MercureCopy

Mysterious copy chief gets me moving

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Back in May, I wrote about the mysterious Mercure. That’s the pseudonym of a guy with a big following on copywriting Twitter.

Mercure ​​only reveals publicly that he is the copy chief of $10M company. He offers coaching to copywriters without them knowing his real name or even seeing his face.

(I happen to know Mercure’s real identity because I met him in real life. But I ain’t telling.)

Two weeks ago, for reasons of his own, Mercure bought himself a ticket to the Most Valuable Email show. He wrote me a few days later to report an “aha!” moment:

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Whew, what can I say! It’s a rollercoaster! I loved it!

It resonates with my way of writing, and puts some words and ideas on otherwise unconscious processes.

It wasn’t easy to follow at times, and it did require my full attention, but that’s due to the (circular) nature of the idea. Your fluid writing actually made things easier to get. And your choice of examples make everything clear in the end.

Truth be told, it did get me a “Aha!” moment, concerning my current sales letter, product, offer, and future newsletter. I’m now curious to see how it can be applied to others niches, even though you did say it may or may not work. I think it can, as it appears close to some of the “techniques” I’ve been using in the supplement niche.

All in all, I believe Copywriters fascinated by the architecture of persuasion will appreciate it a lot and find it indeed most valuable.

I think it deserves a second and third read to grab onto the smaller details, that’s what I’ll do in the coming days.

So thank you very much for this! I’ll be focusing on implementing the many lessons now. 🙂

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It always warms the old heart-cockles to get an endorsement like that. But Mercure wrote me something else that wasn’t as cockle-warming:

“I think you should absolutely raise your prices. 100 for MVE is a steal (I believe it.)”

Mercure told me he raised his prices for the group coaching he offers. Twice. Result:

* Less demand for his coaching
* Less work to do
* More money coming in

So while I wasn’t too happy to hear this message — I fight like a dying man against making any kind of change — I decided it was time to finally listen.

Like I announced yesterday, I will increase the price of Most Valuable Email from $100 to $297.

The price will change in two days’ time, on Tuesday at 8:31pm CET.

If you’d like to get Most Valuable Email, or rather steal it, before the price changes:

https://bejakovic.com/mve/

Anonymous personal guru

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“It’s anonymous,” he said. “They never see me or find out who I am.”

I took my face out from the little plate filled with different cheeses. I leaned back in my seat. “So how do you deliver it?”

“It’s just audio of me talking. They don’t see me. And I never say what my name is.”

I was getting excited. “But what about your high-end coaching clients, the ones who are paying you a grand?”

“Yeah, we get on a Zoom call. They do see my face, and I tell them my first name. But they still don’t know who I am.”

During the Gdansk conference, I met a copywriter who’s kind of a big thing on copywriting Twitter. But his Twitter account is anonymous. He only goes by Mercure.

A couple months ago, he launched a couple coaching offers.

The quirky sales page for these offers reads and looks like a detective pulp novel. It’s red font on black background and there’s an mp3 clip at the top, hosted on Soundcloud, that sets the mood with a kind of film noir soundtrack.

The “beginner copy camp” offer sold on this page is 200 euro. The “intermediate copy camp” is 1000 euro.

A bunch of people have bought, at both levels. And they keep buying. Even so, they don’t get to find out who Mercure is.

I’m telling you this for two reasons.

One, because Twitter might not be the meme-filled sewer I always assumed it was. I spent much of the farewell dinner at the Gdansk conference grilling this guy about what he does on Twitter and how. It all sounded very positive.

Reason two is, to remind you that you can do things your own way, and it can still work.

This guy never shares his name online, either on Twitter or to his customers. He never shares anything personal about himself, beyond the fact that he’s a successful copywriter. He says he also never engages in drama or mud-slinging or taking sides.

He has a sales page that looks like it was made by a teenager in 2001 using raw HTML… he makes people submit proof they are actually intermediate copywriters if they want to join his higher-tiered thing… he kicks people out of the coaching if they don’t do the work, and he doesn’t refund them — it’s part of the deal.

And yet, it works.

Maybe you don’t want to get on Twitter. Maybe you have no problem sharing your personal life online. Maybe you like engaging in drama.

All that’s fine. I’m just telling you there really are options. Lots of things can work, as long as you get some of the basics down.

If you want to see some of that in action, then I’ll point you to Mercure on Twitter.

He and I didn’t talk about doing any kind of cross-promotion. He doesn’t know I am writing about him. In fact, we haven’t talked since the farewell Gdansk dinner.

I’m just telling you about him because I think you might benefit from knowing about the guy — either directly, via what he does, or just as inspiration, via how he does it. In case you are curious:

https://twitter.com/MercureCopy