Persuasion

Free info on free reports

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Copy Riddles member Andrew Townley takes advantage of the Copy Oracle privilege to ask:

I was listening to a Dan Kennedy program today that got me thinking about all those direct mail “free reports.” I was wondering if you had a source of any guidance on how to build one. I remember Parris describing the process somewhere on a podcast or something, but I can’t find it now.

The background, as you might know, is this:

A-list copywriters like Dan Kennedy and Parris Lampropoulos are experts at selling newsletters. Newsletters are a direct marketing staple because they are great for the publisher. Money comes in like clockwork, on your own schedule, without any added selling of your vague and broad and cheap-to-produce subscription offer.

For those same reasons, newsletters are a suspect deal for the subscriber. Many potential subscribers instinctively feel repulsed at the thought of paying good money, every month, for a “cat in the bag” piece of content, whether they are eager to consume it or not.

Enter free reports. Free reports are one effective strategy that guys like Dan and Parris use to overcome the resistance of skeptical newsletter buyers. The recipe is simple:

1. Go through your past content (newsletter or really anything else)
​
2. Find the sexiest stuff. It can either be a single bit of info, or a small number of related items you bundle together.

​3. Put that sexy stuff in its own little package.

​4. Give that package a sexy and mysterious new name.

​5. Repeat as many times as your stamina will allow. I believe one Boardroom promo offered 99 free reports along with a newsletter subscription.

When you think about it, this is really just the same work that a copywriter would do normally. Look at what he has to sell… figure out the sexiest parts of that… highlight it in the sales material, and of course, make it sound as sexy and as mysterious as possible.

And now for the pitch that probably won’t convince you:

I write a daily email newsletter about copywriting, marketing, and persuasion.

But like I said, that probably won’t convince you to sign up.

So let me take my own advice, and offer you a free report when you sign up:

“Become a Repositioning Specialist”

This report shows you how to start a profitable repositioning business, with your own home as headquarters. In case, you want this report, follow these steps:

  1. Click here and sign up to my free daily email newsletter
  2. When you get my welcome email, hit reply and tell me you want the free report

A new way to acquire copywriting skills while reducing emissions by over 80%

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Today I have a new pasta recipe for you:

Boil the water, throw in the pasta, cook as usual for two minutes. Then turn off the stove. Put a lid on your pasta and keep it in the hot-but-no-longer boiling water until the usual cooking time.

It’s called passive cooking and apparently it works just as well as your usual “stove’s on” way of cooking pasta, while reducing emissions by 80%.

Whatever. I’m just sharing this recipe with you because 1) it’s trending on the Internet, and I’m a trendy guy and 2) because I went to the page that explained this pasta cooking recipe and saw something interesting.

The passive cooking page is on the Barilla site. Barilla is a brand of pasta. And yet, on that page of the Barilla site, it says the following:

DOES IT WORK ONLY WITH PASTA BARILLA?

Of course not! We chose to study the process, adapt it to our classic product range and provide all the information to adopt this method. But helping the planet goes beyond our brand. So, with a few tweaks, you can try Passive Cooking even if you choose products from other brands.

This is interesting — and smart. It goes back to something I heard once from A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos.

Parris said how many sales letters go from problem => my offer and why it’s just what you need!

“How convenient,” says the reader after reading this. “All this time, while you were pretending to be talking about me and my problem, you were just leading me by the nose until you could start hawking your stupid brand of tortiglioni.”

A much better way to do it, says Parris, is to go from problem => broad category of solution => why your specific solution is a great or really the best choice within that category.

“It works with any brand of pasta! Of course, you might have to tweak a few things, do a bit of light multivariate calculus, and risk a beating from your hungry spouse — but really, any brand will work! Or of course you can just go with Barilla because we’ve done all the work for you.”

Which brings me to my Copy Riddles program:

IS COPY RIDDLES THE ONLY WAY TO TRANSFORM YOUR COPYWRITING SKILLS?

Of course not! I chose to study actual, million-dollar copy of A-list copywriters, present it to you in fun bite-sized pieces, and provide you all the information so you can practice each A-list copywriting technique yourself.

