Psychology Behind Advertising

“Worse is better” marketing

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A-list copywriter Carline Anglade Cole doesn’t put a lot of effort into many of her email subject lines. On Thursdays, she sends out an email with the subject line “Carline’s Copy Thought.” Tuesdays are “Trade $ecret$ Tuesdays,” and Fridays are “Flashback Fridays.” And the next week, it all repeats.

Mark Ford, the multimillionaire copywriter and marketer who helped make Agora a billion-dollar company, went through a period where each email he sent out had the same one-word subject line. “Today.” That was it. Over and over.

Is this just a shocking example of laziness that top marketers practice when promoting their own stuff?

Or…

Could it be a case of “worse is better”? Where doing less gets you better results than doing more?

Well consider this. I always open Mark Ford’s emails, even if they say “Today” for the 10th day in a row.

On the other hand…

Today I got an email from an A-list copywriter. I won’t name him, but I’ll tell you I often open his emails. But I didn’t open his email today. I read the subject line and I said, “Oh, I know where this is going. I don’t need to read it.”

The fact is this:

Even people who are perfect prospects for what you’re selling will often dismiss your message instantly. They will use any little excuse to say, “No no, this is not for me, not now.” Even if your offer could hugely benefit them. Even if it’s exactly what they need.

Why are people like this? I don’t know. My guess is it has something to do with why taking out the trash is so hard.

Of course, one way to deal with this is the usual direct response light show, with flashing neon promises and blaring warning sirens.

But if you’ve got enough credibility with your audience, then you can do what Carline and Mark do. And you might actually get better results. And if you’re not convinced yet that “worse is better” can get you better results, let me give you an example with some hard numbers:

Marketer Rich Schefren once offered an upsell he called “Mystery Box.” Once you bought Rich’s front-end product, a video popped up with Rich holding this box and saying something like,

“Do you trust me? I promise you that what’s inside this box is worth 100x the $49 price I’m asking for it. Get it today and see for yourself, and if you don’t agree with me, you can always get your money back.”

Rich says his typical upsell converts at around 30%-40%. The mystery box? No excuses to say no? That converted at 75%.

​​Twice the sales. For less effort. Might be worth a try in your business as well.

And since you’ve read this far, let me ask you a question:

Do you trust me? I promise you that the free offer that’s waiting at this link is worth 100x the price I’m asking for it. Try it today and see for yourself, and if you don’t agree, you can always get your entire investment back.

Rejection-then-retreat in negotiation, pick up, and sales funnels

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Would you do me a favor real quick? It’s going to be painless and won’t cost you a cent:

​​Would you go on Amazon right now and leave a review for my book The 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters? It doesn’t matter if you’ve read the book or not.

I’m waiting.

What, you’re still here?

No review for me?

That’s too bad. I’m a little saddened to be honest. But then please at least read this article to the end.

I myself have been re-reading Robert Cialdini’s Influence for the past several days. And since I’m a slow reader, I’ve only gotten as far as Chapter 2, Reciprocity.

You know what reciprocity is. It’s when you do somebody a favor… and that way you oblige them to do you a favor in turn. It’s a standard technique of grifters, conmen, and Hare Krishna devotees, because it works even if you force a favor on the other person.

I remembered that much about Cialdini’s book. But I forgot about the other kind of reciprocity Cialdini describes.

Cialdini calls this other method rejection-then-retreat. That’s when, rather than forcing a favor, you force a concession.

It’s simple to do:

You start out with a big first ask. When that’s rejected, you back off to what you really wanted all along. You’ve made a concession… now it’s the other guy’s turn.

Very devious. Very clever. And very familiar, when you think about it.

It’s the standard way people negotiate. “$10k? Oh no, absolutely not. This Miata is worth at least $22k. But I guess I could let it go for 18… 14? No, you’ve gotta be kidding me. 17 and that’s my final offer. 16? Deal.”

