Persuasion

Bejako the email clown

by

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

by

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

Too bad! You did not win today, try again tomorrow

by

This morning, I went down to the lobby of my building. I glanced at my mailbox and gritted my teeth.

My feet were ready to take me to the mailbox so I could open it and check the mail.

​​But with the last bit of dignity left to me, I asked myself, “What are the chances that the mailman came between 9pm last night, when I last checked the mail, and now, at 8am?”

Low.

With a strong exercise of willpower, I stopped myself from checking the mail. It would only end in disappointment.

On the other hand, you can be sure I will check the mailbox in a few hours’ time. And if it happens to be empty again, I will probably check it once or twice more during the rest of the day.

Last month, I subscribed to the New Yorker. The New Yorker is a fine magazine, but hardly anything to be addicted over.

Aye, but here’s the rub:

Since I live in Spain, mail from abroad arrives inconsistently. The New Yorker is a weekly magazine, but it doesn’t arrive to my mailbox on any kind of weekly schedule. Sometimes, two issues will come a day apart. Sometimes, like now, a few weeks will pass and still no New Yorker.

Result?

Well, I told you already. Addiction. Independent of the addicting qualities of the product itself. It just comes down to how you deliver it.

“Great,” you might say. “So you’re telling me to become a flake? To make my daily emails sometimes non-daily, and sometimes multi-daily? To deliver my subscription products, sometimes a day early, sometimes a month late?”

That’s certainly one option. But there’s a bigger point here. Let me explain.

If you check today’s subject line, you will see you did not win today. I don’t mean that glibly. I’m 100% serious.

Because what I did today was actually write two and send versions of this email, each to 50% of my list.

One version is for the people who won. In that version, I explained the bigger point I had in mind, and I ended with a link to a valuable resource.

Version two is what you’re reading right now, since you did not win. This version doesn’t have the explanation or the link.

The good news is, the resource I shared with the winners is so valuable that I will probably write about it again. And I will probably share it again. Maybe even tomorrow. And maybe tomorrow, you will have better luck than today. There is always hope!

But I have to end today’s email with some kind of offer.

So I will tell you about a fine offer. Sometimes, I will promote this offer day after day. Sometimes, like now, weeks will pass before I promote this offer again. In case you want to grab it now, while it’s still fresh on your mind, click here and sign up to my sometimes daily, sometimes multidaily email newsletter.

Why I didn’t collect my $10.5 million

by

Today I found a tantalizing email in my spam folder. The sender was Mrs. Mary J. Parker. The subject line read:

“FROM THE UNITED NATIONS POLICE (UNPOL)”

The email explained UNPOL was contacting me because of some money I’d wired to Nigeria.

This is a bit embarrassing. But a while back, I got another email. It described a unique opportunity to help somebody and get rich at the same time. At least that’s how it seemed.

I wired the money as that first email asked. And I waited to get rich. But I never heard back from anybody, or saw my money again.

Anyways, the email from Mrs. Parker informed me that a bunch of organizations, including “Scotland Yard Police, Interpol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI) United States of America, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria and all the African Crime fighter leaders” have been working hard to capture the fraudsters who grabbed my money and the money of other people like me.

These law protection agencies caught a bunch of these “Internet rats.” They retrieved billions of dollars.

And now, to make it up to me, they wanted to send me $10.5 million so I could start a new life. All I had to do was furnish a certain Dr Richard Kelly with $450 and also my correct and valid details.

Now here’s something that might shock you:

I decided to pass up this offer. Even though I’d previously wired money to unknown persons in Nigeria. And even though $10.5 million was on the line. Why I did this is the subject of this post.

Let me set things up by telling you about two direct mail campaigns. The first campaign was written by Gary Bencivenga. It made a generous offer:

Six free issues of Boardroom’s Bottom Line/Personal newsletter, plus a premium book. All for free, no strings attached.

It was such a generous offer that Gary thought it needed a reason why. So he used the idea of a survey.

“Fill out this survey,” Gary’s letter basically said, “and send it back to us. As thanks, we’ll send you six free issues and the book.”

This campaign was a massive success. A bunch of people sent in their surveys and got their trial six months of Bottom Line/Personal.

The trouble is, they didn’t subscribe much when the trial expired. And those who did subscribe didn’t buy much of Boardroom’s other books or offers.

But a control is a control. And so this survey offer kept running.

