Secrets of a depression-era advertising king
Published: Fri, 02/21/20
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I tend to think of Ben Settle as the Donald Trump of direct marketing. He knows his base and plays narrowly to it and will say anything outrageous he can to keep his followers committed to the cause, which - as with Mr. Trump - is to have those followers worship him. But what the hell, it works for him.
I like Ben a lot more than Trump. That I will concede :)
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Brian then added:
“Thought you'd enjoy. And I added that Trump's followers only get one vote a year while you sell your followers stuff every day!”
Couple things about this:
1. I kinda like being called the Donald Trump of direct marketing… but the guy who left the feedback mostly misses the point about what I do.
I don’t wake up and say:
“What outrageous stuff can I say to keep people reading???”
I'm not really that outrageous, for one thing.
And that’s very much an amateur way of doing email, for another.
Plus, that only works until it doesn’t.
2. There is much wisdom in what Brian said about voting.
I'm thinking especially of the great Bruce Barton.
Hardly anyone knows who he is anymore. But, he was a contemporary of John Caples, is the second “B” in the BBDO ad agency. And, was one of the savviest advertising men who ever lived. And one of his best teachings about email (even though he died decades before email was being used for marketing purposes…) was in a 1924 radio broadcast about when the Biblical patriarch Joseph was the second in command in Egypt.
Joseph was “it.”
Egypt’s top dawg.
Everyone was commanded by Pharaoh to follow his orders and his name was as familiar to every Egyptian man, woman, and child as their own, until Joseph joined the Choir Invisible and…
“Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”
In other words:
In a matter of a couple decades, all Joseph’s power, prestige, and name recognition vanished like a fart in the wind. He went from being the Man to being a footnote in a hieroglyphic — completely forgotten.
There’s a powerful lesson here for all businesses.
And that is this whole idea of how easy it is to be forgotten.
This happens every day, to businesses both big and small:
One day you’re “Joseph” and everyone in your market knows who you are… the next they’ve forgotten you or have found a new king to hang around.
(And buy from).
This is one of many reasons to not be timid about your marketing.
When you do email right especially, it’s almost impossible for your list to forget about you and, in fact, you’ll many times make “top of mind” status — even with those who hate your guts.
This is especially true with my affiliate and product launch ways.
They require writing lots of emails.
Sending lots of emails.
And embracing the writing of lots of emails.
And while you will get lots of opt-outs from people who are probably never going to buy from you anyway (and even they do, they’ll be huge pain in the arse customers), I suspect the extra sales will take the sting out of the process even for the lazy types who shun work.
Case in point:
Since I mentioned Brian Kurtz, let’s take him for example.
When I sold his “Titans of Direct Response” DVDs and handily spanked all his other affiliates, I sent out 60+ pages of emails in 4 days. I also got approximately 51 opt-outs and received exactly 3 spam complaints.
This would horrify some people.
But, we did 46 sales, of a $2,000 product.
Do the math if you wish.
But, I will gladly exchange 50+ opt-outs for what equaled almost $100k in sales — i.e. play to win, instead of playing to not lose like everyone else always prattling on about opt-outs, worrying about ending up in the spam folder, or scared to death someone their list will complain or whatever.
Which brings me to the rub:
My “Affiliate Launch Copynomicon” book.
It’s on sale at a $200 discount until tonight, Friday 2/21, at midnight EST.
And, not only does it show you how to use plain text emails to quickly launch products and create super profitable affiliate campaigns… but it shows you how to do it in a way where you will likely get far less opt-outs and complaints than you might assume. And, incidentally, it goes into a lot of detail about how I sold Brian Kurtz’s product above — including showing you all the emails which are included in the 600+ page email swipe file contained in the book.
To get it at a $200 discount go here before today's deadline:
http://www.EmailPlayers.com/copynomicon
Use coupon code SPANK
And make sure you see the price change before entering your info.
Ben Settle
P.S. If you are an "Email Players" subscriber, make sure you use the discount code in this month's issue. You get it at a better price than non-subscribers do.