Clickbank

My fruitful first Clickbank failure

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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of my first-ever book. Well… book might be a bit grandiose.

It was more like an 85-page pdf. And by publication, I really just mean I put it up on Clickbank for sale.

The title of this thing was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. The background was this:

10 years ago, I was a dissatisfied office drone working at an IT company. Day after day, I’d sit at my computer, drumming my fingers on the desk, looking out the window as the sun set at 4pm. “And I still have to sit here and pretend to work for 2 more hours!” I wanted to get free.

And then I heard about Mike Geary. Mike was making a million dollars a month selling his own 85-page pdf, The Truth About Abs, on Clickbank.

How could I do the same?

Fortunately, the same source who clued me in to Mike Geary (Tim Ferriss) also clued me in to that most highly revered and valuable guide to direct marketing:

Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters.

Being the bookish type that I am, I got the Boron Letters and I read them. At the time, I wasn’t sure what exactly was so great about them. But I did get one thing from Gary, and that’s when he talks about how to create an info product:

1. Pick a topic
2. Read 5 of the best books on the topic and take notes
3. Write up your own book/85-page report with the best information taken from those other books
4. Make millions!

And here we get to the crossroads.

Because in an unusual move for me… I actually put the Boron Letters down… stared at the void for a bit… and then took a hesitating, first step forward.

In other words, I stopped reading and actually did what Gary was telling me to do. I followed his steps 1-3.

The outcome was the Salary Negotiation Blueprint. I put it up on Clickbank. And then, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation of step 4 aaaand…

Total sales? 0. Total money made? $0. Total learning experience?

Well, with 10 years of hindsight and about 6 years of working as a direct response copywriter, let me highlight a few of the mistakes I made with this first project:

1. Name. I went with Salary Negotiation Blueprint just because every other info product at the time was “something something blueprint.”

But what exactly was the promise in my name? That with my blueprint, you could… negotiate? Not very tempting.

2. “Affiliates will love it!” No, they won’t.

You can see public lists of what Clickbank affiliates love to promote, and salary negotiation guides are not it. This was a lesson I could have learned from the Boron Letters — sell to a starving crowd.

3. My market. What profile of person is going to buy an ebook on salary negotiation?

I can’t say, because I never managed to sell a single copy. But my guess is, these aren’t exactly players with money. More likely to be schlubs on a budget — much like me at the time.

6. The back end. What can you sell to somebody who bought a guide on salary negotiation? A course on networking over the water cooler? Or a guide on Slack tips and tricks, maybe? It feels like grasping at straws.

Ultimately, salary negotiation is a one-time need. Which is bad — because the profits come on the back end.

7. The price. I can’t remember the price. I think I started out at $37, and when I failed to make any sales there, I moved it down to $17, where I continued to fail to make sales.

But whether at $37 or at $17, my price was completely disconnected to the value of my offer. There was zero thought or strategy to it.

So there you go. Maybe you can learn a bit about direct marketing from my mistakes above. Or maybe you knew all this simple stuff before.

Either way, you’re in a good place.

Because there are mountains of people out there who don’t know even these basics of direct marketing and copywriting.

​​And not all these people are as clueless and unsuccessful as I was 10 years ago. Some of them have working businesses — even thriving businesses — in spite of awful, self-defeating marketing.

But you’ve probably heard this claim before.

I know I heard it for a long time. And all I could say is, “Well, where are all these mountains of business owners who could benefit from my growing marketing knowledge? I’m ready to help them out!”

The perverse truth is, they seem to pop up the most when you no longer need them.

A part of it is simply your level of skills. But a part of it is the exposure you give yourself.

In other words, you can shortcut the process somewhat, by giving yourself more exposure. Which brings me to my ongoing offer:

You can get a free copy of my Niche Expert Cold Emails training.

This training covers two cold email strategies that got me in touch with a couple of business owners, one with a working business, and the other with a thriving business.

All in all, these cold emails led to $16k worth of copywriting work. Not Mike Geary money, but an important step on my journey away from office dronedom. And I’m sure I could have gotten more work from these emails, had I just used them more consistently.

The training is yours free right now, as part of a promotion I’m trying out. For the full details, take a look here:

https://bejakovic.com/free-offer-niche-expert-cold-emails/

“Sign of the Elephant Guarantee”

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Right now, the top seller in the competitive “manifestation” niche on Clickbank is an offer called the BioEnergy Code.

The VSL for this offer tells the story of Angela Carter, a woman on a journey to find wealth, health, and a feeling of connectedness… by following the golden thread of the elephant.

Elephant?

Yes, elephant.

First, Angela walks into a bookstore in her home town. She closes her eyes and prays for guidance. And she spots a travel guide with an elephant on it.

Next thing you know, Angela’s traveled to Nepal. A boy on the street tugs on her shirt. “Go see the elephants,” he says, and he points across the street.

This leads Angela to a guru who tells her the secret of manifesting anything she wants.

She manifests a new and amazing life for herself. She’s ready to head back home. And she wants to make the guru’s secret public, so others could benefit also. But the guru balks.

“This knowledge stays in Nepal!”