Until the second campaign. Which was was also written by Gary Bencivenga. And which also made the same generous offer.

But instead of using the free survey, the second campaign sent a 64-page booklet, titled The Little Black Book of Secrets.

This booklet had the most interesting secrets from different issues of Bottom Line/Personal… along with occasional calls-to-action to get your six free issues + bonus.

Result?

The second campaign pulled in only HALF the number of responses of the survey campaign. But twice as many of those people actually paid to subscribe when their trial ended. Plus, these non-gimmick customers bought way more of Boardroom’s other products.

In the long term, the second campaign was the winner, and became the new control. Which brings me back to the email I got from UNPOL.

The people at UNPOL did right by giving me a second opportunity to wire money to Nigeria. That’s standard direct marketing — it’s called having a back end. But here’s the thing:

I’m a greedy and opportunistic person.

Sure, I liked the big promise of being able to get rich quickly. That’s why I wired my money over the first time. But my interest was fleeting, and I’ve already moved on. That’s why I didn’t reply to Mrs. Parker’s offer today.

It’s pretty much the same as those people who filled in a 2-minute survey to get something free from Boardroom. Because hype and impulsiveness can get you lots of buyers… but those buyers can make a wobbly foundation for your business.

As Michael Fishman said once:

“Your selling copy in the prospecting process can actually impact the longevity of a customer with the company. So what I mean by that is if you make very, very big promises for a self-help product, a health or investment product… if you make very, very big promises for that about quick results and overnight success, etc… the kinds of people that will find that believable and ultimately will buy turn out to be folks that are not very committed in the long run to your company.”

But you’ve stuck with me for over 750 words now. Do you feel yourself becoming a bit committed to reading my stuff for the long run? In that case, you might like to subscribe to my daily email newsletter. It’s free, now and in six months’ time. Here’s the optin.

Dan Kennedy corrects a mistake I’ve made in my copywriting career

by

Let me tell you a copywriting client experience that still stings:

About two years into my freelancing career, I got the opportunity to write some emails for RealDose Nutrition.

​​RealDose is an 8-figure supplement company, started by a couple of direct marketers and an MD. They sell actually legit supplement products — their USP is right there in the name.

Long story short – I did a good job with those emails. I even tripled results in one of their main email funnels.

Impressed with those results, the CEO of RealDose asked me to write a sales letter next, for their probiotics product.

The only problem was, at this stage of my career, I had never written a full-blown sales letter.

​​What to do?

​​I took Gary Bencivenga’s olive oil sales letter and analyzed the structure. I wrote something that looked nothing like Gary’s letter, but was the exact same thing under the hood.

I gave it to the guys at RealDose. They shrugged their shoulders. They copy seemed okay… but I guess they weren’t sold. Because as far as I know, the sales letter was never tested.

Some time later, I got that sales letter critiqued by A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos. Parris said the body copy was fine. But the hook? The headline and the lead?

Parris used my headline and lead to publicly illustrate what an uninteresting promise looks like. “Are you the first person on the plant to ever sell a probiotic?” Parris asked me. He laughed and shook his head.

I never got another chance to write anything else for RealDose. I always wonder how my career might have gone had I done a better job with that big shot that I got.

I bring this up because today, I made a list of 10 mistakes I’ve made in copywriting career.

That RealDose sales letter, with the uninteresting promise in the headline, was no. 1.

No 4. was that this newsletter, the one you are reading now, is actually the third iteration of my daily email newsletter.

​​I deleted the previous two versions.

Version one was very much like this, and ran for a few months in 2016.

​​​​Some time later, I deleted it because I started writing about crypto marketing.

​​Then in 2018, I deleted that crypto daily email newsletter… and started writing this current iteration, starting over where I had left off two years earlier, and wasting a bunch of time, effort, and opportunity in the process.

So those are mistakes no. 1 and no. 4.

And then there’s mistake no. 7.

Mistake no. 7 is that i didn’t treat my freelancing career as a business for way too long. And when I say that, I might not mean what you think I mean.

For example, I always paid a lot of attention to the prices I was charging clients. And I worked hard on getting those prices higher.

I was also always on the hunt for new leads and new ways of getting leads.

And yet, at the same time, I didn’t ask myself, until way too late, “How can I promote this? How can I make a spectacle out of this? How can I get this offer that I have — meaning myself and my copywriting services — in front of a much bigger audience?”