It’s also a standard gambit for pickup artists. I won’t give you the salacious details here. You can use your own imagination.

And finally, rejection-and-retreat is in play in every modern sales funnel, which features a front-end offer, some upsells, and inevitably, downsells if you don’t take the upsell:

“All right, so you don’t want the incredibly valuable lifetime subscription to Cat & Mouse Stockpicking Alerts for only $4,999. Will you at least accept a 2-year subscription, for only $387?”

And since you’ve read my post to the end, let me tell you this:

This reciprocity stuff is powerful. Do it right, and you can really manipulate people, even against their own interest. But beware.

Reciprocity is a perfect example of what I wrote about a couple days ago. It’s a technique that can wear out quick if you abuse it. And when it wears out, you won’t just lose that one-time sale. You will also lose the chance to do business with that person, probably for life.

Oh, and if you think I’ve done you any kind of a favor by exposing you to this devious rejection-then retreat stuff… then you know how to repay me. I have an email newsletter. Consider signing up for it. And if you decide you want to, here’s where to go.

Your first step to achieving natural authority

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I’ve got three quotes about celebrities for you, and then I will tell you about a hack. A hack to make you be seen as a natural-born leader — or at least a necessary ingredient for it.

But first, the quotes.

Quote 1:

“Patton believed that it was critical for a general to stand out and to be seen by his troops, a philosophy that conveniently coincided with his ego. He dressed impeccably in a colourful uniform and knee-high boots, sporting ivory-handled pistols.”

Quote 2:

“Long before ‘mumblecore’ became a film genre, critics complained about Brando’s speech patterns until it finally became clear they were an integral part of his performances.”

Quote 3:

“Prince’s handwriting was beautiful, with a fluidity that suggested it poured out of him almost involuntarily. It also verged on illegible. Even in longhand, he wrote in his signature style, an idiosyncratic precursor of textspeak that he’d perfected back in the eighties: ‘Eye’ for ‘I,” ‘U’ for ‘you,” ‘R’ for ‘are.'”

A few days ago, I started thinking about natural authority.

What makes it so that some people just seem imbued with the royal farr? So that they command obedience or respect or awe, even if they aren’t wearing a uniform… or standing on stage in front of an adoring crowd… or climbing alone, without ropes, up a 3,000-foot cliff of sheer rock?

Well, I wrote down a bunch of ideas. If you like, I’ll share them all with you in time.

Today I’ll just tell you about one. You can see it illustrated in the quotes above.

Got it? It’s just this:

Patton, Brando, and Prince all had a unique style. In some ways, a style completely beyond the pale of what was normal or acceptable.

In one case (Brando), it was probably inborn, or at least unconscious.

In another (Patton), it was clearly cultivated.

In the last (Prince), it was a bit of both.

So that’s your first step to natural authority, should you want that position in other people’s minds.

Maybe you already have your own inborn style. In that case, emphasize it.

Maybe you don’t. Then you can consciously build it.

And style can be anything. How you talk, how you write, how you dress, how you walk, how you spell. Some of them, or all. Whatever your audience can see. And maybe even stuff they can’t, because it’s somehow still likely to shine through.

It might not instantly make you a star or a king or queen. But like I said, I think it’s a necessary ingredient, at least in some form. So you might as well thinking about it now, while I write up the emails about the other bits you’ll need.

Emails? Yes, emails. I write a daily email newsletter. If you’d like to sign up for it, here’s where to go.

Screaming in terror at a loss of supreme intelligence

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John von Neumann was probably the smartest person of the 20th century. He didn’t have Einstein’s hair or the dopey absent-minded scientist look. That’s perhaps why he never became the icon like Einstein.

But according to friends and colleagues (a smart bunch made up of past and future Nobel laureates), von Neumann was the sharpest of them all. Eugene Wigner, who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics, said of Von Neumann, “Only he was fully awake.”

