Ad Money Machine

The only marketing subscription I pay for each month

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I don’t pay for any copywriting newsletter, print or digital.

I don’t pay for any marketing mastermind.

I don’t pay for any monthly coaching, community, or support built around an industry guru or expert.

Nothing wrong if you pay for any of these. I’ve paid for all of them in the past. But it’s been at least a couple years since I paid for any kind of marketing info subscription each month.

Well, except one.

I pay for it now.

I’ve been doing so for a little over a year.

I keep paying for it each month because I find it 1) interesting and 2) valuable. And because I find it interesting and valuable, I find time most days to at least give a quick glance to the latest daily edition, and often I have a thorough sit-down read.

This marketing info subscription is Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine.

As you might know, Lawrence a direct marketing expert who’s been in the game for a few decades.

Lawrence also happens to have a passion for research and archiving and detail. And his Ad Money Machine basically gives you interesting and valuable ads, ranging over the past 100+ years of direct marketing… plus Lawrence’s expert commentary on the why and how and who and who else behind each ad.

It’s as good of a source for marketing insight and inspiration as I’ve been able to find.

Ad Money Machine costs $97/month. You can go sign up for it now. But maybe, probably, you’re not ready to “go steady” with Lawrence based on just my quick and surface description of what he offers.

So I’d like to suggest a “coffee date.”

Lawrence has put together a guide called “How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes.” It gives you a perfect flavor for what Lawrence does – a collection of fascinating and effective ads from the past, all tied together with a common theme, along with Lawrence’s commentary and analysis, which you can’t find anywhere else on the Internet.

“How To Turn Fascinations Into Fortunes” normally sells for $97, the same as a month of Lawrence’s Ad Money Machine subscription.

But for the next day or so (the clock’s ticking), Lawrence is making this guide available to you, just because you happen to be a reader of this newsletter, for only $7.

Final word:

I’m not an affiliate for this offer. I don’t get paid whether you buy it or not. I can tell you I did buy this offer myself, for my own purposes, several weeks ago, before I ever had any plans on promoting it to you.

If you’d like to find out more about it, while Lawrence’s sizable discount is still live:

​https://bejakovic.com/fascinations​

Persuasion, Plan B:

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This past week, Lawrence Bernstein shared, via his Ad Money Machine, a very risky but very effective direct mail sales letter that ran some 15 years ago.

The teaser headline on the envelope read,

“Retirement, Plan B:”

… and then in smaller font, the copy went on to explain how you could now enroll and collect up to $120,000 each year, for the rest of your life, in the form of “pension paychecks.”

Pension paychecks?

As Lawrence said, “I don’t have the risk tolerance for such a promo, nor the legal team to cover me in case. But there’s no denying the success of this promo, based on its longevity.”

Maybe there’s something we can learn from this promo, without crossing over into risky legal waters.

Enter “Persuasion, Plan B.”

Persuasion, Plan A is to make your best argument. To give your audience the big promise. To pile on the reasons why, the testimonials, the features, the benefits, the bonuses, the urgency.

In many situations, that will work just fine.

But what if it don’t?

Persuasion, Plan B is what you can try then. It’s what you can witness in the promo above.

And it’s to suddenly whip up a creative repackaging that sums up, often in just a word or two, all the appeals in your offer, and suggests other appeals also, even if they’re not really there in your offer. (It’s not always illegal.)

I’m thinking about putting together a one-evening workshop about this. About using this kind of repackaging in your headlines, your body copy, your emails, and most importantly and profitably, in the positioning and packaging of your offers.

Persuasion, Plan B.

Is this workshop something you’d be interested in? If so, hit reply and let me know. If there’s enough interest, I’ll put it on. Otherwise, we can stick with just Plan A.

$90k upsell to a $39 magazine subscription

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I found the following via Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine site. You gotta pay for that site, and I happily do. It clues me in to wonders like the following:

For the past dozen or more years, select subscribers to National Geographic magazine (one-year print subscription: $39) have been getting a unique sales letter in the mail.

The sales letter, which comes with an attractive brochure, is making a pitch for a $90k upsell — and apparently selling out the offer year after year.

I bet you’re curious what this $90k upsell could be. I mean, it’s quite a leap from $39. ​​What could possibly be worth it?

I’ll tell you.

The offer is called “Africa by Private Jet.” It involves:

* 20 days
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* 7 different countries

​* A private Boeing 757, refitted to accommodate just 51 expert travelers instead of the standard 233 budget sardines

​* Visits to the best big game, big ape, and big culture locations across Africa

​* Professional scientists as tour guides, an on-staff physician, and an expedition chef

​* An inaugural dinner with Jane Goodall in London (first stop of the trip) and a farewell dinner in Rome (last stop)

​* A safe, fascinating, hassle-free adventure; a feeling of importance and superiority; interesting dinner party stories for a lifetime; all backed by the good name of National Geographic Society

The sales letter made me want to go.

And it reminded me of Ken McCarthy’s Advanced Copywriting for Serious Info Marketers seminar.

One of Ken’s many messages in that seminar was that if you think a bit, you will find higher-ticket offers — which cost 2x, 10x, 100x, even 2,307x of what your front-end costs — and your best or very best customers will still happily buy.

There’s no shortcut to that bit of thinking.

But perhaps a good starting point is to conjure up an absolutely incredible experience or transformation you yourself would like to enjoy — and then just take others along with you on that trip.

Anyways, my offer today has little to do with the above National Geographic story, except the following:

Before he got to talking about upsells, Ken McCarthy spent the majority of that Advanced Copywriting seminar teaching what he believes to be the “most important, do-or-die copywriting skill.”

He first teased people in the seminar, and had them guess what they thought this skill might be. People guessed:

Stirring up curiosity?

Coming up with a big idea?

Sounding believable?

Nope. Ken had a mechanical skill in mind. And he said this one mechanical skill covers 90% of what it takes to be a copywriter. If you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/