be able to apply at least one of these ways to make your current marketing more effective. And a couple of points to wrap it up:

In many of the stories above, the reciprocity happens before (and not instead) of the actual selling job. In other words, after you do something that elicits reciprocity, you don’t talk about your product or ask for the sale. Instead, you say, “I have this plan for how to help your business be more profitable…”

And finally: Don’t get needy. Yes, reciprocity by definition means you are taking the first step. That doesn’t mean you have to become needy — about being liked, about getting a response, about getting the sale, about getting a yes.

Instead, come up with your plan, carry it out, and move on with your life. If it works, great. if it doesn’t, that’s ok, because you now know you should make your great offer to other prospects instead.

And of course, if you want to know about other ways to make your business more profitable or to make more sales, then I have this plan that might help you. It involves writing emails to your prospects and clients along the following lines:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

6 sneaky ways to use reciprocity in marketing, part 1

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A few weeks back, I wrote about the essence of the con game:

“It’s called a confidence game not because the con man gains your confidence in order to cheat you. Instead, it’s because he gives you his confidence.”

Today, I want to share some stories of big-name marketers who have used this simple idea in sneaky and subtle ways:

#1 Ask ’em for advice

Claude Hopkins came to a bakery and asked to talk to the owner. Hopkins was selling Cotosuet, a kind of early margarine. The price of Cotosuet was higher than the competition. The baker knew this, and he was raring for a fight.

But Hopkins didn’t say anything about Cotosuet. Instead he took out a drawing of a pie, which his company was planning on using in advertising. He asked the baker for his opinion of the pie drawing.

As the baker started giving feedback, Hopkins kept putting his own drawing down. The baker went on to praise the drawing, and eventually got convinced this is the perfect drawing of a pie. He said how his business would prosper if only he had these pie cards as his advertisement. Hopkins offered to give him a bunch of cards with the pie drawing if he would only make an order of Cotosuet. Which the baker did.

#2 Ask ’em for a favor

Robert Collier was selling coats by mail. After a time, the usual appeals became exhausted. So Collier sent out out a new letter, along the following lines, which again pulled in heavy sales:

“Will you do me a favor? We have these new coat designs. We want to gauge demand for them. As one of our best customers, would you try it out and let me know what you think? I’ll send it to you right now for free if you just send me your size. And if you decide you want to keep the coat, you can have it at a special low price.”

#3 Make damaging admissions

Gary Halbert ran ads selling his book How to Make Maximum Money in Minimum Time. But he didn’t kick off the ad by talking about his sparkling Rolls Royce or his cliff-side Malibu mansion. Instead, he wrote:

“My name is Gary Halbert and, some time ago, I was dead broke. My business was almost bankrupt and I couldn’t even pay the rent. Actually, I wasn’t just broke, I was desperate. [He then had a money making idea, and…] I was living in Ohio at the time and my friends laughed at the idea. They thought it was a big joke. They said I was a dreamer and that I had no ‘common sense.’ In fact, one guy said I was just a nerd and that my idea was so silly, he felt sorry for me.”

This ad apparently did very well for Gary, and it launched an entire industry of “amazing secret” headlines.

I’ve got three more of these reciprocity examples, but this message is already as long as a bushy tail on an old fox.

So I’ll continue tomorrow, along with some conclusions and warnings if you do decide to use any of these ideas.

Hundreds of dollars of marketing and copywriting secrets for $21.36

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As I’ve mentioned recently, I’m traveling over the next few weeks. But I’ve got some big plans for when I get back home and get back to work.

I plan to apply lessons from a talk that Gene Schwartz made at Phillips Publishing to copy that I write for my clients. I plan to apply lessons from a Jay Abraham course to my copywriting business. I plan to apply lessons I’ve learned from a Perry Marshall lecture to a new affiliate project I will be kicking off.

These three resources — the Gene Schwartz talk, the Jay Abraham course, the Perry Marshall lecture — currently sell for hundreds of dollars.

That’s if you can find them at all.

And yet, if you dig them up, honestly consume them, and apply their lessons, I believe they will be a terrific investment that will over time make you much more than that what you’ve paid for them.

But here’s the thing. I didn’t pay hundreds of dollars for all these courses. I paid a total of $21.36.

That’s because all three of these reousces are among the 11 free bonuses for Brian Kurtz’s new book Overdeliver.

In case you don’t know Brian Kurtz, he was one of the main guys behind Boardroom (now called Bottom Line), one of the biggest direct marketing publisher of the last few decades. And he’s one of the best-connected and well-liked guys in direct marketing.

That’s one of the reasons why so many top marketers volunteered their valuable products — like the ones above — to serve as bonuses for Brian’s book.