I first read about von Neumann in a textbook for a math class. There were little sidebars about the giants of the field, and von Neumann was in there. A few bits of von Neumann’s life story, as told in that sidebar, have stuck with me for years:

* While von Neumann was a kid, his parents would get him to perform mental tricks at parties they hosted. ​​A guest would randomly choose a page of the phone book. Little 6-year-old Jancsi would look at the page for a few moments. And then he could answer any question about who had what phone number and what phone number had who.

* Unlike most of his physicist and mathematician colleagues, von Neumann was a sociable animal. He liked loud music, drinking, and partying.

* Probably due to his work on building the first atom bomb, von Neumann developed cancer at age 52. The disease progressed quickly and he died a few months after he was diagnosed. And in those last few months, von Neumann’s mental powers started to lapse. Colleagues could hear him screaming in terror at the loss.

Here’s what gets me:

Even with an advanced stage of cancer, I’m sure von Neuman’s brain was still a few standard deviations ahead of the rest of us. And yet it didn’t matter.

Because it’s never really about what you’ve got. Only change matters. Positive change is nice. Negative change is terrifying. It’s feeling the ground give way under you as you’re sucked into a sinkhole.

I’m not sure what my point is today. I certainly don’t think that harping on real or possible loss is the best way to lead off a message. People have heard it too much and they’ve become wary.

But if you want to really understand the people in your market… their motivations… their hesitations… then you’ll have to look at their loss, or their fear of loss. Of health, of money, or even of perceived intelligence.

Speaking of which:

Have you thought about another day passing, without learning anything new to make you better at making sales and persuading people of your value? Pretty terrifying, isn’t it?

There’s an easy fix though. Each day I write a short new email, with a marketing or copywriting lesson, wrapped up in some kind of story. Not always as depressing as today’s. If you want to try out those emails and see if they soothe your sense of dread, click here and fill out the form.

Scared of being indoctrinated? Then don’t watch this video

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According to celebritynetworth.com, marketer Greg Renker is worth $600 million. It’s possible that’s lowballing poor Greg.

​​After all, the company Greg cofounded some 30 years ago, Guthy-Renker, does more than $2 billion worth of sales each year.

Guthy-Renker is a big beast. And today, they market in all kinds of channels. But for a long time, their bread and butter was one main medium — infomercials.

They got started by selling the book Think And Grow Rich on TV. They made $10 million from that.

And then they had a much bigger hit – selling a set of self-help audio tapes called Personal Power. The author of Personal Power? A young Tony Robbins.

I heard Greg Renker tell an interesting story about Tony. Greg said there was this secret book that Tony really liked and read and over. Nobody else knew about it. I guess this was around the late 1980s.

So Greg and all his team went out and also bought the book and devoured it. “Aha! That’s the secret to Tony’s charisma and success…”

Well the book is not a secret any more. It’s called Influence, and it was written by Robert Cialdini. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, and you’ve probably read it too.

Like I said, I guess this must have been in the late 1980s. It must have been before the Personal Power infomercial came out in 1990. Because that infomercial is like Cialdini’s Influence come to life on TV.

The infomercial starts out by showing you Hollywood celebrities… world-class athletes… and members of Congress… all lining up to hear what this young guy named Tony has to say.

Then there a bunch of testimonials by ordinary folks. Their finances and family lives and emotional well-being have all been transformed. Just by listening to Tony’s tapes.

Then you see Tony and Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton. They’re getting into a helicopter, which Tony pilots himself. They fly from Tony’s castle in San Diego to Tony’s second home, in Palm Springs.

Finally, after about 5 minutes of buildup, you see Tony close up and you hear him speak.

He’s a really good-looking guy. And he flashes you his warm, genuine smile, and he starts to talk in a confident and yet humble tone.

That’s like chapters 4 through 6 of Influence right there.

No wonder Dan Kennedy, who was an advisor for Guthy-Renker from day one, said they could have put anybody in Tony’s place and the tapes would still sell.