Maybe what I mean is best summarized by Dan Kennedy, the very smart and successful marketer I’ve mentioned a few times in the past few days. Dan once said:

“Your growth will have less to do with your talent, your skill, your expertise or your deliverables than it will your ability and willingness to create and exploit your own status.”

Dan claims this applies regardless of what business you are in, whether you are selling services or products. In fact, Dan gave the above advice to a guy with a software company.

Which brings me to my offer to you for today.

How would you like a free consulting day with Dan Kennedy?

A daylong consult with Dan normally costs $18k. But you can get it for free.

Well, fine, not the whole thing.

But you can get three highlights of the consulting day that Dan gave to marketer Mike Cappuzzi.

The fact is, I told you one of the highlights of that consult day above. But in case you think a little bit of Dan’s $18k/day wisdom could benefit your business, here’s where you can read Dan’s other two consulting day highlights:

https://mikecapuzzi.com/an-insiders-glimpse-into-a-consulting-day-with-dan-kennedy/

I will attempt to make you salivate with this email

by

Some time ago, I sent an email with the nonsense subject line:

“The real secret to how I survive the biggest mistake you are making the fastest way”

That was in response to a message I got from a mysterious reader. He sent me an email with no body, with just a file attached. The file had seven “tested and proven” subject line templates, which I mashed together to produce that monster above.

A bit of fun to prove a point. I thought that would be the end of it.

Except, a few days ago, my mysterious “won’t even say hello” correspondent popped up again. Another empty-bodied email. Another file attached.

This file promised to teach me “How to Make Your Reader Salivate Over Your Offer.”

The file described a sales technique. I won’t repeat it here. While it’s solid sales advice, it really won’t make anyone anywhere salivate.

I mean, really.

​​Have you ever found yourself literally salivating at a bit of sales copy? Staring at the screen, your lips parted, your tongue lolling around your mouth, having to swallow hard every few seconds?

Of course not. That kind of physical reaction is impossible to produce with words alone. Right?

Right. Or maybe not right. ​Because here’s a passage that this “make your reader salivate” stuff brought to my mind:

​For instance, just think of the word lemon, or get a quick image of a lemon and notice your response.

​​Now see a richly yellow 3-D image of the same lemon, and imagine slicing it in half with a sharp knife. Listen to the sound the knife makes as it slices through, and watch some of the juice squirt out, and small the lemon scent released.

​​Now reach out to pick up one of the lemon halves and bring it slowly to your mouth to taste it. Listen to the sound that your teeth make as hey bite into the juicy pulp, and feel the sour juice run into your mouth. Again, notice your response. Are you salivating a bit more than you did when you just had a word or a brief image of a lemon?

This passage comes from a self-help book. It’s in a chapter on getting motivated. It describes a technique that’s supposed to make you want an outcome more. Because as Seth Godin wrote a while ago:

Humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skillset.

But only when we want to.

The hard part, then, isn’t the changing it.

It’s the wanting it.

I don’t know if the lemon technique above works in making you want to change. At least for the long term. But it doesn’t matter much.

My point is not how to achieve real change in yourself… but how to achieve the feeling of possible change in other people.

Because if you are in the business of direct response marketing… then much of your work consists of spiking up people’s feelings just long enough that they step out of the warm bathtub of their usual inactivity.

And that’s why popular self-help books might have a lot to offer you.

Which brings me to an offer that will almost certainly not make you salivate. In fact, this offer will probably not interest you or tempt you in the least.

Because my offer to you is the book from which I took that lemon passage above.

​​I already promoted that book extensively in this newsletter. It’s called NLP, and it was written by Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner.

I promoted this book previously as a self-help book.

The value of this book as such is dubious, as is the value of all self-help books.

But the value of this book as a guide on how to stimulate the feeling of change and progress… of motivation and inspiration… in yourself and other people — that value is certain.

And for any marketer or copywriter who is willing and able to read the book as such, the book will be delicious. Maybe even mouthwatering. Figuratively speaking of course. In case you want it:

https://bejakovic.com/nlp

A technique for $100k+ copywriters only

by

How’s this for under-the-radar persuasion:

In 1999, tobacco company Lorillard (which owns brands like Newport and Kent) ran an ad campaign to keep teens from smoking.

This was part of Lorillard’s public relations work. Officially, the goal was to make the company seem like your alcoholic but benevolent uncle, trying to steer you away from his own wayward path.