But effective copywriting goes beyond Copy Riddles. So, with a few tweaks, along with a few thousand hours of effort and a few tens of thousands of dollars of investment in books, courses, and coaching, you can try to acquire the same copywriting skills in different ways also.

Or you can just get Copy Riddles.

In case the pot’s boiling, here’s where to go:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

Fear and loathing inside the happiest place on Earth

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Imagine the surreal scene:

Dozens or maybe hundreds of police officers, linked hand-in-hand like eight-year-olds on a school trip, guarding the exit of the happiest place on Earth to keep people from escaping the happiness inside.

Maybe you heard the news from the last week. Some person somewhere in Shanghai tested positive for corona virus.

As a result, the entire city went into high corona alert.

A part of it was that Disneyland Shanghai lifted its drawbridge, dropped the heavy portcullis, and manned its walls to prevent any breach in the walls.

Except of course, all these measures were not to keep barbarian invaders from breaking into the Magical Kingdom.

Instead, these measures to keep peaceable Disneyland visitors from escaping to the outside.

Now think about how weird this really is:

Disneyland. The happiest place on Earth.

​​People plan a trip there for months, and pay a lot of money to be let in.

​​Also, from what I read in the news, once the gates of Disneyland Shanghai slammed shut, the rides inside the theme park kept running. To make it an even sweeter deal, Disneyland offered its prisoners free food.

And yet it didn’t matter.

Thousands of panicked visitors pressed towards the exit, trying to make their way out, becoming angry and indignant when they found out they were locked inside.

Now I’m sure different reasons possible why people wanted to get out of Disneyland.

Fear of corona… work and family obligation… getting sick of hearing “It’s a small world” playing over and over…

But there’s something else also.

Reactance.

That’s the word to describe that even the most attractive, desirable things become instantly repulsive if they contain an element of compulsion. If it’s not our free choice, but imposed on us from outside, whether by force or by manipulation.

Fear and loathing inside Disneyland is just a dramatic example of reactance. But reactance happens all the time — whenever people try to order you, force you, or of course, try to sell you something.

How do you deal with this?

I will have much more to say about that soon, and share various ways to pre-empt and side-step reactance before it even has a chance to form. If you’re interested in hearing more about that, sign up to my daily email newsletter and to be the first to find out.

The secret reason I still stick with copywriting after all these years

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Here’s a confession:

I’m not in this field because of the money or supposed freedom that copywriting brings.

Sure, that’s why I got into it in the first place. And I guess if I didn’t make any money, or if the work conditions sucked, I might move on to something else.

But the real thing that keeps me going in copywriting, that sucks me in and fascinates me, is learning more about myself and about other people.

Because it turns out that direct response marketing is an incredible lens to allow you to see inside people’s psyches, and what they really respond to.

Case in point:

Joe Sugarman of BluBlockers fame once told a story about his cousin, who was a psychiatrist. The cousin was hired by the San Diego Chargers, an American football team.

The Chargers wanted to find out what separated football superstars from the rank-and-file of all the others players. After some MK-Ultra type research, Joe’s cousin figured out there were two personality types who became superstars. They were either:

A. Egomaniacs

or

B. Deeply religious

“And when you really think about it,” Joe said, “what did they have in common? A very strong belief in either themselves or in a higher power.”

I’m not here to tell you to believe in yourself, or in a higher power.

I’m just here to point out am important fact in case you ever want to sell something:

If the thing that sets superstars apart is that they believe, either in themselves or in God, then what does that say about everybody else? What does it say about the 99.9% of people in any field who are not superstars?

They don’t believe. Or at least they don’t have anything focused to believe in.

And mercenary thought it might sound, smart marketers have been taking advantage of this lack of belief to sell trillions of dollars worth of stuff.

Because smart marketers give prospects something to believe in. An external thing… and yet, a thing that doesn’t require religious feeling or faith in the supernatural.

That thing is called the mechanism.

The mechanism is usually described as “how the solution works.” And it is that. But it’s really much more. It’s hope and belief in something outside yourself.

Of course, after a century-plus of creative mechanisms — cold showers and hyperventilation, buttered coffee, adaptogenic mushrooms — you can’t just hold up a bag of rocks and say, “Here, believe in this.”