Maybe Dan was exaggerating. But not a lot.

Sure, you might not have Guthy-Renker’s resources. And the guru you’re promoting might not have Tony Robbins’s credibility or winning smile.

But all those things from the start of the Personal Power infomercial can be done on a smaller scale. And they will still work to build up anybody, well, almost anybody, into a powerful but benevolent god who needs to be obeyed.

Anyways, if you haven’t watched the Personal Power infomercial, I think it’s worth your time. Just be careful. Because you can get sucked in.

For example, I got sucked in. I listened to the infomercial a few times for the marketing education… and the next thing you know, I have Tony’s actual program on repeat and I re-listen to it from beginning to end, every six months or so.

But if the prospect of getting indoctrinated doesn’t scare you too much… then click below to see Influence in action:

Anniversary analysis

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Exactly five years ago, I woke up in the morning next to my girlfriend-at-the-time. It was our one-year anniversary. We were traveling together and staying at a friend’s house.

The night before, I had hidden my present for her near the bed. So now I reached for it, and I suppose with a kiss and something about a happy anniversary, I gave her the present.

It was a gold necklace. I’d spent quite a bit of time, effort, and money in the hunt for it. I thought it was very pretty. My mom, who helped with the hunt, thought so also.

I don’t know what my ex thought.

But when I gave her the necklace, she started to cry. Not tears of joy.

I didn’t bother asking what was wrong. In my experience with women, that’s not a question that gets a useful or honest answer.

But it’s not just women. People are like that. They often cannot or will not express the things that matter most to them. Sometimes, they can’t even face those things directly in consciousness.

I’ll never know why my ex was crying that morning. But I have some ideas.

And that’s the only good thing about this human habit.

Even though people are secretive with their deep-down fears, disappointments, and hopes, we all have these. And they are not that many in number.

So if you listen to enough people or read enough stories, you will eventually collect a complete catalogue of these personal secrets. ​​You’ll have a good idea of what’s going on inside people — without even asking what’s wrong.

​​And then you can decide what to do, for your own benefit, or for theirs.

Ok, so much for reminiscing. Now looking forward, specifically to tomorrow:

I write an email newsletter. About persuasion, marketing, and copywriting. To the successful marketers and copywriters who susbcribe to this newsletter, I send an email each day, much like what you’ve just read. If you’d like to try it out yourself, you can sign up here.

How to get your worst customers or clients foaming with rage at you and impotent to do anything about it

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I was walking home down a dark street just now. It was empty and quiet and I was lost in thought when — screaming and scratching — a cat scrambled out of a dumpster right next to me and bolted away.

I won’t lie. The bitch startled me. I might have missed a step and my heart definitely missed two beats.

I cursed out the cat and collected myself. I turned around to make sure nobody saw me in my unmanly state. And I picked up my path home, still a little alarmed.

“But what about the cat?” I thought. “I bet I gave her a good scare, too. Must be why she bolted like that! But she deserved it.” And a sly smile spread across my face.

You might think I’m a miserable person to gloat over possibly scaring a cat. Perhaps you’re right. But I’m reporting the more shameful parts of my life to bring you an idea. A copywriting idea. A copywriting idea which I think might be powerful.

It goes like this:

1. Think of your prospect

2. Think of other people who are around your prospect, and who are causing your prospect fear, harm, humiliation, despair, etc.

3. Write your headline: Here’s how to cause fear, harm, humiliation, despair, etc. to those other people

You may this is deranged. Again, perhaps you’re right. But aren’t you at least curious to see this idea in action? If so, here are three successful examples:

1. Gary Halbert. Selling his own newsletter. His prospect? Anybody who’s trying to sell something… and is finding it frustrating or even humiliating. Gary’s headline:

How to make people line up and beg you to take their money!

