Rodale

2 outs, bases loaded, Gary Bencivenga steps up to the plate

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It just wouldn’t sell.

Back in the 90s, Rodale Publishing was promoting a new book called New Choices in Natural Healing, a kind of paperbound Mercola.com.

Rodale had two separate creative teams write copy for it.

One of the copywriters came up with a sales letter.

It bombed.

The other copywriter came up with a magalog.

This also bombed.

So was it time to quit? Of course not. The inning ain’t over until you have three outs, and Rodale only had two ugly strikeouts so far.

But where to go for a pinch hitter at this all-important moment in the game?

Well, the guys at Rodale decided it was time to bring in the biggest hitter of them all:

Gary Bencivenga, then one of the hottest and winningest copywriters in the business — and today a legend who’s often called “America’s greatest copywriter.”

Anyways, Gary took up the challenge.

He did his research. He talked to the guys at Rodale. And — I assume — he looked very carefully at the two failing promotions that preceded him.

And then he stepped up to the plate, dug his cleats into the dirt, and smacked that New Choices in Natural Healing promotion — not just into the bleachers, not even out of the park — but across the adjoining street and through the window of an apartment where an aging bachelor was making a TV dinner for himself.

In plainglish, New Choices in Natural Healing became one of the biggest promotions in Rodale’s history, and one of the biggest successes of Gary Bencivenga’s career.

But before you get carried away, here’s a warning to you:

Not every project actually deserves three outs.

And not every dying or unsellable product deserves ever-more-elite copywriters to go to bat for it.

In other words, there were some unique conditions in the Rodale promotion that made is so Gary + New Choices in Natural Healing could actually be a success.

If you’ve got an offer, and it’s not doing well, and you’re wondering whether to kill it or to try yet another marketing approach, then I might be able to help.

I can share what the “Rodale conditions” for success were, and help you figure out how your offer stacks up to them. There’s only one condition I make for the help I’m offering: You have to sign up for my email newsletter before you contact me and ask me for help. Here’s where you can do that:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Why paid health info products may never die

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About 18 months ago, I took up an ancient copywriting ritual.

Each day, I started devoting exactly 20 minutes to writing out an old, successful ad by hand.

This tedious strategy was first advocated by Gary Halbert, who claimed the process will neurally imprint good copywriting into anyone who actually does the work. I’m not sure about the neural imprinting, but this practice has paid dividends for me, by forcing me to read good promos more carefully, and by exposing me to ads I would never have read otherwise.

Right now, I am making my way through a magalog by Gary Bencivenga, which he wrote for Rodale back in the early 90’s.

The offer they were selling was a new book, a massive collection of 1,800 alternative health recipes, called New Choices in Natural Healing.

It offered natural cures such as “Beat PMS — with nutrition!” and “Fight yeast infections — with yogurt!” This offer probably killed it back when Gary B.’s promotion ran. But I’m not sure whether such a general alternative-health book could be profitable today.

The trouble is that much of that information is free online on popular, well-established health sites. As a result, all of Gary’s fascinating bullets are just a quick Google search away from being unmasked.

So does this mean that paid info products in the health space are on their way to the graveyard?

I’m banking on the opposite being true.

I’m currently writing a starter guide for using essential oils. When that’s done and published, I’m planning on putting together a related video course in the aromatherapy niche.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I’m not concerned that there will be demand for either of these info products when they comes out (it helps that I have an engaged email list of people who are interested in the topic).

The fact is, science keeps advancing every day, and most of us have trouble keeping up with the new research.

New alternative medicine approaches keep appearing, and it’s hard to tell what’s legit and what’s not.

This opens up the door to anybody who is willing to filter out the garbage, synthesize all the good knowledge, and package it up in a better, more entertaining way than you can find for free online.

And that’s why I think paid health info products may never die.

John Bejakovic

P.S. When it comes time to putting together the video course I mentioned, I’m planning to take another piece of advice from Gary Halbert, and to write the sales letter before designing the course.

After all, what better way to come up with a great course than to make it sales-worthy?

I mention this because I also do copywriting for clients in the health space. For anyone who’s interested, here’s how to contact me:

https://bejakovic.com/contact