You gotta come up with a mechanism that threads the thin line between exciting and exotic and believable and achievable.

I got a mechanism for you. It’s called “The John Bejakovic Letter” and it’s been called the most insightful newsletter about copywriting, marketing, and influence. In case you’d like to sign up for it, click here and follow the instructions.

A peek behind the scenes of a smashingly successful launch

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A while back, copywritress Liza Schermann, whom I’ve promoted in this newsletter as somebody who writes interesting, funny, and — I’m ashamed to say this — even sexy emails, went through my Copy Riddles program.

​​Liza had this to say about it:

“The entire course is an a-ha moment. Because you see these things from other copywriters or you read other copy, but you don’t see what’s behind it or why it’s working. Your course shows what happens behind the scenes.”

As an example of that, consider another revealing thing Liza told me:

This summer, she went through Copy Riddles for a second time as a refresher.

​​She applied the bullet lessons in Copy Riddles to a rewrite of an email launch sequence for a client. The client sent out this rewritten email sequence to an already spent list, promoting the same tired offer, for a second run of this launch, and—

Ended up making NOT just a few extra sales from that spent list and tired offer…

NOT just matching the sales she made the first time around…

But actually making 150% of the money she made during the first launch, when the list was entirely fresh!

As a result, Liza says, the client “was over the moon. So much so that she recommended me to a friend of hers who also has a language course.”

Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!

Well… about that.

It turns out the reality is a tad more murky. Liza told me that for this second launch:

– The price tag for the offer increased, and
– The list was significantly larger than the first time around, and yet,
– The client actually made fewer sales than first time, though the total money was more.

So was that second launch actually a success or no? And if it was, did Liza’s new copy, and her time inside Copy Riddles, have anything to do with that 150% of money made?

If you ask me, money made is more important than number of sales made. And fewer customers at a higher price are better than more customers at lower price.

Also, having seen Liza’s rewritten emails before and after, I personally believe that the “after” was stronger and contributed to that extra 50% in money made.

Whatever the case, here’s the behind-the-scenes point:

Imagine if I had cut off this email at “Incredible! Amazing! A miracle!”

​​Imagine I had dropped all that murky stuff about price increases and a larger list.

​​Imagine if I had simply kept the picture sharp and clear and said, “… and that kind of smashing success, ladies and gentlemen, shows the power of Copy Riddles, which you can invest in today for the low, low price of…”

The fact is, that’s exactly what happens in copy all the time.

You don’t see all the facts behind the copy. You don’t see what the copywriter chose to omit, and you don’t see how he patiently twisted, polished, and positioned what he allowed you to see.

You might say that’s despicable or dishonest to hold back the whole, naked truth.

​​But to me it’s the essence of what copywriting is — creating a calculated perception, a gloss, a heart-pumping response. And yes, that’s true even in cases like my email today, where I’m making a seemingly transparent reveal and “taking you behind the scenes.”

Anyways, if you want interesting, funny, and — there’s that word again — even sexy emails for your business, you can try to hunt down and hire Liza. She has my full endorsement. And she might be taking on new clients, though I can’t say for sure.

On the other hand, if you write your own copy, or if you want to work with clients who pay you to write copy for them, then you might want to get on my daily email list, and experience more copywriting a-ha moments than you would ever believe possible. If you’re interested, click here and fill out the form that pops up.

sold out

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Just a heads up, nearly half of all the artificially restricted copies of Copy Riddles have sol—

Relax. I won’t go there.

A couple days ago, I tapped into a rich vein of discontent by writing about Justin Goff’s “sold out” email, which tried to push an unattractive offer that had “sold out” fewer than half of all available copies.

Many readers wrote in to say they found this kind of marketing sneaky and misleading (“This email had me screaming at my phone”).

And then, among the many “you tell ’em!” replies, I got a message by a reader named Andre, who wrote in with a suggestion for me:

Your email about no real urgency on infinite+ digital copies reminded me of what Tony Shepherd used to do.

Because he had a fairly large suite of digital products…

He ripped a page out of Disney’s marketing book.

What he did was promote a product for a set amount of time and then…

Put it back into the “vault” where it was unavailable until the next time he promoted it.

