Here’s a conversation that actually happened…

Me: Is this song by that Bulldog guy?

Husband: Uh… do you mean Pitbull?

Me:

Him:

Me: Yeah, that makes more sense.

Now, the crazy thing about this isn’t my lack of pop culture knowledge. (Something that’s been true of me at every age.) It’s that in the beginning of the song, someone — IDK who, of course — literally announces Pitbull by name.

And yet I was still like:

So, if I, an elder millennial, can’t remember the name of a really, really famous rapper/singer… even when someone just announced his name 3 minutes earlier…

…you can imagine the likelihood that your new subscribers will remember your name.

Probably won’t happen.

And this is such an important thing for anyone in marketing and sales to know about people.

The reality is, most people have too much on their minds. So if they subscribe to your email list, and you let days or weeks pass, the vast majority won’t remember your name when it shows up in their inbox. They won’t remember why they subscribed. Or worse, they won’t even remember subscribing at all, and that’s when lots of people hit the “spam” button.

So when people hesitate to email every day in their welcome sequence — as I advise in my First 7 Days Formula — I push them to reconsider.

It’s important to show up right away and often, especially in the beginning. And when you do, along with providing real value, people won’t just remember you. They’ll actually look forward to seeing your name in their inbox. They’ll be far more likely to open your emails, and far more likely to click and buy.

So if you’re not showing up for them like this right now, it’s time to look at your welcome sequence(s) again with fresh eyes.

And if you need help, you can start with my free First 7 Days Checklist.

Ready? Pues…

(In this context, “dale” — no accent, that’s a mistake in the gif — means “let’s go” or “hit it.”)

Note: I still probably wouldn’t recognize most Pitbull songs, though now I’m at least aware that his name is not Bulldog. It’s a start.

The post I Know No One (and How to Use This Info in Marketing Campaigns) appeared first on Copy Consulting in Health and Personal Development.

When I was in high school, I was in the nerdiest of the nerd classes.

But even in the nerd classes, we had a hierarchy of nerdiness. And the most nerdy were the kids who were smart, while also having zero understanding of (or interest in) what it meant to be “cool.”

Unknowingly nerdy.

Like Patrick. Patrick was very smart, and he came into 9th grade from a private school. He never got in trouble in class (unlike yours truly who was sometimes in trouble for major offenses like talking and my shorts being 1” too short).

Anyway, one day we had a school fair, and there was supposed to be a kissing booth. Don’t ask me how this was a thing at a high school event, even back then I had my doubts about the adults in charge.

One girl (also in our nerd classes) thought it would be funny to ask Patrick to go to the kissing booth… and then stand him up. As a joke.

“That seems pretty mean,” I said.

Saying that had an interesting effect on her… 

She did NOT trick Patrick into the kissing booth, so that was good. But she did spend the rest of the year pointing out anything I said that she thought was mean. For example:

Me: OMG, Rachel was really annoying me in class today.

Her: “That’s SO MEAN!”

There’s just something about people tricking others or “getting one over” on them that’s always bothered me. It makes me physically uncomfortable.

I remember feeling that same discomfort in a mastermind I attended several years ago. A marketing bro was sharing his latest tactic, where he would add “Sent from my iPhone” to the bottom of some of his autoresponder emails.

That way, your subscribers would think you’re really interacting with them! But you’re totally not! And then they buy from you!

He was so clearly proud of his idea, it didn’t even dawn on him that some people might think it was sleazy. Or that we might make a mental note about never working with or for him in the future.

Hopefully most marketers have moved on from this old iPhone hack, but new hacks are always replacing the old ones.

And my question is… why not just create a real relationship with subscribers? See them as human beings first, and not potential sales figures? 

Look, autoresponders are great — I don’t mind getting them in the least. 

And in fact, the First 7 Days Formula I developed is an autoresponder. I created it as a way to provide value, share more about yourself with a new subscriber, and welcome them into your world. 

Autoresponders aren’t the problem. Selling isn’t the problem. Making money isn’t the problem. The problem is trying to deceive your subscribers, thinking it’s a clever way to fake that you care so you can squeeze money out of them.

Relationships first. Sleazy tricks never.

On another note… 

Now I’m really wondering who TF signed off on a kissing booth… when my shorts being too short was a reason to send me to the office and make me miss math class.

I do NOT miss high school, y’all.

