Ben Settle
@elBenb0
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Many years ago I remember reading a newsletter John Carlton wrote explaining the weird phenomenon of freelance copywriters spending years being broke, near homeless, going without food, and worse…
... to suddenly one day waking up to realize they’ve become so successful they…
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My favorite books for marketing fundamentals:
+ Ken McCarthy's System Club Letters
+ Dan Kennedy's Ultimate Marketing Plan
+ Gary Halbert's Boron Letters
+ Robert Updegraff's Obvious Adams
Read each 10x + implement daily via building an email list & selling it offers people…
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The first marketing newsletter I ever bought nearly 22 year ago was the September 2002 issue (front page has a picture of an angry midget stuck in an airplane toilet…) of Dan Kennedy’s old NO BS Letter.
And I remember the “back page” of that particular issue having a profound…
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Redheaded libertarian when she sees Piers Morgan tweeting yet another stupid take about guns
@piersmorgan
Glad you brought this up, Piers.
Felons can own cars. The mentally ill can own cars.
And getting your car inspected doesn’t stop bad people from running over kids marching in a parade.
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My answer:
Go to and start with The Boron Letters. Read those 10x. They're a crash course in copywriting & marketing. Then read all his letters about copywriting on that site. Do what they say. Especially about 3 x 5 cards, bullets, headlines, etc.
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Reminds me of what Gary Halbert wrote about that got him nailed & put in federal prison:
His big, extravagant house.
Even though Gary was innocent the feds showed the jury a picture of his house throughout the trial where he was accused of a crime his biz partners committed…
Frank Lucas, the black drug lord who ruled Harlem in the 1970s, was so discreet that the police didn't know who he was in 1971 when he decided to wear a $100,000 full-length chinchilla coat — to a Muhammad Ali boxing match.
He later wrote that this was a “massive mistake.…
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Did a JV with Justin Goff recently & to thank me, & in the spirit of the June Email Players issue he read (about my dog of 15+ years Zoe who passed back in December), he made a fat donation to the local dog shelter I got her at. The guy is truly a class act through & through.
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None of this is talked about in the book or even mentioned or referred to.
These ideas were from his talks at Phillips and Rodale.
The Godfather of Advertising:
Eugene Schwartz.
In 1966, he published Breakthrough Advertising, a book so good the original hardcover sells for $247.
Inside, he shared the daily writing routine that helped him write effortless, high-converting copy.
Here's the breakdown:
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Another way to do outreach on social media without sliding cold into strangers' DMs like dick picks is something
@stefaniasettle
did many years ago BB (Before Ben).
At the time she’d gotten nailed by a fraudulent chargeback putting her $6,000 in the red overdrawn on her bank…
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"A little Methylene Blue and some 🌞 on my balls and I'll be back in the gym and kicking ass at BJJ in no time"
If you’re going to tell people not to take antibiotics when they have a serious infection, you’re going to get people killed
I hope you can live with that
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I reckon an entire weight loss biz - unlimited sales copy fodder, email fodder, lead gen ad fodder, offer fodder - could be created from this single Reddit thread:
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If you want to cold DM someone on social media, there is a way to do it where you don't come off as a mouth breather sending dick pics to random chicks on a dating app.
A way that has worked for all kinds of businesses using all kinds of different marketing media - including…
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Best swipe files are crude, ugly, devoid of "ads." Far better to swipe from:
+ Reddit threads
+ Forum threads
+ Facebook threads
+ Anywhere people in your market passionately complain, share ideas, talk, while thinking they are anon
Like digging in solid vein of pure gold.
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Over the last week I've gotten more questions about how to write stories than any other. Someone must be talking about it.
* If you are having trouble telling stories you are probably overthinking it - almost everyone does - break it down into 1-2 sentences like a TV guide…
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I’m probably the last guy on planet Earth to ask about VSL’s because I don’t really use them.
And the reason I don’t use them has absolutely nothing to do with me thinking they don’t work or whatever.
Although I do think they have been overhyped since the very first sales…
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In 2003 I struggled to afford Halbert's $100 Boron Letters book. Read it 50x & copied it by hand. Can trace 100s of thousands to it - easy. Few years later he made it free on his site. I doubt any freebie downloaders got nearly the value I did from it.
Free & cheap is expensive.
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My favorite book for marketing fundamentals:
+ System Club Letters
+Ultimate Marketing Plan
+ Boron Letters
+ Obvious Adams
Info transcends media.
Read each 10x
You'll smell bad marketing advice like 💩 on a shoe. Save you 1000s of wasted $$ and 100's of wasted hours.
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One thing that's not changed in 30 years of online marketing is the resistance marketers have to writing daily emails to a list of people who raised their hands to hear from them, can leave any time they want, & are more likely to buy from them than almost any other kind of lead.
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How to get clients:
1. Build & grow email list
2. Mail it daily
3. Don't be needy, greedy, or seedy
Or keep sliding into Twitter DMs like a mouth breather on a dating site, and be laughed at & mocked, constantly chasing instead of being the chased.
Good luck.
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Personally, I benefited a lot by mindlessly copying out (by hand, not typing) sales letters when just getting started. Same with tabloid and high selling magazine headlines too - like Weekly World News, Readers Digest, Mens Health, and Cosmopolitan.
Mostly I did it because I…
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something that's been brewing in the bowels of my psyche for a couple years, soon coming to fruition..
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Email length should be like a woman's skirt:
Short enough to get attention.
Long enough to cover the details.
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All anecdotal.
But going back to high school - everyone I've ever known obsessed with some kind of social activism screwed up in the head, traumatized, abused, guilt-ridden, etc.
These are the people running corporate HR depts, Washington DC, the media.
Sure we'll be fine...
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From Dan Kennedy's bio:
"My Unfinished Business"
"The race is on to get out of the game before the rules become so unfair you cannot possibly win…Have your home paid off. Have enough cash to last your lifetime if all you do is eat principal, so there’s no income to be taxed"
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Was asked what scheduling/project/calendar software I use. Just a plain text document with the month mapped out by dates/tasks. Strikethrough tasks when done.
Started document Nov 2015 & it's 512 pages now.
Prior to that I used 3x5 notecards.
Pre-caveman era technology.
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In client days I never got single client via social media. Never slid into single DM. Never made single cold call.
Just email, referrals, & content.
Clients approached me.
Order taker.
Book on how I did it on sale this weekend. See my daily emails for details.
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* Boron Letters
* Ultimate Marketing Plan
* The System Club Letters
Total investment = less than $50
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fapGPT copywriters would see enormous jumps in sales, response, engagement across the board if they:
1. Read the old masters - Ogilvy, Burnett, Barton, Cone, etc
2. Obsess over how to serve their market
3. Then, and only then, use AI
Too many skip 1, 2.
And it shows.
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AI isn't going to be more human in 2 years any more than that guy prancing around his back yard endorsing Nike and beers LARPing as a woman is going to be more female in 2 years.
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Broke zoomer on Facebook mocked one of my sales pages. Something about 1993 called & wants their sales page back.
Irony:
What works in 2023 is exactly what worked in 1993 & what worked just after 1903 when John E Kennedy told Albert Lasker what the definition of advertising is.
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In my totally unsolicited opinion that literally nobody has ever asked for, but which has never stopped me from giving it...
Businesses like, for example,
@NutriDetect
or
@rebelhealth_
and a few others on here going against a corporate-backed and/or government-regulated…
Businesses who get targeted like unauthorized does and are worried about this sort of thing happening:
* Find a merchant gateway that offers transaction routing
* Get as many merchant accounts as you can - ideally 10 - all on rotation, no one account gets all the sales & you're…
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Nobody can tell you what your game is. No coach, guru, friend, parent, colleague, woman, man, or child.
You gotta figure it out.
Probably even play lots of games to find yours.
When you do it'll change everything.
Hone, master, nurture it.
It'll be your
#1
asset.
This why refusing to play anyone else's game vital. You can waste years - decades - learning, playing, & losing at the wrong game, with everyone at the table counting their money & laughing at you.
Don't play anyone's game but yours.
Your game = your ability to produce.
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When I first started doing daily emails I bought into the shtick that they should be short. Or, at least, have a word count limit of around 300-500 words due to shrinking attention spans.
And that wasn't necessarily "wrong."
In fact, I still teach that as a general guideline to…
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"At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the high-pitched Pedestrian-warning alarm"
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My top 5 favorite copywriters in no specific order:
+ Gary Halbert (writing/psychology)
+ Gary Bencivenga (structure)
+ John Carlton (bullets)
+ Dan Kennedy (personality/power)
+ Gene Schwartz (drama)
Many more great copywriters.
Above approaches simply resonate most with me.
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Highly recommend writing a screenplay for getting better at email copywriting much in the same way I've long recommended writing press releases (Paul Hartunian-style). Anything that imposes tight writing & hard page/word counts is great for honing email copywriting skills.
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2023 and there still people who don't know to use an opt-out link..
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My aunt was married to VP of a bank. Cold, boring, soul-crushing job making lots of money. At holidays he was like a kid in the candy store making gourmet meals - a true master chef. He loved doing it, looked forward to it.
Played someone else's game his entire life.
Tragic.
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Pagan culture coming back.
Read about ancient Canaanites. Aborting babies, abusing children, worshipping weather, gender confusion - none of it new.
Ishtar, Moloch, Baal ran same scam 4,000 yrs ago.
Best make money now, while you can.
Then use it to get away from pagans.
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20 yrs ago every single one of these points was considered marketing 101.
None of it is advanced.
All very practical.
Which is good news - technology has made it easier than ever to succeed, yet the bar has never been lower since it all is new again to most these days.…
I've spent 2,5 hours yesterday on a call with Ben Settle and my mentor.
Him and Ben talked about business, emails and their own plans - and 10 people attending the call, me included got to ask a question for Ben.
After he answered, he confirmed 7 of my suspicions about X:…
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Friends/family get my text.
Everyone else can email me only.
No DMs. I don't answer phone or even have ringer on. All app notifications turned off.
Message underload.
how do fools manage “message” overload ?? Between email, text, phone, DM’s, notifications etc. never ending pit can’t possibility manage especially as a creative throws everything out of flow check my email like once a month but also feel pit of anxiet from it
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Not a fan of the MadMen show. Bored me half way through episode 2. But episode 1 opening with Draper in the bar a powerful ad lesson by itself. In real life, MadMen were problem solvers 1st, copywriters 2nd.
The "creative" was not the writing.
It was the problem-solving.
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Hearts breaking wide open all over Twitter tonight..
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Work expands to fill time allotted. Spending 3 hours on an email vs 30 minutes is overkill. That freed up time can be used to do high payout activity (create content, lead gen, etc). Set timer for 33:33 per email & tell your brain that's all you got. It'll get done.
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Will likely be doing a bunch of twitter spaces calls soon about copywriting, email, marketing, etc, all non-scheduled & off-the-cuff, with the recordings going in the upcoming Email Players mobile app. They'll happen in the early a.m. hours PDT Tuesdays, Fridays, and/or Sundays.
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Must suck being a newbie today w/ glut of overpaid & under experienced marketing coaches.
Better:
+ Few solid books
+ Balls to make mistakes
+ Wisdom to learn from mistakes
At certain level coach might make sense. Noobs only robbing themselves of experience you can't buy.
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Dan Kennedy's Peter Lowe conference Magnetic Marketing talk is another of my favorite marketing resources. I listen to it every year and it's easily one of the best direct marketing lessons I ever heard. Doesn't mention internet, but is 100% adaptable to online, email, etc.
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If I can you can:
+ wrote 9 novels, don't read fiction
+ wrote 10k+ pages of books/8k+ emails, can't spell
+ hosted 237 podcasts, suck at pronunciation
+ speak at events, shun people
+ sell video course for $2500, loathe video
+ got coaching program, think coaching pointless
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So many guys on Twitter who I have the utmost respect for, whose knowledge would benefit mankind, who could make far more bank than they do now...
If they simply started an email list, and mailed it each day.
Social is better than nothing.
But an email list is far more…
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I once decided to test 3 different squeeze pages tracking both opt-ins and to sales of Email Players subscriptions.
First page was one I'd been using for several years.
Second was about doubling, tripling, even quadrupling sales. That phrase was in it - appealing more to the…
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It genuinely shocks my younger customers how some of my sales pages are built with the free seakmonkey editor. One of my last books did $20k+ in sales via a page created by software as arcane as Netscape Composer. Sales pages don’t have to dazzle. They just have to sell.
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Documentaries I highly recommend for copywriting, infotainment, World-Building, email marketing, direct response & product design... basically what I teach in my books & newsletters, have inspired a lot of my ideas:
x Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan
x Chris Claremont's…
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Everyone should read "Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival" by Selco Begovic. Shows the creepy similarity of what the media did just before the Balkan War & what the media's doing now in the US.
Same shyt different bunghole.
Never trust the media.
Even journalists on your "side."
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I got all my initial copywriting business from multiple reads of Dan Kennedy's Ultimate Sales Letter & Ultimate Marketing Plan, free Gary Halbert Letters & Joe Vitale's 7 Lost Secrets of Success.
Total investment:
Under $20.
Which was good, because that's about all I had..
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33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene probably has made my biz more sales than any info product about marketing ever has. Have read multiple times. It's also the book of Greene's nobody talks about. Hat tip to
@TellYourSonThis
who I first heard about it from.
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Read stories, listen to stories, watch stories, tell stories, analyze why you like certain stories & hate others. Discern the pattern. Apply to your storytelling.
That's the "book."
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What I mean by bulk:
1. Sell product, upsell more of that product
2. Or sell product w/ as many high quality 1-click upsells as you can
With tight marketing game you'll make more per 1-time buyer than average subscription offer buyer stick rate.
When everyone zigs, zag.
When you see everyone suddenly shilling a new subscription offer, you can make a lot more selling bulk instead.
More profits, less work.
Fraction of the competition.
If starting over that's what I'd do.
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NLP guy swipes my Email Players sales page, leaves name of my product in the copy..
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September 2002 Dan Kennedy NO BS Marketing Letter back page is "must reading."
Topic:
Myth of security.
Security does not & never has existed. All you can do is identify, master, & protect your ability to produce - whatever it is.
Because when SHTF?
That'll be all you got.
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The professor of harsh reality himself Dan Kennedy also notices something in the AI milk ain't clean..
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Inhouse copywriter asked about making money, doesn't want to build list, etc.
Some options:
1. Coaching
2. Start agency w/ biz partner, just be copy chief
3. Find partner, any kind of biz, just do the copywriting
Copywriting a valuable skill.
Play your game.
Nobody else's
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Was asked last night about my "process" for coming up with big ideas - and for business World-Building specifically.
The answer:
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Supplement marketers with solid direct response figured this out years ago. Bulk way more profitable than subscriptions due to lack of consumption, which causes churn. Sell 6 months up front, when avg customer cancels in 3 months. Hardcore users will keep buying bulk anyway.
And this is especially case when everyone else selling subscriptions. Best time to launch subscription offer was 5-10 years ago when only handful doing it. Now with Schlubstack, Twitter, etc everyone doing it.
Plus big corps too.
Harder now.
Churn'll be through the roof.
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Did jury duty in late 2020. Marketers, copywriters brag about "getting out" of jury duty. They're literally bragging about avoiding one of best free educations you can get about human psychology, persuasion, selling.
Looking forward to going back soon.
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Most valuable lesson I've stubbornly followed for 21 yrs is from Sept 2002 Dan Kennedy No BS Letter issue.
Subject:
Everything can be taken away.
Except your ability to produce.
Figure out what yours is, then build, grow, hone every day, as if your life depends on it.
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One of my fav marketers I think people should study: Sean D'Souza. He will give you options for thinking differently on everything from funnels & copywriting to backend selling & customer service. His consumption selling model is brilliant. Been using variations of it since 2008.
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Average IQ copywriters have advantage over high IQ copywriters because they relate more to the market in most cases.
Example:
Gary Halbert (very high IQ) used to take his ads to the local bar & buy people drinks in exchange for them giving him feedback on his ads.
150 IQ guy literally thinks he's dealing with a retard when a 100 IQ reply guy tries debating him online. If you're a 100 IQ guy, imagine a 50 IQ reply guy trying to argue with you. That's what it's like for 150 IQ guy dealing with you.
Wisdom levels the field.
Seek it out.
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Nearly 13 years on my list... still hasn't learned a blessed thing
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Curated email list > curated social following. Curated direct mail list > curated email list.
My goal:
Curated email list bigger than curated social following & curated direct mail list bigger than curated email list.
Way ahead on email part.
Way behind on direct mail part.
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An apt copywriting lesson for tomorrow is when the great Paul Hartunian taught how to write press releases. He said to tell your entire story in two sentences. To demonstrate, he told the entire story of the Revolutionary War in two sentences:
"We fought the British. They lost."
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This why refusing to play anyone else's game vital. You can waste years - decades - learning, playing, & losing at the wrong game, with everyone at the table counting their money & laughing at you.
Don't play anyone's game but yours.
Your game = your ability to produce.
September 2002 Dan Kennedy NO BS Marketing Letter back page is "must reading."
Topic:
Myth of security.
Security does not & never has existed. All you can do is identify, master, & protect your ability to produce - whatever it is.
