Direct Marketing

The Bohemian Rhapsody trick for creating a big opening

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The camera follows him as the curtain is drawn — and a sea of chanting people filling the stadium to capacity roars on from the other side

I just watched Bohemian Rhapsody.

The film is a pretty straightforward retelling of the story of Queen, with of course, a focus on Freddie Mercury.

It traces the band from their time meeting behind a local concert hall and follows them for the next decade or so, all the way to the climactic concert at Wembley Stadium, where they performed to an ecstatic audience of close to 100,000.

In fact, that’s how the movie opens up.

While the rest of the script is chronologically linear, the opening is all about Freddie waking up, trimming his mustache, making his way through his mansion (populated by dozens of filthy cats), being driven in a Rolls-Royce to the stadium, and then warming up as he walks up to the stage.

The camera follows him as the curtain is drawn and a sea of chanting people filling the stadium to capacity roars on from the other side.

It’s a good way to start a movie.

And the same holds for starting emails.

You need to capture people’s attention straight away.

And even though you probably have a linear script in mind for what you’d like to say, that’s probably not the best way to present the information.

The good news is, it’s not hard to spruce up a regular ol’ email and make it into a sexy email.

Just go in once it’s written, find the highlight of the email, and splice it in up top.

You can keep the rest of the email as is.

This isn’t cheating in any way — you’re simply giving people a preview of the interesting things to come, and a reason to keep reading.

Once you have people’s attention, you can then take them to your important and serious message.

Such as for example, my upcoming book on email marketing for health products.

It’s not out yet.

But if you would like a free copy when it does come out, you can sign up here:

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

Announcing Profitable Health Emails

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I’m putting together a book tentatively titled Profitable Health Emails.

It’s going to collect what I’ve learned so far about email marketing, and what I’ve used to help companies such as RealDose Nutrition, Australian Digestive Excellence, and Vitality Now make some money.

I’m expecting to finish the book by January 2019.

In case you’d like a free copy when it’s done, you can sign up for it here:

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

When infotaining emails fail

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In 1975, the great copywriter Gary Bencivenga joined an upstart direct marketing agency.

They soon put out a gutsy ad in the Wall Street Journal to hunt for new clients. The headline ran:

“ANNOUNCING A DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING AGENCY THAT WILL GUARANTEE TO OUTPULL YOUR BEST AD.”

There were only two catches:

1) You had to give Gary & co. creative freedom on the kind of ad to write — only legal and factual approval was asked for and allowed.

2) You actually needed better advertising. In Gary’s own words, “If we think your present advertising is excellent, we’ll tell you.”

I thought of this today because I’m looking over the wreckage of several email campaigns I wrote for a client over the past few months.

I put in serious work on these emails, and I thought I did a great job. When I handed them over to the client, he loved them. But apparently, they are underperforming what he was using earlier.

The thing is, I saw the earlier email sequences, and I was confident I could do better. They were dull and too heavy on the teaching, and I was going to make them intriguing and infotaining.

But that’s not enough.

What I should have asked for in addition to seeing the email copy is a breakdown of where the sales were coming from.

Were they all on day 0, and people weren’t even reading the emails?

Did sales trickle in as the relationship was established (which means that people actually liked reading the old emails)?

Was it all about the discounts (and was the copy largely irrelevant)?

Were the emails actually making any sales (the client hinted that they weren’t making any money through email marketing)?

Too late to ask now, because the client seems to have moved on to greener pastures.

However, going forward, I’ll insist on this sales info for two reasons:

1) It will help me decide whether I can in fact write emails that will do better. It’s not just about seeing the copy, but about finding out how that copy performs.

2) If I feel I can beat the emails, this info will give me useful clues about how to best do that.

Maybe obvious. But even old Gary above didn’t think to ask for the results in his gutsy ad — which makes me feel a bit better.

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