But beneath the surface, something else was lurking.

The ad campaign featured the message, “Tobacco is whacko if you’re a teen.” This might sound awkward or quaint, or like a typical example of brand advertising with a stupid slogan.

But it’s not that at all. Dig it:

A later statistical study found that each exposure to this ad increased the intention of middleschoolers to try cigarettes by 3%. In other words, if your kid sees this ad 30 times, his or her odds of trying a cigarette double.

What’s going on?

Well, it’s the tail of that message. “… if you’re a teen.” Which by extension means, tobacco ain’t whacko if you’re grown up. In that case, tobacco is cool-o and sexy-o. No wonder millennial McLovins figured it was time to light up.

My point being:

In traditional direct response marketing, you can’t mess around. You tell people what you’ve got and all the irrefutable reasons why they need it.

But in today’s world, you’ve email and youtube vids and instagram posts. These media are free, so it pays to experiment with alternate messaging. For example…

Instead of telling your prospects your offer is perfect for them, tell them your offer is not right for them. At least not yet, because they are not yet the person they want to become. And then hit them with that same message thirty more times — and your odds of making the sale might double.

And now let me come clean:

My daily email newsletter is totally whacko unless you’re already making $100k+ as a copywriter. But if you don’t believe me, click here and subscribe.

Chicken soup for the marketer’s, copywriter’s, and salesman’s soul

by

“In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it’s not impossible that some of these people in SUV’s have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.”

The above quote is from David Foster Wallace, from his famous “This is Water” commencement speech at Kenyon College.

At some point in your life, you’ve probably either heard this exact quote on something very much like it. It’s basically cognitive behavioral therapy:

1. You only ever have a few pixels of evidence about what’s “really” going on.

2. Those pixels can fit into multiple consistent pictures.

3. Some of those pictures are more pleasant and useful for you to look at than others.

4. So you might as well focus on the useful and the pleasant pictures.

Pretty good advice, right?

Except, I happen to be professionally warped through my work as a direct response copywriter.

And so, while most people might see a healthy life lesson above, I see a sales technique.

A couple days ago, I talked about Sam Taggart, the door-to-door salesman profiled in a New Yorker article.

I showed you one way that Taggart deals with objections. But here’s another way, from the article:

Usually, once the customer realizes she’s being pitched, she’ll say anything to make the salesman go. When I canvassed with Taggart, I often felt anxious: They really want us to leave! But he interpreted every objection as an appeal for further information. He heard “I can’t afford it” as “Show me how I can afford it,” and “I already have a gun and a mean dog” as “What else do I need to fully protect my family?”

Taggart always takes objections as a request for more info, and questions as a sign of interest.

And why not?

Like DFW says above, it’s not impossible. In fact, in at least some situations, it’s exactly what’s happening.

When a potential customer or client asks you an accusatory question, or when they raise an insurmountable objection, those are just air bubbles on the surface of the ocean. You don’t really know what’s going on underneath the surface to produce those bubbles. So you might as well imagine a colorful and fun underwater party, populated by singing crabs and smiling tropical fish who really want you to succeed. “Darling it’s better down where it’s wetter, take it from meeeee…”

Anyways, the New Yorker profile of Sam Taggart doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of the guy. But that’s mainly New Yorker propaganda. And in any case, there’s a lot of value in that article, if you only, as they say, read between the lines.

I might write about some of that valuable stuff in the future. If you want to catch that when it comes out, sign up to my daily email newsletter.

I’ve decided to let Adam Neumann act as my personal advisor on all personal branding and positioning matters

by

A few weeks ago, a friend clued me into an amusingly shocking fact:

Adam Neumann is back.

You might remember Neumann as the former CEO of WeWork. ​​Handsome, charismatic, and prophet-like, Neumann built a $40-billion company, only to have it all crash down as the WeWork IPO failed. ​​In the wake of that, news reports exposed WeWork’s flimsy business model and the cult-like culture that fluffed it up for investors.

After Neumann was forced out as CEO, he was disgraced in the media as a grifter, hype artist, and woo-woo crackpot whose delusional self-belief infected others. “Serves you right for getting so big so fast,” cackled the little men at the Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair, “you’ll never work in this town again!”

Well, like I said, Neumann is back. Is it really any surprise?

He now has a new company, something to do with climate and crypto. He has raised $70 million for it already.

Will this new MacGuffin turn into another multi-billion-dollar venture?

Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. One thing is for sure:

Adam Neumann does some very important things very right.

For example:

Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson once said that Neumann reminded him of Jobs. Some time later, Neumann claimed that Isaacson might write his biography. (Isaacson apparently never considered writing such a book.)

Another example:

Jamie Dimon, the billionaire CEO of JP Morgan Chase, lead a round of investment into WeWork. As a result, Neumann called Dimon his own “personal banker” and said Dimon might leave JPMorgan to run Neumann’s family investment office one day. (Dimon apparently never had any plans to leave JPMorgan.)

You might think these are examples of braggartly and grasping status-building. But I think it goes much deeper than that. I will have more to say about it, and probably soon.

For now, I’d like to announce that I’ve decided to allow Adam Neumann to act as my personal advisor on all matters personal branding and positioning. I respect Adam’s skills and instincts within this sphere. And I always look to surround myself with the best advisors, associates, and underlings. Adam is definitely fit to be among my inner circle.

It might take a bit of time for word to reach Adam that I have decided to let him become a trusted advisor to me.

In the meantime, I will continue to offer you the chance to transform your own business through my consulting service.

Once Adam joins my team, I might raise my consulting rate to $100k/hr and a 20% stake of your business. Or I might just drop the consulting and focus on my own more lucrative projects. We will see what input Adam has to give me on the matter.

For now though, you have the opportunity to have me help you elevate your offer, wow your clients and customers, and even position yourself as a prophet in your industry. In case you want a piece of the action:

https://bejakovic.com/consulting

“Email Marketing: A Lecture by Rowan Atkinson”

by

Here’s a quick checklist of elements that make for engaging, effective, and influential emails:

1. Conflict, outrage. We seem to take a constant delight in seeing or participating in a fight. The more real it is, the more engaging it is. The more status the fight participants have, the more engaging it is.

2. Surprising connections between unrelated things, or surprising distinctions in things that seemed simple and unified.

3. Metaphors, analogies, and “transubstantiation.”

4. Angst. All good copy is rooted in angst. As Dan Kennedy likes to say, “The sky is either falling or is about to fall.”

5. Imitation and parody.

6. An engaging character. As Matt Furey didn’t but should have said, “For the email marketer, nothing transcends character.” The email of personality, rather than the email of “value.” Email is not about sharing valuable information. It’s about writing about normal things in a valuable and interesting way. It’s about accuracy of human observation and precision of the observation.

7. All right, enough of this. Let me come clean:

Everything I’ve just told you actually comes from a video titled “Visual Comedy: A Lecture by Rowan Atkinson.”

Atkinson you might best know as the clumsy priest from Four Weddings and a Funeral.

I watched Atkinson’s Visual Comedy guide a few days ago, expecting to be entertained. And I was that. But I found the video surprisingly full of deep analysis of what actually makes for visual comedy. It was like a prehistoric episode of the Every Frame a Painting series, if you’ve ever seen that.

And not only was this video insightful.

I realized that much, or maybe all, of what makes for good visual comedy can be ported very easily to email marketing.

For example, point #1 above is really about slapstick. As the Visual Comedy video says, “We seem to take a constant delight in seeing people hurt and humiliated. The more real it is, the funnier it is. The more dignified the victim, the funnier it is.”

And that Matt Furey non-quote in point #6?

​​It actually comes from Charlie Chaplin. “For the comedian, nothing transcends character.”

If you like, I’ve linked the entire Rowan Atkinson video below. You can watch it and try to figure out which techniques of visual comedy I mapped to each of my email marketing points above.

Of course, there’s more in this video than just what I’ve written above. The list of connections between visual comedy and email marketing is long and distinguished, and doesn’t just stop at 6″.

As just one example:

Maybe the most valuable part of this video is the detailed discussion of what exactly makes for an engaging character in visual comedy. I found almost all of this applied to email marketing directly, without the need for even the smallest bit of translation. Now that I think about it, maybe it’s a lesson I should apply myself.

So to wrap up:

​If you’re a goofy and thoughtless person who enjoys laughing when somebody slips on a banana peel…

​Or if you’re a deep and serious thinker who is interested in uncovering the hidden structure of things most people take for granted…

​Then I believe you will get value out of this video. Or maybe you’ll just get some pointed human observation. You can find it below. Before you click to watch it, you might want to sign up for my daily email newsletter, and get more insightful things like the essay you’ve just read.