Because when SHTF?
That'll be all you got.
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Not for woke or weepy.
But
#1
best sales eBook is:
"Gary Halbert's Guide To The Core Secrets And Desires Of Different Groups Of People And How To Exploit Those Secrets And Desires To Make Yourself A Lot Of Money!"
Very un-PC.
But also very true.
Ask
@stefaniasettle
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Since people crave "life hacks" - here's one that works but nobody really wants to do:
Don't seek anyone's approval, willingly try to get their disapproval.
It'll get you the hoe and the dough.
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If I was looking for clients I'd use direct mail all day long, plus daily emails to my warm list, and calling companies that do lots of direct response marketing (who already hire copywriters) and asking who to talk to about writing copy for them.
Way better than sending cold…
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Pretty sure Founding fathers of direct response would not:
+ slide into DMs
+ Use Twitter for anything but market research, list building, networking
+ posture to hide weaknesses
+ link to anything in bio but a lead gen page to get on a list
+ Use a cartoon
Can only imagine what the founding fathers of direct response marketing would think if they browsed money Twitter for 5 minutes..
Caples, Hopkins, Lasker, Reeves, Ogilvy, Kennedy, Sears... spinning in their graves
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Gonna be short and honest with him:
I already crush my competitors without my name being sullied by associating with the pronoun pedos at Time, Forbes, & Business Insider
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When one discovers Earl Nightingale was basically an honorary wiseguy with the Chicago mafia, a brawler with violent anger issues & PTSD, & in constant pain from adult onset gigantism... all his teachings become a lot more fascinating.
*re-listens to Strangest Secret
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When I co-owned an info publishing biz selling weightloss I wrote 100+ emails just by haunting weight loss forums, reading their struggles in their own words. Highest selling email was about chick whose evil friends kept tagging her heavy pics on Facebook to keep her down.
This comment in the thread alone could be turned into a great headline, subject line, PPC ad..
"Every time I get a little pain in my chest I think 'Fuck, this is it'."
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Once one realizes there is no one-size-fits-all solution to marketing funnels, it frees them up from a lot of anxiety.
I’m from the Matt Furey school of email and don’t give a shyt about anything other than writing emails that make sales and further the relationship. If someone…
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3 favorite read-in-one sitting books:
1. Dan Kennedy NO BS Time Management (1st edition, red cover, before time-sucking fluff content added)
2. Joe Vitale 7 Lost Secrets of Success (1st edition, yellow cover, pre-fluff)
3. Obvious Adams (edition with 5 tests of obvious added)
People mock Dan Kennedy having no cell phone or email address. Doesn't even do his own shopping on Amazon. Makes his friends literally FAX him.
King of Boomers.
But his productivity is borderline supernatural. His NO BS Time Management book easily one of my favorites.
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Word around the camp fire is some copywriters are boycotting Copy Chief Live since Daniel Throssell is attending. I don't know what's more amusing: how weak & soft copywriters have become or how these twits don't even realize they're playing Daniel's game and won't win.
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If this email sorcerer's magic emails don't work I get two more months of his emails not working
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People mock Dan Kennedy having no cell phone or email address. Doesn't even do his own shopping on Amazon. Makes his friends literally FAX him.
King of Boomers.
But his productivity is borderline supernatural. His NO BS Time Management book easily one of my favorites.
Friends/family get my text.
Everyone else can email me only.
No DMs. I don't answer phone or even have ringer on. All app notifications turned off.
Message underload.
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Was tasked with writing a sales letter selling a course about grappling. Avg guy in market segment I wrote to thinks grappling boring. Read in a book about how certain people thrown to lions used grappling to survive, and wrote it in the ad. Grappling now sounded cool to them.
Instant gamechanger when copywriting for clients:
Read a book or two on the subject!
Too much copy I see sounds superficial—parroting terms and facts without real understanding.
95% of any book you read won't make it in the copy.
But your deeper knowledge will shine through.
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Few years ago the world's greatest living copywriter Gary Bencivenga told Ken McCarthy about how he once wanted to help a charity and offered to write a fundraising letter for them. The girl in charge of the fundraising dismissed his offer:
"everyone wants to be the copywriter"
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Mistake email boys & ghouls make is caring about opt-outs. Don't even look at opt-out list. Just select-all and delete. Besides, if you do email right, sales go up in direct proportion to opt-outs anyway.
Don't lament opt-outs.
Embrace them.
They're money.
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