(I also suspect it’s why Brian’s book gets over-the-top praise from many of the big names I’ve mentioned frequently in these emails, including Parris Lampropoulos, Ben Settle, Mark Ford, Joe Sugarman, Gary Bencivenga, Ken McCarthy, Kim Krause Schwalm, and the list goes on.)

Anyways, I’ve personally found Brian’s offer very valuable — even though I have only been going through the bonuses and haven’t even made it to the core book yet. In case you want to check it all out for yourself, and maybe even invest $21.36, here’s where to go:

https://overdeliverbook.com/

Persistence and proof from Australia’s guinea-pig doctor

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Back in the summer of 1984, an Australian doctor performed an unusual experiment.

He took bacteria from a petri dish, mixed them into a cup of beef broth, and chugged the nasty brew down.

Within a few days, he started vomiting in the mornings.

He started feeling sick and fatigued.

Not surprising. An endoscopy showed his stomach had become colonized by the bacteria. He had developed gastritis, and without treatment, he would soon also get stomach ulcers.

Maybe you’ve heard this story before.

It’s the true history of Barry Marshall, one of the scientists who discovered that H. pylori bacteria — and not stress — are the cause of stomach ulcers.

Marshall’s dramatic demonstration finally helped him sell his big discovery, and led to him eventually winning the Nobel prize.

But it wasn’t easy.

Before Marshall took the step of using himself as a guinea pig, he had already performed a lot of convincing reserach connecting H. pylori and ulcers.

He had done biopsies of ulcer patients that showed infections…

And he showed that antibiotics, which eradicated H. pylori, could permanently cure ulcers.

And yet, none of this convinced other doctors.

His papers kept getting rejected, and his ideas ignored. In the meantime, people who had ulcers were suffering, and often had to have surgery to remove their stomachs.

It was against this background that Marhsall decided to take the dramatic step of ingesting the bacterial broth himself.

And the point I want to make is that having the right solution — or a great product — is often not enough.

You need to test out different kinds of proof, and find something that convinces your audience. And even with the best proof, you might still face indifference or resistance for a while.

So is it worth persevering?

That’s a question only you can answer.

If you believe you have a great solution that can really help people, then the answer is probably yes.

And with a little luck — and some marketing help — you might achieve success and acceptance of your idea a little faster than Barry Marshall did.

I can’t help you with the luck part. But if you want some help with your marketing, then check out the following:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The Ultimate Funnel

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Back in 2005, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, looked like it might have to fold.

The mixed martial arts promotion had already had several big fights that did well on pay-per-view. And yet, financially, it was not successful enough as a business.

Fast forward to today.

Mixed martial arts has become a mainstream sport. UFC fights show on ESPN and sell millions of tickets on pay-per-view. And the company itself is worth multiple billions of dollars.

So what happened?

It’s a good question. And before I give you the answer, it’s worth thinking about what you yourself — as a marketer, or a business owner — might do in the situation that the UFC was in back in 2005.

Would you run ads on TV hyping up upcoming PPV fights?

Would you send direct mail to people who subscribe to martial arts magazines, telling them about the new sport and asking them to respond in some way?

Would you hire celebrities to come sit cageside?

In fact, none of these things were what the UFC did, or at least none were responsible for saving the UFC from ruin.

So what did happen?

Well, the owners of the UFC did a very smart thing.

They didn’t try to sell their core product at all.

Instead, they created another product, and they sold that.

Specifically, they created a reality TV show, called The Ultimate Fighter. It showed a bunch of guys, living together in a house, training and competing with each other for the right to get a six-figure contract for the regular UFC promotion.

And boy did it work. The Ultimate Fighter drew a lot of viewers, became profitable in itself, popularized mixed arts, and saved the UFC.

Because of all this, it offers a very valuable marketing lesson.

Off the top of my head, I can think of six separate marketing fundamentals that underlie this very clever move into reality TV.

But I won’t bore you by listing them here.

Instead, I just want to say that this kind of a funnel — coming up with a second, ancillary product to promote your core product — does not have to be limited to cage fights between two half-naked guys.

With a bit of thought, it can also work for many different offers and many different businesses.

For example, I’ve personally done this with a book I was selling once. And if you’d like to know the full story of how and what I did, you’ll be able to find the answer by going here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

7 hot systems to get you more referrals than Bernie Madoff

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Here’s something you may not think about:

Bernie Madoff, author of the largest financial fraud in history, started from scratch. Back in the 1960’s, he had just $5,000, which he earned working as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer.

So how did he go from this modest beginning to a $65 billion investment Ponzi scheme?

Through referrals, of course.

His father-in-law, an accountant, referred friends and their relatives to Madoff, and this got the snowball rolling.

