Last night, following my “Buy my 10 Commandments book” email, a reader replied:
“Unsubscribe please”
I’ll admit it. This irritated me. I figured my reader was just too dumb to know how you unsubscribe from an email newsletter.
But then I had a hopeful thought.
Maybe my reader just wanted to show her displeasure at my grossly self-promotional, zero-value email?
When I checked ActiveCampaign, it turned out I was right. My reader had found the unsubscribe link and unsubscribed on her own. But as she was walking out the door, she just had to let me know about it.
This isn’t the only parting shot an unsubscribing reader has taken at me.
Last January, during a launch I was running, a troll wrote me and suggested I read up on copywriting fundamentals before promoting any more offers of my own.
To which, I wrote a newsletter email about his helpful suggestion.
The troll replied to that newsletter email in an offended tone.
So I wrote a second newsletter email about his offended tone.
At which point, the troll unsubscribed. In the “reason why” field you get when you unsubscribe, he wrote:
“You’re simply too dumb to be helped.I tried twice & you can’t tell the difference between a troll & someone with advice. Good luck. You’ll need it.”
I’m telling you all this because enemies are good for business. They’re so good that if you don’t have them, you have to make them up. Here’s America’s greatest living copywriter, Gary Bencivenga, on the matter:
“And if you can create an enemy in your copy, that’s what happens. You set up a three-point discussion and you come around from your side of the desk to be on the reader’s side of the desk and then it’s you and the reader against the enemy that you’re railing against.”
The trouble is, my emails are usually so placid and polite that I’ve been suffocating any potential enemies in the womb.
In that whole span from the guy back in January to the woman last night, I’ve gotten zero even mildly criminal replies to any of my emails.
I don’t know if it’s too late. I hope not.
There’s a theory that Gotham City is so full of wacky costumed villains simply because Batman is there. The villains watch the evening news, and see other criminals scrapping with Batman. They want a challenge also, and so they congregate on Gotham.
I’ll see whether writing about the “unsub plz” lady or the “you’re too dumb to be helped” troll will bring out any latent Scarecrows or Penguins on my list.
If they do come out, I’ll be sure to write an email and let you know about it.
In the meantime, let me promote something. That’s like lighting up the Bat-Signal in the night sky for making blood boil among wacky villains.
My offer for you today is my 10 Commandments of A-list Copywriters.
This little book features a commandment by Gary Bencivenga. Gary’s commandment is not about enemies. It’s both more fundamental and more powerful than that.
If you’d like to read it, here’s where to go…
https://bejakovic.com/10commandments
… and I’ll be back tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.