It’s an interesting strategy to use for digital products.

Not sure if that would ever work for you, or even a creative variation, but hey, there it is.

The fact is, this model is exactly what I was doing with my Copy Riddles program — until yesterday.

I presold and launched Copy Riddles last year in April. I dripped the content out by email day by day — because I was creating it live, day by day.

After that initial launch finished, I placed Copy Riddles inside a heavy trunk and had the trunk locked and brought inside the Bejakovic Cave of Treasures.

​​I then had the cave sealed with a large boulder and guarded by a large man with a large sword, who only ever said one thing, “Hassan chop.”

It was only every few months that I had Hassan move the boulder and open up the cave. Only for a few days at a time did I let people inside to partake of Copy Riddles treasures.

This model worked well. Each time I made Copy Riddles available for a few days, I had new people sign up. And I made good money.

Plus there were other benefits, too.

For example, many people who had signed up during earlier runs signed up again, since they got lifetime access.

​​On that second or third run, some of them finally consumed all the content, which made it so they could finally get the promise of the course — A-list copywriting skills, implanted into your brain.

​​That was good for them and good for me. Because, promise delivered, they were now that much more likely to become my long-term customers.

Anyways, like I said, that’s the model I used — until yesterday.

As of yesterday, Copy Riddles is now an evergreen course. It’s available year-round, and not just during a few launch periods. And it’s delivered through a members-only area of my site (which I might rename The Cave of Treasures) and not through email.

I’m telling you all this because of the ongoing Copy Riddles “launch.”

All the current “launch” really means is that if you do decide to get Copy Riddles before this Sunday, Oct 30 2022, at 12 midnight PST, you will pay less than if you join Copy Riddles after this “launch” period ends. I will increase the price to $400 on Monday as a first step.

But there’s a second reason why I’m telling you about my course model switch. And that’s in case you ever create and want to sell courses of your own.

How you package up and deliver those courses will have a big impact on how those courses are perceived, sold, and consumed — independent of the content and value inside.

But if you are creating your own courses, don’t assume that just because I changed from the launch to the evergreen model that this is the way to go.

The fact is, this switch wasn’t a decision about money or about the number of sales made.

I simply wanted offers I could promote regularly at end of my daily emails. Copy Riddles is now one of those offers.

But this switch means I’ve lost some of the benefits of the launch model. I’ve had to think up ways to try to reproduce at least a part of them.

We will see if the price increase on Monday will work to stimulate the same kind of urgency as Hassan rolling back the boulder on the mouth of the cave.

And as for those other benefits of the launch model — like people actually consuming the content and getting value out of the course — well, I’ve had to think up other things.

I’ll talk about those in future emails during this “launch” period. Meanwhile, if you want to get Copy Riddles now, before the price goes up, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

“sold out”

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Yesterday, marketer Justin Goff sent out an email with the subject line “sold out”. The body copy immediately explained what was sold out:

Just a heads up, nearly half of the 250 swipe files that are available in the special sale going on today have already been taken…

So they will be sold out soon.

Here are a few things I, and probably many other people who are on Justin’s list, know after this email:

1. Justin has been promoting this affiliate offer for a few days.

2. So have several other marketers with large lists, including some with the largest lists in the copywriting/IM niche.

3. After several days of steady emailing by all those marketers, going out to tens of thousands of people in total, fewer than 125 sales of the affiliate offer have been made. That probably translates to a less than 0.1% conversion rate — and maybe as low as 0.025%.

I don’t know how many sales, and more importantly, how much money, Justin made with this “sold out” email. Maybe he did great. And maybe I will look like a fool for sticking my nose into things that I don’t know anything about.

With that in mind, let me say that Justin’s email is a violation of a fundamental rule of copywriting.

Perhaps the most fundamental rule of them all.

It’s a rule I was exposed to in the mythical webinar training that A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos put on back in 2018. Parris repeated this rule, over and over, while talking about how he evaluates his own copy, and while critiquing many pieces of student-submitted copy. The rule is this:

“Does it help your case, hurt your case, or is it neutral? Only keep it in if it helps your case.”