But our hero is prepared. “What if we contribute a portion of each sale to a save-the-elephants charity?”

The guru mulls this over for a second. “Deal!”

This explains why you can now buy the BioEnergy Code for $37 on Clickbank. Pretty standard stuff and not particularly inventive. But this next part is.

When it’s time to close the sale on the set of guided meditation mp3s and chakra-release PDFs, Angela makes the following guarantee:

I call it the “Sign of the Elephant Guarantee”.

Here’s how it works.

Within 24 hours of saying “yes” to The BioEnergy Code…

I guarantee you’ll receive an unmistakable “sign” that you’re on the right path.

It’ll feel like something just got unblocked so you can see your path more clearly than ever.

It may not be an “elephant” like it was for me in Barnes & Noble and the tea shop in Kathmandu…

But it WILL be so clear and so unmistakable, it will be the “Elephant in the Room” – a sign that your fields of BioEnergy are about to be cleared and unleashed.

All I ask is that you give your source 24 hours to manifest this elephant in the room sign.

And if you don’t experience this elephant size sign, simply email me and I’ll promptly refund every penny.

I thought this was genuinely clever. This short bit of copy does so much.

I sat down, and off the top of my head, I wrote 7 good things that come out of this guarantee. I was going to highlight the most valuable of these 7 things in this email, but I realized they are all too important.

So I will make you an offer with a 100% no-questions-asked money-back guarantee… for a full 24 hours.

I call it the “Sign of Clickbank Insight.”

Here’s how it works:

Within 24 hours of reading this email, I guarantee you will receive an unmistakable sign having to do with Clickbank.

Oh, it might not be a big Clickbank logo on a sales page that you visit. But it will be there if you watch for it.

It might be some email newsletter mentioning Clickbank… or it might be an online run-in with a copywriter or marketer, such as Stefan Georgi or Ian Stanley or Chris Haddad, who has been closely tied to Clickbank in the past.

Once you see the sign, you will feel a clear and unmistakable lightbulb moment. “Aha! So this is what that Bejakovic guy was talking about!”

I guarantee this will happen. All I ask is that you give the universe 24 hours to organize this moment of insight for you.

And when it happens, then sign up to my email newsletter.

Reply to my welcome email and tell me about the sign that you saw… and I will spell out the 7 chakras of the “Sign of the Elephant guarantee.”

I mean, I will tell you what I thought was so good about this guarantee… and how you can use this in your own marketing and copy to one day make it to the top of your own Clickbank category.

Or… your money back.

Copy Koala Millions™

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What if your pillow could do more than just help you sleep at night?

What if it could do something unbelievably good for you…

Like instantly give you MORE powerful copywriting skills than years of study ever could…

Putting your brain into full “copy god” mode as soon as you wake up in the morning…

Allowing you to effortlessly stamp out royalty-producing sales letters, emails, and Facebook ads IN JUST A FEW MINUTES’ TIME…

Knowing you’re now automatically and effortlessly zooming towards your wealth and income dreams… while burying the gnawing doubts and insecurities that have held you back for so long?

And what if it could also implant into your head ALL the copywriting courses you’ve ever bought…

While dramatically increasing your productivity… opening up secret doors to new opportunities… and skyrocketing your status in the industry?

Wouldn’t that be INCREDIBLE?

Well, when you consider the latest breakthrough, peer-reviewed studies on creativity and learning… from the most well-respected universities and research departments on the planet…

Or if you ask the countless thousands of women and men of all ages, from all walks of life, who have found this email before you…

You’ll find that this is not only possible…

But you should actually EXPECT your pillow to deliver you all of this and more.

And all it takes is just a tiny, 10-second tweak to your night-time routine that you’re about to see…

Ok, I’d like you to slowly emerge from your hypnotic trance and become aware of the real world once again.

The truth is, I do not yet have a magic offer called Copy Koala Millions™, which transforms you into an A-list copywriter while you sleep. But I have been working on it.

The backstory is that I went on Clickbank a few days ago. Among the Clickbank top 10, three weight loss offers all showed the same trend:

* Lose weight by stuffing your face (Biofit)

* Lose weight by sucking on smoothies (Smoothie Diet)

* Lose weight by sipping coffee (Java Burn, which I modeled for the copy above)

In each case, the mechanism is NOT some exotic discovery or awesome invention.

​​Instead, the mechanism is a beloved everyday activity. In fact, it’s probably something the prospect is already doing all the time.

So that’s how I got the idea for Copy Koala Millions™. Because lying down to sleep is one of my beloved activities. There are few things that thrill me as reliably as putting my head to pillow each night. I can’t be the only one, right?

It’s the old direct response advice:

Come up with the ultimate, magic-wand offer. Promise your prospect all the outcomes he could ever dream of… done for him by some benevolent external genie… who smiles kindly and shushes away all the objections your prospect used to have.

So that’s step one. Figure out exactly what your prospect would irrationally love to hear.

Step two is to then dial it back or pay it off so your offer isn’t a complete hoax.

In the case of Copy Koala Millions™ I’m happy to say I deliver fully on the promise.

At a special launch price of just $67, I’ll sell you an mp3 player preloaded with copywriting audio courses, masked with pink noise.

