“I was in hell. I knew all the salesman’s tricks. Why wasn’t I rich? Why wasn’t I successful? I opened the Bible, and I read the 18th Psalm. ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress.’”
That’s from the “Christ in Commerce” sermon in Elmer Gantry, a 1960 film that I believe should be required viewing for anybody interested in copywriting, marketing, and influence.
Elmer Gantry should be required because fun should be required. And Elmer Gantry is a fun, loud, and entertaining film starring Burt Lancaster, possibly the most manly man of all time.
But Elmer Gantry should also be required because it’s about a huckster, a scammer, a traveling salesman turned revivalist preacher, once he figures out that preaching pays better than selling electric toasters.
Elmer Gantry tells of a time in US history that also gave birth to direct response advertising.
In fact, the Elmer Gantry type of big-tent sermonizing was a cousin discipline to direct response marketing.
It continues to be so to this day. Just think of people like Dan Kennedy and Tony Robbins — and the thousands of marketers who have learned from them — speaking in front of an audience of ten thousand, while a hungry sales team waits near the exits.
All right, that’s it for my email today. In case you’d like to learn how to write emails like this, you can find that inside my Most Valuable Email training. The link to that is below.
“Whoa there,” I hear you saying. “Why in the Elmer Gantry would I want to learn to write emails like this? Just something from an old movie? Where’s the cleverness or the conceit in that? Where’s the valuable marketing idea? What exactly did I learn here?”
I promise there’s a valuable idea in this email, and it’s not just that Elmer Gantry is a fun film.
Perhaps you can figure out this idea on your own.
In any case, you can find it explicitly explained in MVE #14 in the Most Valuable Email Swipes, which is something you get with core MVE training. In case you’re curious: