Ben Settle

Bejakovic’s hierarchy of email marketing

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What’s the most important thing in email marketing? Ben Settle, in my opinion the top guy teaching this topic, has said that the number one thing he strives to do with email is to build a relationship.

It made sense to me when I first read it. But it seemed to click in my mind in a different way today, when I got an email from somebody in Ben’s sphere of influence.

The email had a Ben-style curiosity-drenched subject line. And yet, I purposefully chose not to open the email, because I know from previous experience that I don’t care too much for what that sender has to say.

That made me think a bit (specifically about the difference between levels 4 and 5 below). And the conclusion is the following hierarchy of email marketing.

The levels are ranked from least sophisticated to most sophisticated. For each level, I’m including a few examples of subject lines that represent that level, which I managed to dig up in my own inbox.

Level 1: Pointless

These tend to be emails from corporations and big organizations that have heard email marketing is important. However, since these organizations have no idea of what to put in their emails, they usually blast out pointless newsletters that are focused on random aspects of their own corporate existance (best case) or nothing at all (worst case). This is the lowest form of email marketing.

Example subject lines:

“New Bestcare website”
“#MakeBaobabFamous”
“What’s new in MailChimp?”

Level 2: Sale

The next level up is when the sender makes an offer. The offer can be a sale, a coupon, or a new product announcement. This works — if your readers are ready to buy and they just need to be nudged with the right kind of carrot. Unfortunately, many companies doing email marketing (especially in ecommerce) only ever send out these kinds of email.

Example subject lines:

“Your favorite mist, on us”
“Save 25% Now + Win a Trip to Maui”
“Get 33% OFF Absolutely EVERYTHING + FREE Shaker”

Level 3: Benefit

Now we’re getting into copywriting territory. “Sell the sizzle, not the steak!” This is where much of the Internet Marketing world lives. This category of emails is all about announcing (and frequently screaming) benefits — though I would also include transparent fear-mongering or urgency-based emails here.

Example subject lines:

“Higher T in 14 days”
“Boost your ranking with these SEO hacks”
“Closing: On-Demand Video Views = Sales”

Level 4: Curiosity

This is still a higher level of email copywriting, which is trying to persuade more skeptical, more sophisticated readers. At first blush, there can be overlap with emails in level 3, but these curiosity emails tend to be less direct and more broadly interesting than the benefit emails. Email courses (think Andre Chaperon) also go in this category.

Example subject lines:

“Do NOT do keto if…”
“The shocking truth about exercise”
“Why drug expiration dates don’t matter”

Level 5: Relationship

Finally, there is the highest level, relationship email marketing. That’s when readers open up your email and read it simply because they’ve grown to like and trust you over time.

This is the only kind of email marketing where you’re not living “email to email” — in other words, you can get away sending all sorts of random and personal stuff, even in the subject line, and people will still read on. In some way, this is coming full circle to the “Pointless” level — except that people actually want to hear what your opinions are and what’s new with you, because you’ve built that relationship.

Example subject lines:

“Bensplaining the importance of daily emails”
“BUSTED!”
“My new project”

“One weird trick for reaching the top of the ziggurat”

Now, there’s an important distinction between levels 1-4 and level 5.

Levels 1-4 are under your control. It’s simply a matter of what you put in the email.

However, you can’t force people to have a relationship with you. All you can really do is write good emails that will hopefully resonate with some of the people on your list.

Technical note: Being at the Relationship level doesn’t mean you only send out personal updates or rants. Quite the opposite. You can and should still frequently mix and match content from the different levels — even within one email. That’s how you get to — and stay at — the top.

The only way to evaluate copy

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Three wise men doing a copy critique

Professor Skridlov: Father Giovanni, how can you stay here instead of returning to Italy and giving the people there something of the faith which you are now inspiring in me?

Father Giovanni: Ah Professor. You do not understand man’s psyche as well as you know archeology. Faith cannot be given to men. Faith is not the result of thinking. It comes from direct knowledge.

I started re-reading Gene Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising. And right on the first page, he offers this warning:

“Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already-existing desires on a particular product.”

And here’s another related quote, this from Gary Halbert:

“You know, I’m sick to death of people who can’t be bothered with the little nitty-gritty details of “hands on” experience. Of people who believe that somehow they can know a thing without experiencing it. Listen: It is possible to be “conversant” with something and really not have any kind of “gut understanding” of it at all. I’m sorry, but no matter what your Mommy and Daddy told you, men can never really understand the pain of childbirth, priests cannot comprehend the joys of sex, “normies” can never understand alcoholics, and not one speck of true advertising wisdom has ever been written by a PhD.”

And finally, a bit from a recent Ben Settle email:

“This is, btw, why I don’t do critiques anymore. (Besides the fact I hate doing copywriting critiques) As Doug D’Anna put it in the same interview: ‘How can I offer somebody a copywriting critique on a piece of sales copy for a product or a prospect that I am 100 percent unfamiliar with?'”

Here’s how this ties together in my head.

Nobody can really judge good copy unless they are a prospect and ready to buy. Nice-sounding copy can bomb. Awful copy can sell.

So how do you write good copy? Research is important. So is experience. So is intuition. Then there’s feedback from other experts.

All that stuff is great, but ultimately, none of it is conclusive.

Fortunately, direct response copywriting is one area where we don’t have to agree to disagree. We can know which appeal is best. Even if we cannot see inside people’s hearts, and even though we cannot have their problems (or faith). And that’s simply through sales.

7 types of infotainment to stuff into your information product

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Right now, I am writing a book that I will sell through my essential oils site.

I know the subject matter very well, and I could drone on about it even if somebody slapped me awake in the dead of night.

But it’s boring to just hear lots of facts and warnings and instructions, and I worry that my book will turn out dull. Since I want people to actually read this book and to get something out of it, I have to make it fun as well as informative.

Enter infotainment: entertainment combined with information. It’s something I first heard about from email marketing headmaster Ben Settle. So for your benefit as well as mine, here are 7 different types of infotainment you can stuff to make your dry-as-dust information product more exciting:

1. Cartoons

Cartoons. Every few pages. They can be used to add some color, to lighten the mood, and to reinforce a point.

New Zealand marketing guru Sean D’Souza is a master of this. Here’s an example from one of Sean’s articles on infotainment:

2. Vignettes

The New Yroker magazine does this.

Vignettes are like cartoons, but they are smaller, spread over multiple pages, and not directly connected to the surrounding text. Here’s a couple of examples from the Aug. 22, 2016 issue:

3. Stories

Stories stick. They make otherwise boring content interesting. Plus they are fun to read.

I kick off my essential oils book by telling the true story of a 2-year-old boy who got burned in a fire, how his mom used essential oils to help his wounds heal more quickly, and how the surgeons marveled and approved from the sidelines. It’s a great story, and it illustrates the power of essential oils way better than arguing with statistics or hand-waving about anti-inflammatory molecules.

4. Fun break

If you read some of the sales letters by Gary “greatest living copywriter” Bencivenga, you will frequently come across sidebars.

Just like in a magazine, these sidebars serve as a fun break, a chance to talk about something interesting, and to draw attention to it.

For example, in the book I’m writing, while talking about different proven health benefits of lavender essential oil, I have a sidebar that talks about four entirely different locations around the world where lavender is grown.

And I include some local color. One of the places has a mysterious monument that a crusader supposedly set up. Another is a kind of Shangri-La, with perfect weather on an otherwise rainy and cold mountain. A third served as a prison for the last monarch of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

5. Images

Like cartoons. Images are best when they are both relevant and surprising, beautiful and informative. Kind of like the vignettes I included above.

6. Word fun

This is an area where Ben Settle shines. His emails are fun to read, and one of the big reasons why is all the creative and colorful and unexpected language he uses.

Plus they sound super-conversational. In fact, they are more conversational than real conversation.

Poet Anthony Madrid, who writes for the Paris Review, is also a past master at this. Here’s an example:

We take the phrase “once upon a time” for granted, but if you think about it, it’s quite oddball English. Upon a time—? That’s just a strange construction. It would be pleasant to know its history: When, more or less, does it get up on its legs? Around when does it become standard procedure? My researches into this question, however, have yielded nothing conclusive.

7. Analogies

Analogies are like stories: they make boring or preachy content palatable.

A few weeks back, I was working on a probiotics sales page, and I compared probiotics you can buy at the store to mystery meat in a rusty can. For the essential oils book, I’m planning on doing something similar, I just haven’t figured out yet what dangerous-but-familiar image to compare mommy blogs to.

So there you go. 7 ways to infotain. They are formulaic. They are mercenary. And they workses.