2. A top Clickbank offer right now, called His Secret Obsession. It’s targeted at women. Who want to win a man’s “love, attention, and total devotion for LIFE.” But not just any man! There’s a very specific guy these women have in mind, because (my guess)… they are OBSESSED.

3. John Carlton. Like Gary, John also poked into dark places of the soul. It might be horrible… but it works. Even to sell golf instructional videos:

How Does An Out-Of-Shape 55-Year-Old Golfer, Crippled By Arthritis And 71 Lbs. Overweight, Still Consistently Humiliate PGA Pros In Head-To-Head Matches By Hitting Every Tee Shot Further And Straighter Down The Fairway?

“The answer will shock and delight you!” writes John.

​​I bet. After all, just imagine. You’re not as disadvantaged as this overweight, crippled golfer… and Tom, Dick, and Horace down at the country club definitely aren’t PGA pros… so the humiliation will be immense! But they deserve it.

By the way, if you’re curious about the “How to” promise in my headline today… you can find these special client management strategies inside my daily email newsletter. Here’s where to sign up.

Anatomy of a laugh that didn’t happen

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“I can handle this. Handle is my middle name. Actually, handle is the middle of my first name. [Insert canned laughter]”
– Chandler Bing, Friends

You probably know from Cialdini’s Influence about the power of social proof. That’s why shows like Friends insert canned laughter. We laugh more when we hear other people laughing, even if we know it’s fake.

But:

It turns out to be more tricky than that.

Some scientists in Australia tested this out. They wanted to see if WHO is laughing matters. And the answer is yes.

I won’t burden you with the details of the experiment. In a nutshell, the study subjects (university students) had to listen to audio recordings of a standup comic, with canned laughter and without. But there was a twist:

One group of students was told that the canned laughter was other students from the same university.

A second group of students was told that the canned laughter was sympathizers of Australia’s far-right One Nation party, which apparently would like to build a wall with Mexico, and have Mexico pay for it.

And the results?

When the canned laughter was present, group one laughed four times more than without the canned laughter. Makes sense. Other people like them found the material funny. So Cialdini was right, and so was Friends.

But no such thing happened in group two. The students didn’t laugh any more with the canned laughter than they did without it. How could they? Obviously the comic isn’t very good if those horrible xenophobes find him so funny.

I’m telling you about this because it applies to direct marketing as well.

Just like the producers of corny sitcoms, marketers know about the power of social proof. That’s why we stick tons of testimonials into our sales letters.

And testimonials are good. But:

Testimonials are much better if they come from people like the prospect. (At least that’s what Dan Kennedy says, but he should know.) You want to find testimonials that have the same gender… same race… same age… same ideas about building the wall… as your prospect does.

And what if you don’t have any testimonials like that?

Well, then you can just sweep your arm over your offer and say something like,

“I write a daily email newsletter. Many successful marketers and copywriters find it very valuable. Click here to subscribe.”

Influence 2.0 (your choice)

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“The washing machine cannot be fixed,” my landlady texted me today. “So I don’t know what’s better. To replace it and bother you with the workers coming and going. Or to just have you wash your stuff at my place.”

I considered my options.

It would be nice to have a working washing machine. But I’ll only be in the apartment until the end of the month. The landlady lives downstairs. And she does have a point. Workers coming and going to take out the old machine and set up the new one… it would be a hassle and a distraction.

“No problem,” I texted back, “I’ll do the laundry at your place.”

Only then did it occur to me how this was a clever strategy on her part. Had she said, “The washing machine cannot be fixed. But it’s no problem! Just use mine! It will be easiest for you!” Had she said that, I would have raised all kinds of objections. At least in my mind.

As you might know, what the landlady did is a classic persuasion technique. It’s called giving people a menu. From Jonah Berger’s  book The Catalyst:

Try to convince people to do something, and they spend a lot of time counterarguing. Thinking about all the various reasons why it’s a bad idea or why something else would be better. Why they don’t want to do what was suggested.

