UFC

Edward Bernays, Dana White, and possibly you

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The UFC is one of the two sports promotions I follow. And so I know that earlier this week, UFC president Dana White teased potential fights that will happen next April at UFC 300, a milestone number for the monthly MMA event.

White says that UFC 300 will make fight fans “lose their minds” because of the caliber of the fights he will organize.

That’s the kind of problem the UFC faces these days: coming up with bigger and more exciting fights, and figuring out where to bury all the cash that these fights produce.

Today, the UFC is by far the dominant player in the sport of MMA.

​​The company is worth an estimated $12 billion.

But back in 2005, the UFC, already a decade old at the time, looked like it might have to fold.

They’d had a few successful fights that did well on pay-per-view. And yet, financially, the UFC was not successful or sustainable as a business. It looked like the company would go bankrupt if it had just one or two more lackluster events.

So how did we get from near-bankrupcy at UFC 50… to a $12 billion valuation at UFC 300?

I’ll tell ya. But before I give you the answer, it’s worth thinking about what you yourself — as a marketer, or a business owner — might do in the situation that the UFC was in back in 2005.

Would you run ads on TV hyping up upcoming PPV fights?

Would you send direct mail to subscribers of martial arts magazines, and try to sell recordings of your previous events?

Would you hire celebrities to come sit cageside to build up public interest?

None of those were what saved the UFC from ruin.

Instead, the owners of the UFC did something clever.

They didn’t try to sell their core product at all. Instead, they created a second product, and they promoted and sold that.

Specifically, they created a reality TV show, called The Ultimate Fighter. It showed a bunch of guys, living together in a house, training and bickering and competing with each other for the right to get a six-figure contract for the regular UFC promotion.

The show was a huge success. It drew lots of viewers. It became profitable in itself. It converted many of those new viewers into PPV customers.

The Ultimate Fighter saved the UFC. And then next year, with the next season, The Ultimate Fighter did it all over again.

Now, you are probably nowhere close to bankruptcy. But the point still stands:

You can tap into a popular format or medium. You can use that popular format or medium create a new offer that’s easy to promote… easy to sell… keeps people in the loop… builds your standing and reach… warms prospects up to your main business… and keeps them engaged even after they buy your core offer.

It’s a proven playbook to get traffic, conversion, and retention all in one.

Edward Bernays did it a hundred years ago.

Dana White did it 20 years ago.

You can do it today.

Now, if you’ve been reading these emails for a while, then you can probably guess the popular format or medium I would recommend for all of the above:

An email newsletter.

Odds are, if you’re reading my emails, and if you have a successful business, then you already have your own email newsletter.

But if you don’t, and you would like to, then hit reply. Because as of today, I’m offering a done-for-you newsletter service.

I will have more to say about it in my email tomorrow. But if you want to talk about it now, then hit reply, tell me who you are and what your business is, and we can take it from there.

“Filthy animals”: How to become a star and embarrass your mom

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Colby’s phone was ringing. He looked at it and his head sank to his chest.

It was his mom again. He would have to finally talk to her. And he knew what she would say.

“This is horrible, Colby,” his mom yelled as soon as he answered. “How could you? I just saw it again on ESPN! You called them filthy animals! An entire country, and you called them filthy animals! This is not how we raised you Colby! I should come over there and wash your mouth out with a bar of soap!”

You might know who I’m talking about. Colby “Chaos” Covington, currently the number-1-ranked welterweight in the UFC.

In case that doesn’t mean much to you, let me explain:

Covington is a professional MMA fighter. And he’s good at fighting.

But it turns out fighting is only a part of his job.

So in spite of being good at fighting, Covington was at one point on the edge of getting dropped from his contract with the UFC.

He was just not very exciting to watch or listen to.

So Covington started wearing a MAGA hat and name-dropping Donald Trump at every opportunity…

He started talking up his support and admiration of the police, right as the BLM movement was dominating the news…

And then, he went into his fight against the Brazilian fighter Damian Maia, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

And right after beating Maia, during the post-fight interview, as the crowd started whistling and booing, Covington yelled into the microphone that Brazil is a dump and that Brazilians are filthy animals.

“What do you want me to do, mom?” he said when she finally gave him a chance to speak. “They really were acting like animals. They were all drunk, and they were throwing things at me and booing.”

So that’s the point I want to share with you today.

Covington says his public persona is really him. He’s not making it up.

He is a Trump supporter. He does admire and support the police and the military. And he thought the Brazilian crowd, before and during and after his Sao Paolo fight, was being incredibly rude.

The difference is, Covington took all those things… and he took them to 100.

It definitely worked for him. He had his UFC contract extended… he started making much more money… and he became one of the biggest names in the sport today.

And it can be the same for you, too.

You don’t have to be a natural to succeed at anything. Including having a personality.

You can even have fun doing it. A/B test different aspects of who you already are… exaggerate them, caricature them… and see what people respond to.

Money, fame, and opportunities will follow.

And in case you’re wondering:

Yes, I am telling this to you as much as to myself. Because this is an exercise I have been slacking off on doing.

So if in the near future you want to see me contradicting myself blatantly… or writing about crystal skulls and Akashic records… or announcing that I have converted to Taoism… well, sign up to my email newsletter. And get ready to witness my transformation.

 

You, the publishing magnate

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The first American magazine to ever reach a circulation of one million subscribers was called Comfort. Comfort was started by William H. Gannett, in 1888, in Augusta, Maine, the birthplace of direct response advertising.

Gannett did not have any experience with magazine publishing when he started Comfort. Instead, his business was selling Oxien, a patent “nerve tonic.”

Much like other patent medicine pitchmen, Gannett had a natural knack for marketing. So he decided to start a women’s magazine, filled with advice columns, recipes, fashion tips, songs, poems, romantic fiction, and of course advertising. Because his real goal, at least at the beginning, was selling more Oxien.

That’s a possible business idea for you also.

If you’ve got a product or a service, and you want to sell more of it, then stop selling.

Instead, start publishing.

You can start a magazine. Like Gannett did.

Or you can create a reality TV show. Like the UFC did with The Ultimate Fighter.

Or you can start a podcast. Like a million businesses and marketers do.

“Gotcha!” you might say. “There’s nothing new with what you’re saying here. It’s the same damn thing as everybody else is saying, and that’s to start a podcast or a daily email newsletter.”

And there’s definitely overlap with that.

But what I’m suggesting is for you to take an extra step away from your current offers… to put still more focus on entertainment… and to make your publishing venture capable of standing alone.

The result can be massive growth for your core business. Maybe even a new business that makes more money than the business you started with. And who knows, one day… when all the other patent medicine pitchmen are forgotten… you may be remembered as a publishing magnate.

And now, in other news:

I still have some back issues of the free bullets mini-course I ran in January.

This course collected some of the best lessons I figured out by looking at the source material that A-list copywriters used to write their bullets… and then looking at the bullets themselves.

I eventually took this free email course, expanded it significantly, made it interactive, and turned it into my Copy Riddles training.

​​​​But you can now get your hands on your own copy of the original free course. You’ll first have to sign up for my email newsletter by this Wednesday. Once you do that, then watch out for the next email in my newsletter, and just click the link at the end of it.