I’ll pay off that provocative subject line in a second. First, let me set it up so it has a chance to have an impact on you:
Two days ago, I was listening to a new episode of Dean Jackson’s “More Cheese, Less Whiskers” podcast.
Dean is a legend in the marketing space. In this episode, he was basically having a live consult with a real estate agent turned coach.
The real estate agent/coach runs an 6-week cohort program, helping other agents to get their first transaction. The program features the usual recorded content plus live weekly calls. About that, here’s what Dean said:
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Part of the thing about a live cohort is that it’s kind of synchronous consumption, that they are there and they’re physically present, and it’s easier to consume than while they’re sitting and could be watching Netflix.
You know what I mean. That’s always going to be more — it’s easier when things are synchronous and scheduled to actually get them done, then even with the best of intentions, to get yourself to self-directedly take that kind of action.
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This made my pointy Vulcan ears perk up.
Because it’s a bitter pill to swallow:
You can create a really great course, with all the info inside that people need to succeed, but most people who buy will simply never even get through the first lesson. Of those who do, most won’t get all the way through to the end of the last lesson.
That makes it hard to profit from the course.
Yes, there are creative ways to encourage people to consume courses all the way to the end, or to get value even while consuming only a tiny part of the course. I’ve used many such tricks in my own courses.
But the fact is, nothing really compares to simply changing the format and not selling a “course” at all, but instead selling a live experience, happening in real time, shared with other people. In other words, running a live cohort, like Dean is talking about.
I can speak to this from my experience selling my Copy Riddles program over the years.
When I started Copy Riddles, I ran it as a cohort 2-3 times a year.
The lessons were delivered daily by email, and were necessarily synchronous.
More importantly, I had live weekly calls. Those calls where an opportunity for Copy Riddles members to come together, to see me there and feel that this is happening live, and to ask questions.
Plus, I featured a weekly “Best Bullet” contest, which was both fun for participants and also reinforced that week’s course content by showing why some bullets work better than others.
Small wonder that a disproportionate number of enthusiastic testimonials and impressive case studies I’ve gotten for Copy Riddles have come from people who went through the program in those live cohort days.
I’ve been thinking about this over the past few weeks in the lead-up to the “Unannounced Bonus” promo I’m currently doing for Copy Riddles.
The offer I’m making during this promo is already the most valuable offer I’ve made for Copy Riddles. But I decided to pull out all the stops.
I haven’t run Copy Riddles as a live cohort program since September of 2022. That’s 34 months ago. (You see where this is going?)
I also won’t ever run Copy Riddles as a live cohort in the future.
But I will resurrect the live cohort and run it one last time as part of this “Unannounced Bonus” promo.
No, I won’t be delivering Copy Riddles via email again. It still remains a course in the course area, so you can easily access it now or in the future.
But I will be doing live weekly calls for Copy Riddles members.
These calls will be an opportunity to ask me questions about writing bullets, about copy in general, or really anything else, as long as it’s interesting.
They will also be an opportunity to submit your bullets for the weekly contest and win recognition and prizes.
Most importantly, these calls act as a reason to go through the course content now, to get a bit of motivation and accountability by being a part of a group of people who are all doing the same as you, and to make it easier for you to own those million-dollar copywriting skills this program can give you — and to own them in just the next few weeks, instead of never.
Of course, the live cohort is only part two of the offer for this “Unannounced Bonus” event.
Part one is free lifetime membership to Lawrence Bernstein’s Ad Money Machine so you can get your daily direct marketing vitamin, the way A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga advises.
Lawrence only makes this lifetime membership offer available rarely. When he made it available last year, I paid $997 for it. But you can get it for free as part of this week’s promo event, which ends this Sunday at 12 midnight PST.
If you’d like to act before the deadline takes the matter out of your hands:
P.S. If you’re already a Copy Riddles member, the Ad Money Machine lifetime membership applies to you too. So does the offer of joining for the live cohort — just write me and tell me that you want in so I know to add you.
And about going through Copy Riddles a second (or third) time, here’s copywriter Yago Bader Galarza, who joined a couple times in the live cohort days:
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The course is amazing, I’ve completed it twice now, and I’d say the second time I learned even more than the first.
I think it’s super-valuable to go through it periodically, trying to do the exercises from different angles forces me to be more creative and I can really see my improvement from launch to launch. I would love to sign up a third time and continue to learn from it.
In a world where most courses are hard to consume (and I think almost every copywriter has a pile of unfinished courses) Copy Riddles is a breath of fresh air that I recommend to everyone I know all the time. So thanks for creating it and looking forward to doing it again.
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