Unfortunately, you and I don’t have Bernie Madoff’s father-in-law to press-gang clients for us. But we have the next best thing.

And that’s Jay Abraham, whose stuff I’ve been listening to non-stop the past few weeks.

One of Jay’s products is “93 Referral Systems” — basically a bunch of people at a Jay Abraham seminar, coming up to the microphone and sharing what their business is and how they get referrals.

I haven’t yet finished all 93, but here are 7 that have stuck with me so far:

#1. The “ultimatum” referral system

In a nutshell: Refuse to do business with people unless they make referrals

A dentist in Australia decided to make his entire practice more upscale and based on referrals. So after interviewing a potential new patient to his exclusive practice, he would simply tell them that referring two equally qualified leads was a requirement for getting in. Result? Patients would ask him, “Can I refer only two people?”

#2. The “steak and eggs” referral system

In a nutshell: Approach complementary businesses and give them a cut for referrals

A heating-and-cooling company started a new duct cleaning side business. They went to their competition (in heating and cooling), and asked for referrals for duct cleaning in exchange for a cut.

#3. The “golf buddy” referral system

In a nutshell: Join an affinity-based association

Some kind of unidentified consultant joined the National Speakers Association, and got many referrals from within the organization itself.

#4. The “welcome to our cult” referral system

In a nutshell: Whip people up into a frenzy and ask them to refer your business

This one is from Jay’s own seminars. Once somebody signed up, the salesperson would ask them, “How serious are you about this?” The salesman would then point them to phones in the back of the room, and ask them to call three people and tell these three people about the decision to enroll in the seminar.

#5. The “lobbyist” referral system

In a nutshell: Hire lobbyists to reach the unreachable

An investing company was looking for institutional investors. So they found retired executives, got them to sign a contract saying they’d get 10% for referring people they knew.

#6. The “fog of war” referral system

In a nutshell: When somebody buys, contact people near them

This one’s from a Lexus dealership. When they delivered the car, they’d ask if it’s ok to mail all the neighbors. They would then send direct mail to the neighbors, telling them how Mr. Jones down the street just got a brand new Lexus in a “neighborhood beautification program” and how they can too.

#7. The “Frank Bettger” referral system

In a nutshell: Get your clients talking about themselves so they like you

A life insurance salesman would take his clients out to lunch. He’d kick things off by using a Frank Bettger classic: “How did you get started in this business, Mr. Bejako?” He’d then transition to asking for advice. “What could I do to be more successful?” And then he’d go for the kill. “I’d love to expand my business and get more referrals. Who are some high-quality prospects you’d call on if you were in my shoes?”

And there you go. 7 proven systems to get you more leads, more business, and more, more, more munny.

And in case you’re wondering…

Yes, I too will start implementing some of these referral systems right away.

So if you need sales copy written, get in touch with me and we can talk. Just know that I only take on new clients if they can refer two equally qualified prospects for my copywriting services.

Why Whitesnake was wrong about customer acquisition

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I’m on a short weekend trip to Belgrade, and to get here I took an eventful car-sharing ride with a truck driver.

One of the surprises was him putting in a CD to play — which had bands like Joy Division and the Pretenders and Television.

And among other things, Whitesnake. You know:

Here I go again on my own
Going down the only road I’ve ever known
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone…

And as with everything these days, this made me think of a marketing lesson I’ve learned lately.

This is from Jay Abraham, the 21 billion dollar man (that’s the increase in profits Jay claims to have made his clients).

Anyways, the lesson Jay is teaching is exactly the opposite of what Whitesnake’s drifter is saying.

You don’t want to go at it alone, says Jay, at least when it comes to marketing yourself and acquiring clients.

That’s because there are plenty of people who benefit when you are successful.

And if you can identify these people, they will gladly bankroll some or all of your customer acquisition.

Now this might sound too good to be true, so let me give you a real-life example of how this could work.

I’ve been doing a lot of ecommerce sales funnels lately.

My clients have basically been specialized operations that source trendy physical products from suppliers in Asia, run ads on Facebook or other platforms to sell these products, and then rinse and repeat.

I write the copy for them.

And if I do a good job writing this copy, it’s not just my clients who benefit.

The suppliers benefit.

The video production company that makes the VSL’s benefits.

Any other freelancers they might be hiring — media buyers, designers, translators — all benefit.

Even the platforms that run the ads benefit. ​

So if I wanted to go out and find more ecommerce businesses that want to run the same kinds of marketing funnel for their products…

Then it would be smart of me to start approaching all these 3rd parties and trying to get their help, referrals, and even sponsorship for my own marketing efforts.

After all, if I’m successful, so are they.

Anyways, this a very powerful idea.

And whatever your business, it’s almost certainly applicable to you in some form.

As for me, I am not really looking for more ecommerce clients.