This rule might seem blindingly obvious. But as Justin’s email above shows, even smart and successful marketers will break this rule — because they get rushed, careless, or greedy.

When I read Justin’s email, my first impression was, “Fewer than 125 copies sold? This must not be a very attractive offer.” My second impression was, “Even if it’s a fine offer, I’ve got plenty of time to get it, since at this rate it won’t sell out soon — in spite of Justin’s alarmist subject line.”

Again, I might be sticking my hoof in my snout by talking about a promotion where I don’t know the actual sales numbers, and one which is still going on.

But the bigger point stands. Does it help your case, hurt your case, or is it neutral?

Anyways, on to my own promotion:

Nearly half of the infinity+ digital copies of my Most Valuable Email course have already been sold.

The remaining infinity+ copies are sure to sell out soon. So starting tomorrow, I will turn my great eye elsewhere, and start promoting my twice-born Copy Riddles program.

That means you might not hear from me about my Most Valuable Email program for a while, even though it will continue to be available for sale.

But hold on—

Is this any kind of way to do urgency? Should the fact that I won’t be pitching MVE for a while make you want to buy it today?

No. Not unless you’re the type to get activated by “sold out” subject lines and other transparent scarcity tactics.

On the other hand, if you like the basic promise of Most Valuable Email — “turn ordinary and rather boring emails into something clever and cool” — then today is as good a day as any to start down that path. ​​And maybe even better than any later day — because if you get going now, you will start seeing the benefits of this little trick in action sooner.

Whatever the case, if you are interested, here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Have we reached “peak storytelling”?

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This week’s New Yorker features a cartoon of a puzzled couple in front of an apartment door.

​​The man is holding a bottle of wine, so the couple are probably guests coming for a party. But they are hesitating, because the welcome mat in front of the door doesn’t say “Welcome”. Instead, it says,

“Welcome?”

This cartoon connected in my mind to a “law” I found out about a few day’s ago, Betteridge’s law, which states:

“If a headline asks a yes or no question, the answer is always no.”

Ian Betteridge is a technology journalist. And his argument was, if the answer to that yes/no question were yes, the writer would definitely tell you so, right away, as a matter of shocking fact.

Instead, the writer didn’t have enough proof to support his claim. But he decided to make it anyhow, as a question, in order to say something more dramatic than he could otherwise, and to suck you into reading. Like this:

“Will AI and Transhumanism Lead to the Next Evolution of Mankind, or Doom It?”

No. And no.

Betteridge’s law is an instance of the persuasion knowledge model.

​​That’s a fancy, academic term for the fact that people become aware of manipulative advertising and media techniques. And after people become aware, they also start resisting — “Don’t even bother reading this article, because the answer is sure to be no.”

That’s how in time, people become dismissive of intriguing headlines (“clickbait”), of being told something new about themselves (r/StupidInternetQuizzes/), even of effective stories (the entire TV Tropes website).

That’s not to say that curiosity, categorization, or stories no longer work or will not work as ways to persuade or influence.

But it does say that the effort and skill required to make them work today is a bit greater than it was yesterday — and it will be a bit greater still tomorrow.

And so it is with what I’ve been calling the Most Valuable Email trick.

Like stories, categorization, or curiosity, my MVE trick is based on fundamental human psychology.

​​It will continue to work forever — just how a well-told or fascinating story continues to work today, in spite of the fact that you probably have 20 story-based daily emails sitting in your inbox right now.

The thing is, if you act today, you get bonus points for using the MVE trick.

​​The day may come when the persuasion knowledge of the market becomes aware of this trick, and maybe even takes evasive measures. But today, practically nobody is aware of the MVE trick, especially in emails. As copywriter Cindy Suzuki wrote me after going through the Most Valuable Email course:

I’m looking back at your old emails with new eyes. You know that moment people get epiphanies and the entire world looks different? I’m feeling that way about your writing now. You’ve helped me unlock something I didn’t know existed. So incredible.

In case you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity while it’s still early days:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Bejako the email clown

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About a week ago, I sent out an email about a budding email copywriter who made me an offer I could refuse. I got the following reply to that email:

Honest feedback.

This email does not sound like your personal voice.