But give people multiple options, and suddenly things shift.

Rather than thinking about what is wrong with whatever was suggested, they think about which one is better. Rather than poking holes in whatever was raised, they think about which of the options is best for them. And because they’ve been participating, they’re much more likely to go along with one of them in the end.

Berger gives examples of using menus to persuade your kids to brush their teeth and your clients to accept your plan of action. But here’s a warning:

If you abuse this, it can turn into a standard pushy salesman’s grift. “So Mr. Bejako… do you want that new Miata in red… or in black?”

“Hold on buddy. I never said I want a Miata. Why are you trying to trick me?”

So keeping this in mind, I want to leave you with a couple of choices. Of course, you are perfectly free to ignore both and to take no action.

Choice one is to go and check out Berger’s The Catalyst, which I mentioned above. I really like this book, and I think of it as a kind of 2.0 version of Cialdini’s Influence. If you want to see why, check out this page for more info about The Catalyst:

https://bejakovic.com/catalyst

Choice two is to not bother reading the nearly 300 pages of The Catalyst. Instead you can simply sign up for my email newsletter. That’s where I share the best marketing and persuasion ideas I come across.

In fact, that’s where I already shared some great ideas from The Catalyst, and where I’m sure to share more. Here’s where to click if you’d like to sign up.

Man, or mouse?

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Marketer Andre Chaperon once wrote an intriguing email/article titled, Chefs vs. Cooks. Here’s the gist in Andre’s words:

When you go to a restaurant: there are two types of people who cook the food that diners order.

One type typically works in Michelin star establishments, like the Aviary in Chicago, or Gordon Ramsay in London, or the Mirazur in Menton, France.

These people are called chefs.

The other type are cooks.

You’ll find them in places like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Chili’s Grill & Bar. Even your local “pretty good” restaurant.

The difference between the two is vast, of course.

Andre’s point is that there are chefs and cooks among marketers too. “Nothing wrong with that,” Andre suggests. “The world needs both!”

Thanks, Andre. But who the hell wants to be the marketing equivalent of a pimply 16-year-old, wearing a Wendy’s paper hat, shoveling out 15 lbs. of french fries from a cauldron of bubbling canola oil?

Nobody, of course. Not if they have a choice. Which is why Andre offers you the choice to join his course for creators at the end of his Chefs vs. Cooks pitch.

Dan Kennedy calls this man-or-mouse copy. And he explains how this isn’t just about men, or mice, or chefs, or cooks:

Great direct response copy makes people identify themselves as one or the other. Great direct response copy is all about divide and conquer. It is all about, you tell us who you are — smart/dumb, winner/loser, etc. — and then we’ll tell you the behavior that matches who you just said you are.

Dan says this is one of the four governing principles at the heart of each of his hundreds of successful campaigns.

Which brings up a man-or-mouse moment for you:

A lot of marketers have a certain contempt for their market. “Make them pay,” these marketers whisper. “Because when they pay, they pay attention.”

In other words, these marketers think most people are too stupid to value a thing properly if it’s given away for free.

And you know what? There’s probably truth to this.

But I hope you’re smarter than that.

Because that Dan Kennedy quote above, about making people identify themselves, is from Dan’s speech that I linked to yesterday.

This was the keynote speech at the Titans of Direct Response. The Titans event cost something like $5k to attend… and it still costs several thousand if you want to get the tapes.

But for some reason, at some point, Brian Kurtz, who put on the Titans event, made Dan’s keynote presentation available for free online. In my opinion, Dan’s is the most valuable presentation of the lot. And if that’s something you can appreciate, you can find it at this link. But before you go —

I also have an email newsletter. If you got value out of this post, and if you’re about to go watch Dan Kennedy’s presentation, there’s a good chance you will like the emails I send. If you want to try it out, you can sign up quickly here. And then go and watch that Dan Kennedy presentation.