I’ve got enough right now.

But I am always interested in talking to potential new clients.

Especially if you’ve got a unique product, and you need long-term help with your marketing.

So make up your mind…

Don’t go wasting no more time…

And get in contact with me, again.

She-Wolwerine is alive and well — in Scotland

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Jo Cameron, a 71-year-old woman from Scotland, can claim to be the female version of the X-Man Wolverine.

And just in case you think I’m pulling your adamantium leg, consider the following:

For starters, grandma Cameron feels no pain.

In fact, there were times when she smelled the sizzling of her own flesh before noticing she had put her hand on the burning stove.

The weird thing is that people who don’t feel pain typically don’t live very long — their unfelt injuries pile up and kill them before they get to their 30’s.

Not so for X-Cameron.

That’s because she also seems to have a superior healing ability. Her mauled and scorched flesh heals quickly, usually without a scar. That’s how she could reach age 71, in spite of constantly taking stove damage.

On top of this, the woman never feels any fear, anxiety, or depression. She even has several unique genetic mutations that scientists have never seen before.

And here’s the crazy thing. ​​It turns out this She-Wolverine didn’t even realize she had any superpowers until a few months ago. She thought she wasn’t unique in any way.

And that ties into the plot of today’s issue of my daily email serial:

You too might have resources that you don’t appreciate.

​​Here’s another example to get you thinking:

Some 20 years ago, pioneering Internet marketer Joe Vitale had an email list of around 800 names. Up till then, he hadn’t done anything with this list.

But at some point, Joe got a hankerin’ to buy a BMW Z3.

And he set his mind on paying the $40,000 price tag by hustling up new money, instead of tapping into savings.

So he looked over his assets…

And he noticed the unused email list.

And he decided to create an online course, delivered entirely through email, which he would pitch hard to this list.

The price of the course?

$1,500.

Long story short, 20-odd people bought Joe’s email-only course. He got his Z3. And it was all financed by an otherwise inactive list.

Now, you might not have an unused email list sitting around.

But you probably have at least some other resources — whether it’s real-life connections, a Facebook audience, or skills that you can trade and barter.

And if you do create some kind of an offer, and you need ideas on how to promote it successfully to an email list, then young mutant, head over to the following page:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

The case against 60-day money-back guarantees

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A couple weeks back, I was lurking in a Facebook group when I saw an inflammatory post.

Let me first give you a bit of background.

The Facebook group where this post appeared is for people, like myself, who plopped down $500 at some point to get an online course called the Energy Blueprint.

​​The Energy Blueprint is offered by a guy called Ari Whitten, and it’s all about scientifically proven ways to increase your energy (if you’re healthy) — or to overcome fatigue (if you’re not).

Now, if you think about it, you’ll soon realize one important thing:

Claiming to have the solution to something as chronic and ill-defined as fatigue will attract at least a few people with a strong victim mentality.

Such as the author of the inflammatory post I mentioned at the start.

The post itself has been taken down, so I can’t quote it verbatim. But it basically said:

“This course hasn’t helped me one bit. I don’t have the money to buy all these supplements or to do all the treatments. I tried getting a refund but I was told it was 4 days out of the 60-day refund period. I just want to warn everybody that Ari Whitten is a scammer who’s taking advantage of people.”

Now, many people in Ari’s group immediately jumped to his defense, saying how much he’s helped them.

A few even cried, “Two months is not long enough to see how well the course works!”

Which might be true. But in that case, why offer a two-month guarantee?

Personally, I think there are two valid approaches to money-back guarantees.

The first tries to draw more people in. In this case, the guarantee should be as long and generous as possible — a year, five years, a lifetime.

The other approach focuses on the quality of your customers.

It’s what people like Ben Settle do, which is basically to say, “Only buy if you’re sure you want this, because there are absolutely no refunds.”

The thing is, both of these approaches can work, and they can work well.

The “generous guarantee” people will tell you that longer guarantees mean higher sales, but they also result in FEWER refunds.

Perhaps counterintuitively, Ben also claims that NOT offering a guarantee actually hasn’t lowered his sales any — and may have even increased them. And of course, his approach eliminates all the headaches that come with refunds and the people who demand them.

In other words, both extremes seem to be good when it comes to guarantees.

What you don’t want to do, at least in my opinion, is offer a wishy-washy 60-day guarantee — which can backfire on you like it did on Ari Whitten.

As for me, I don’t have any kind of guarantees for my copywriting services. Sometimes, I’ve written copy for clients, and it bombed. Other times, I’ve written copy and it was a big success.

I’ve gotten paid in both cases.

And I have learned some lessons from these failures and successes. In case you want to know what those lessons are, you might like the following free, no-risk offer:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/