There’s a uniqueness in the way you phrase things and keeps me reading. I sense a difference in this email. I don’t know if this an earlier version of you.

I sat there for a moment, staring at this reply, tilting my head from side to side like a confused beagle.

What exactly was the intent behind this reply? What was I to do with this honest feedback?

I never did figure it out.

But I’ll tell you what I will not do.

I won’t go through my “budding email copywriter” email, figuring out where my tone of voice went wrong. I also won’t go through other emails, reverse-engineering what a proper Bejako email sounds like. And I certainly won’t poll my readers and say, “Please tell me what you like about my online persona, so I can give you more of what you like, and less of what you dislike.”

I recently discovered the term flanderization.

On The Simpsons, the character of Ned Flanders went from being a good neighbor, who served as a foil to Homer Simpson, to being an annoying religious fundamentalist.

​​In other words, Flanders became more and more of a one-dimensional caricature of himself over the course of the many seasons of The Simpsons.

It’s not just The Simpsons. The same thing happens with other shows and other characters, including those that people play in email newsletters like this one.

I’ve often written that I’m in it for the long game with this newsletter.

That’s why my prime directive is to make writing these emails fun and interesting for me personally.

But painting myself into a corner of what I can and cannot say — because not it wouldn’t be in line my tone of voice or online persona — well, that’s neither fun nor interesting for me. I’d rather be free to say what I want to say, when I want to say it, even if it makes me sound off-brand on certain days, and like a clown on others.

Anyways, this probably doesn’t benefit you in any way. Not unless have an online presence, or are planning to start one.

But if you are putting some aspect of yourself out there regularly, maybe my perspective on it can be helpful to you somehow.

And here’s something else that might be helpful, at least if you are interested in copywriting, marketing, and persuasion.

The post mortem of my “wanted” ad

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Gary Halbert advised all would-be marketing millionaires to take out a classified ad that reads:

“Housewives wanted to address envelopes at home. You must have a typewriter or good handwriting. Call 000-0000.”

That’s good advice still, whether you are a DM marketer, looking for that first-person experience of what getting sprayed by a firehose of response feels like… or a freelancer searching for insights on what the world is like on the other side of the looking glass, when you send in your own job application.

Last Friday, I sent out an email with the subject line,

“Wanted: Competent human to do some monkey work”

In that email, I made a job offer.

In spite of trying to make the job sound as unattractive as I could, I got two dozen applications, mostly from people who were clearly overqualified, but who applied nonetheless.

After looking over all the applications, I ended up hiring somebody yesterday. And I can tell you this:

The content of this guy’s application was largely irrelevant.

The price he quoted me was more relevant, but still secondary.

What really made me hire him is that I had interacted with him a hundred times before. He has bought a bunch of my offers — Most Valuable Email, Most Valuable Postcard, Copy Riddles, which he has gone through twice. He has participated in QA calls, contests, and masterminds I put on, and has given me testimonials before.

In other words, I already knew this guy well, as well as I know anybody from my list.

My point isn’t that you should buy any and all offers I put out, though you certainly should do that.

My point is simply that my brain, and from what I’ve seen, everybody else’s brain, is constantly looking for shortcuts.

The fact is, I don’t know that guy I hired will 100% do a perfect job, or a better job than the dozen or so people who offered to do the same job for less money.

It doesn’t matter.

I had to make a decision. And I was looking for easy ways to do that. You could say I was clutching at straws.

And that’s how most people make most decisions — largely irrationally, just trying to put the unpleasant task behind them. Which can work in your favor — if you put a bit of thought into how to give your prospects mental shortcuts, and how to make their decision process easier and less unpleasant.

Anyways, getting back to Gary Halbert. Gary advised people to take out that classified job ad because “Spectators Can Never Understand What It Is To Be A Player!” Gary explained in more detail:

“You know what the hardest thing it is for a caring teacher like me to do? I’ll tell you… it’s not to explain something to my audience. That’s relatively easy. No, my friend, the real challenge is to make my message real to that audience.”

Which fittingly enough is one of the core ideas behind my Most Valuable Email training. The MVE trick is all about making your email real to your audience — and to yourself.

In case you’d like to get the Most Valuable Email, and maybe interact with me in some way over it, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/