Encapsulation

The beginning and the end of copywriting

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Today being January 1st, I find it an excellent opportunity to wish you a happy New Year and to point out the surprising significance of January.

As I learned when I was still young and very stupid, January is named after the Roman god Janus, the two-faced deity of doors, gates, and more broadly, beginnings and endings.

I say I was still very stupid when I first learned this, because my reaction was, “A god of doors? How lame. What’s next? A god of faucets?”

It was only later, after I read a book or two, that I found out just how fundamental the idea of a door — an entry point, an exit point — really is to the human mind.

Because all human perception, down at the most basic neurological level, is based on difference, contrast.

Right now, bunches of your neurons are frantically working to determine where they can draw a line, and call everything before it one thing, everything after it another, and convince you these are somehow meaningfully separate, and discard the many other details that don’t fit into that picture of the world.

Without this Januarial work of drawing lines and creating doors to come up with discrete concepts, we couldn’t really have any higher-level thinking.

That’s why it makes sense that January, the month of doors, comes before, say March, named after the Roman god of war, Mars.

“That’s truly fascinating,” I hear you saying. “I had no idea of the depth of your classical learning or your smattering of popsci neuroscience. But what does this have to do with marketing or making money or really anything else I might actually care about on January 1st?”

Everything. It has everything to do with it.

This basic observation, of the outsized importance of beginnings and endings, repeats itself at every level of the sales job.

At the level of entire sales campaigns, where the opening of the campaign and the closing of the campaign bring in almost all the sales…

At the level of individual sales letters, where the headline and lead on the one end, and the offer and close at the other end, represent 80%-95% of the effectiveness or sales pull of that letter…

At the level of individual sales claims or promises, such as the following:

“The simple 12-word-sentence that will make you the #1 candidate more often than you would ever believe.”

That’s a bullet written by A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga, considered by many to be the greatest of the greats because he won so often against other A-list copywriters.

You might think Gary’s bullet is just a simple, direct response promise. But there’s a surprising amount of subtle psychology that goes into this bullet, with a particular emphasis on what Gary chooses to put first in this bullet, and what to put last.

I won’t explain that subtle psychology here, but I will tell you the following:

Wouldn’t it be nice to start this New Year acquiring a new skill, a truly valuable skill, a skill that few others possess?

Wouldn’t it be nice to acquire one of the greatest skills you can have as a copywriter, whether you write for clients or for your own business?

Wouldn’t it be nice to acquire a skill that ultimately all effective copy comes from?

You probably know what I’m talking about.

But if you’d like to make 100% sure, or if you’d actually like to use this January 1st to get yourself this skill and the associated bump in fortune that this skill can bring, then take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/

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)
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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

The gruesome adventures of Mussolini’s corpse

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On today’s date, April 28 1945, the leader of fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini, was executed by Italian partisans in a small town next to Lake Como. But it turned out death was only the beginning of the adventures of Mussolini’s corpse.

The next day, the corpse was taken to Milan. It was dropped off in a square recently renamed to honor 15 partisans killed by Mussolini’s forces.

There, on the ground, Mussolini’s corpse was kicked and spat upon by passersby.

The corpse was then hanged by its heels from an Esso gas station.

Hanging upside down, the corpse was stoned by an angry crowd. One woman fired five bullets into the corpse, one for each of her five sons who had been killed by Mussolini’s soldiers.

Mussolini’s body was eventually taken down, and buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery north of the city.

The end?

Oh no.

Next year, on Easter Sunday 1946, Mussolini rose from the grave, or rather, his corpse was dug up by three fascist sympathizers.

The decaying mass that was left of Mussolini was then kept in a trunk for over 10 months, and smuggled around from place to place.

​​Eventually, the Mussolini trunk made its way to a Franciscan monastery near the town of Pavia. There, the corpse was recaptured by Italian authorities.

The end?

You wish.

The new Italian government couldn’t decide what to do with Mussolini’s remains.

In fact, the government kept agonizing over this question for over ten (10) years.

I couldn’t find out exactly where Mussolini’s corpse was kept all this time. But the conclusion was that, after intense political deal-making, Mussolini was finally reburied, in 1957, in a crypt, with marble fasces on the side, in a cemetery in his home town.

The end, finally.

​​A gruesome story, right? And so… illogical.

I mean, the guy was dead. The war was over. Fascism had ended. Why all the fuss over what would happen to the rotting flesh of the man who had once ruled Italy and caused death and destruction?

Well, because that’s how our brains work. What I mean is…

It’s impossible for our brains to take in all of a complex historical process, even if it’s happening around us.

And while it’s not impossible, it’s certainly hard and unpleasant to keep an abstract concept like “fascism” in our minds for very long.

But a specific person… with a name… a title… and all the ready-made emotional reactions that we humans get in response to other people… well, that’s very easy and natural to keep in mind.

But forget all this stuff I just said. And just remember Benito Mussolini and his traveling corpse.

Because whether you want to promote an idea, or bury one, you will find it much easier to promote a person, or to execute one. Figuratively of course. And then to figuratively kick and spit on the corpse, and let it hang by its heels for all the world to curse.

By the way, do you hate Benito Mussolini? Or love Bill Burr?

Then you might like my email newsletter. You can try it out here.