The post Nerds (and your subscribers) are people, too appeared first on Copy Consulting in Health and Personal Development.

If you’re in the online marketing world, you’ve probably heard about royalties. It’s where you write a sales letter, then get a percentage of every sale that letter makes.

I remember when I first learned about this, and I quickly did the math. If it’s possible to make 6 figures a year off ONE sales letter, imagine if I wrote just 4-5 per year! And then I could just sit back while the checks rolled in!

That’s the dream scenario. But now that I’ve earned 6 figures in royalties from a control, I can tell you that the reality is quite different.

For one thing, most companies don’t want to do these royalty arrangements. Nowadays it seems that bonus structures are more common, where you’re given a one-time fee based on how well your copy performs against the control. That means that royalty deals aren’t easy to come by. 

And trust me, you don’t want to talk someone into a royalty agreement if they aren’t used to paying royalties. It just doesn’t work out. They will eventually resent sending you those checks, or they won’t be set up for it. Either way, it’s going to lead to a headache you don’t want.

Another problem: You never know for sure if your copy will beat the control. And even if it does win, you don’t know how long it’ll be the new control before someone else comes along and beats you.

So that dream scenario where I write a few sales letters and take off the rest of the year doesn’t really work. My quarterly checks could stop at any time — without much warning — so I can’t count on them to pay the bills. 

Finally, you don’t even know how much your royalty check will be for. If your control fatigues or Facebook changes their ad rules or some other unforeseen thing happens, your big, fat check can drop by thousands — or even tens of thousands — of dollars. Again, without warning. 

That’s assuming, by the way, that your royalties are ever that big to begin with. For my super successful control, my mentor Parris Lampropoulos told me, “This kind of ruined you, because your very first control was a runaway hit. Usually you might win a control like this once every 5 years.”

In other words, even as I win other controls, I shouldn’t expect them all to bring in that much money. Some products just aren’t as popular or have a smaller market.

What all this means is that I will never count on royalty checks to pay the bills. I view them as a surprise bonus in my mailbox. I open them up, do a happy dance, and put them in the bank.

Which isn’t to dissuade anyone who really wants to beat controls and earn royalties. Because when everything falls into place, it’s incredible. 

One sales letter has: 

• paid off a car we’d just bought the year before
• built a year-plus family emergency fund (in a year when my husband’s business was severely hamstrung by the pandemic)
• paid off debt from a home improvement project
• built up an emergency fund for my business

…and now we’re considering paying off our house. Because technically, we can. All of that was from just one sales letter … that I wrote almost three years ago.

And not only can you strike gold sometimes, but if you’re as competitive as I am, it’s a rush to go up against controls.

However, like I said, it’s not reliable. That’s why I copy chief for companies, and it’s why I develop products like The First 7 Days Formula (a welcome sequence you can build in less than a day–you can use it with clients if you’re a copywriter, or use it for your business if you’re a business owner).

The idea is that you could write tons of those welcome sequences, fill up your whole calendar, and you’d have income you could count on. 

So … that’s what I’ve discovered about writing for royalties. Go for it if you really want it, but keep your bread-and-butter gigs, too.

The post The truth about 6-figure royalties appeared first on Copy Consulting in Health and Personal Development.

Our industry is fun and weird and sometimes ridiculous. So since it’s an easy target, I present my top 10 signs that you’re a copywriter…

1. Your mantra is: If at first you don’t succeed, retarget.
2. You paid $300 for Breakthrough Advertising, snapped a selfie to show it off, but you can’t understand a goddamn word of it.
3. You claim credit for an entire launch … unless it failed. Then it was those effing ad guys.
4. You beat off in copywriting groups more than you beat controls.
5. Someone asks if you have a “hit” from the “sugar man,” and you give them The Adweek Copywriting Handbook.
6. You sent a fax to Dan Kennedy to invite him to your wedding.
7. You’ve handwritten a sales letter for so long that Google used your handwriting as CAPTCHA.
8. You named your Wi-Fi network “Bencivengabitch37.”
9. You missed the tax deadline because you were expecting the IRS to send 3 last chance emails and a surprise cart reopen.
10. Your own mother has no idea what you do for a living. (“April works … at the Internet?”)

And the Internet marketing bros be like…

The post Top 10 Signs You’re a Copywriter… appeared first on Copy Consulting in Health and Personal Development.