Simply turn on Copy Koala and place it under your pillow at night — takes just 10 seconds. You can also upload other courses you’ve bought if you want. In case you don’t have a pillow right now, I’ll be selling that as a $197 upsell.

Normally, at this point in my email, I would invite a response. “Write in and pre-order Copy Koala Millions™,” I would say, “at a special 75% discount. Offer good only until this Thursday.”

But I’m a little hesitant to do that. We haven’t yet ironed out all the kinks with the pink noise and I don’t want to get swamped with orders I can’t fulfill. So I’ll hold off for today.

Instead, I’d just like to point out that the underlying idea might be valuable to you. Because the weight loss market is definitely buying this “coffee” mechanism right now.

​​And the weight loss market is like New York City — the fashion that’s popular there today will be popular everywhere next year. Might be worth keeping an eye on. I know I will be doing it. And if you want to find out what new trends I spot, sign up here for my email newsletter, and prepare to be hypnotized.

Stupid email from: tricks

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A few weeks ago, I got an email with the subject line, “Once in a lifetime sit in….on this?? 😳.” The email was from “Your Official Invit.”

“Hm,” I said. “Who is this Invit and what does he want?” I opened the email.

It turned out to be from Clickbank, promoting their Platinum Summit event. I don’t remember ever getting any emails from Clickbank before.

Then a few days passed and I got an email from “A story you’ll love.” Again more trickery. It was really Clickbank again.

Then more emails. From “Your first sale.” From “Your boss.” And from “Future John.” Clickbank. Clickbank. Clickbank.

I finally unsubscribed.

I’ve never seen these stupid email from: tricks done well. And by done well, I mean done so it didn’t piss me off and so it made me want to buy whatever they were selling. Or even just read the email.

And so I thought I would certainly never try this myself.

But, maybe… maybe I will change my mind.

Because it turns out it can be done well. I saw Dan Kennedy do it well.

Dan of course never sent emails. But he did send sales letters and package inserts from characters like Viva The “Broken English” Cleaning Lady and Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant. The Oscar one starts out with a cartoon of a scowling elephant with boxing gloves on. Then there’s a headline which reads:

John, A Nasty Note From Oscar The Obnoxious Elephant
You might want to read carefully. You’ve already won a prize. Not that I think you deserve it.

This works. Not because it comes from Dan Kennedy. But because it’s entertaining and builds up the relationship instead of tearing it down (not that there ever was one, Clickbank).

I’m not sure I will ever figure out how to do this with made-up characters in email.

But maybe, if in the future you see an unfamiliar email from Casper The Clickbank Camel… consider it might be this guy right here.

Oh. But I forgot. You’re not subscribed to my email newsletter. If you’d like to fix that, so you and Casper can stay in touch, then here’s where to go.

Converting ecommerce buyers to info buyers with a hot new claim

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Yesterday, I sent a surprisingly profitable email to a list I manage. Most of what follows about this is conjecture and hearsay, but it might prove valuable to you anyhow.

First, a bit of background:

The email list in question is made up of buyers of various household gizmos and as-seen-on-TV doodads.

Reusable paper towels made out of bamboo fibers…

“Bioceramic” orbs to do away with laundry detergent…

Anti-mosquito sonic bracelets.

When I imagine the kinds of people who buy this stuff, the phrase “magic button” appears before my eyes.

In other words, these are people who want their problems solved for them… and who are willing to pay a premium to get the solution in the form of a physical product.

That’s why I haven’t had much success promoting information products to this list. Clickbank bestsellers? Not interested. In fact, I’d all but given up on info products — until yesterday.

Yesterday, I didn’t really have a good offer to promote. So I went on Clickbank, searched among the “green products” category, and selected the best seller, an information product about “reconditioning” dead batteries.

I sent this out to my list, not expecting much. But like I said, it did business. In fact, out of the dozens of affiliate offers I’ve tested out, this came out second or third.

What made these “magic button” buyers plop down good money to get information? In other words, what convinced them to pay, not for a done-for-you solution, but for just blueprints to a solution?

Of course, my email talked about the money a typical family could save by reconditioning car batteries. But it did one better.

It also claimed that, with this battery resurrection knowledge, you could actually make money. You could get free, worn-out batteries, recondition them, and then put them up on Ebay for a nice profit.

So here’s where the conjecture part starts:

I feel that, thanks to the current moment of uncertainty and lost jobs and lots of people sitting at home, bizopp or make money online offers are not just blowing up… but are going mainstream.

This is supported by things I’m hearing from people who publish real estate investing products. They all say their businesses are growing like never before.

Like I said, conjecture and hearsay. But if you are a copywriter, or a business owner, it might be worthwhile taking the claim that your offer helps people make money — and bolting it on to your other, standard, proven claims.

If I’m right, and God knows that happens a good 50% of the time, then this bizopp appeal will work even in mainstream, magic-button markets. Markets that would never have responded to make money offers or paid for information, only a few months ago.

Speaking of which:

Have you heard about my email newsletter? I send out daily emails. Things to help you get better at copywriting and marketing. And to make money. You can sign up for the newsletter here.