Monthly Archives: February 2011

Constipated Marketing Secret

Here’s a powerful marketing secret
it took me YEARS to understand…

YOU CAN’T SELL WITH
CONSTIPATED CONTENT!

It’s true…

People won’t pay consistent attention to even the best information if it’s presented in a dry, matter of fact manner.

There are things I tried telling my list for years but just couldn’t get across… like the value of coding their survey data and analyzing the relationship BETWEEN the questions, because your computer can see patterns and opportunities you’ll never pick up with the naked eye.

See?  You’re falling asleep already.

But in fact, above is one of my absolute BEST tricks… there are amazing relationships in survey data which VIRTUALLY NO ONE (except perhaps my staunchest egg-headed-spreadsheet fans) implemented for YEARS, no matter how many techniques I showed them, how many videos I made, how carefully I explained it in my professorial manner.

It fell on deaf ears because it was… CONSTIPATED CONTENT.

It didn’t matter that you could double your conversion rate with the information…

It didn’t matter that you could make markets profitable which otherwise seemed hopeless…

Constipated content doesn’t even sell well to constipated people.

The antidote?

Stories!

Many of you may recall one of my first successful MP3s…

Sharon helped me tell the STORY of “putting the soul in the machine.”

You see, back in graduate school I looked down upon this one Ph.D. researcher who was observing mothers and infants with a piece of graph paper.

I may have the details a little fuzzy since it was 20 years ago, but essentially this crazy doctor was making her students record–every 5 seconds–exactly how far the mother’s face was from the infant’s and whether they were (a) gazing at each other and (b) vocalizing or cooing.

“Idiotic!”  I told Sharon at the time.   It’s just a form of  “intellectual masturbation”… they’re trying to  “get the soul inside the machine and it can’t be done!”   I was SURE the mother infant bond was beyond such trivial analysis.  It hurt me to my core that anyone would think otherwise… I was ashamed to be at a school where this kind of research was going on.

But you know what?

I was wrong.

Turned out those stupid 5 second tick marks predicted all sorts of things going forward, like social skills, grades in school, etc.   And she was able to make concrete suggestions about distance, gazing, cooing, and general attachment for parents.

The computer had discovered patterns NO human was able to see in the most meaningful form of human intimacy we know… the mother infant bond.

She DID get the soul inside the machine.

And once I started telling this STORY, people got motivated to buy my survey research methods… in droves.

What story are you telling to sell your product or service?

It’s worth taking a few minutes to think about tonight… don’t you think?

And if you want to learn how to find the exact right story for your marketing, I’ve got two things to recommend for you tonight:

1) Get on the Total Conversion Code pre-launch list and make sure you’re watching for the free conversion webinars we’ll be doing in early March.

2) Watch carefully for the next opening in Sharon’s new multimedia marketing service.  She’s swamped right now from yesterday’s broadcast (so I promised I wouldn’t give the URL again), but there’s no-one I know who can pull emotional stories out of people better than she.   In fact, Stephen Covey engaged her to help with his website, and there’s a big fat testimonial from him (on the URL I can’t give  you today). But you already know what a powerful force Sharon is in her interviews because you’ve heard them.  And now YOU can leverage it for your follow up sequence too… OR to make products…or videos for your site, etc.

All my best,

Dr. G 🙂

Copywriting is a Big Hairy Myth

I’ve spent the last several years thinking I was missing some vital marketing skill, intimately connected to my writing ability.    Now, I’m a good writer… you don’t get to be a Ph.D. without that skill.  But I always thought I was a mediocre  “copywriter” at best…

That is, until I realized (in the course of developing the Total Conversion Code with Terry for the last few months) that copywriting is a big hairy myth.

It’s really not about writing…

It’s more about listening and “detecting”

A great copywriter looks at the market more like a sculptor looks at a block of marble…

You listen carefully (research), then chip away what doesn’t belong until the beauty comes out.

Yes, there are words to be put on the page (or in the video, or the audio, etc)…

But those are the words the market gives you… they’re already there, you don’t have to be some Hemmingway with a glass of brandy sitting in a snowy log cabin toiling away the hours by the fireplace.

And depending upon the market, a Beavis and Butthead personality might suit you better (seriously)

Which is not to say I’ve lost any respect for copywriters… to the contrary, it’s an extraordinarily valuable skill worth every penny you pay for it when you find a good one!  (Really – they’re the life blood of any direct response business)

It’s just not what you think it is, that’s all.

OK – enough rambling for today, just wanted to share my short thought with you.

Copywriting is a big hairy myth.

So let’s all stop being so frightened of it and get out selling!

Dr. G 🙂

My 2nd Best Email Subject Line Ever

I’ve sent 419 broadcasts to my entrepreneurial list in the past four and a half years.

The other day, Terry Dean asked me to identify the best 25 or so for us to include in The Total Conversion Code.  (Shameless plug).  So I analyzed all 419 … actually it was 417 at the time… all 417 subject lines and click through rates, looking for patterns.

Anyone have a guess which subject line got the second highest  click through rate EVER?

I’ll give you a hint, it was NOT “Disturbed Emotional Copywriting”… that one was just a little above average, despite my best hopes.  (A killer interview with Ben Settle by the way)

It also was NOT “I’m so ugly, so very very ugly” –> just average there too,  but I particularly enjoyed writing that one!

“Time is running out” was one of the lowest of the losers… if subject lines were like kids in grade school, this one definitely had koodies!  (How the hell do you spell Koodies by the way… anyone know the official word on that?)

OK… know what it WAS?

“all my audios are now on iTunes” (they ARE by the way – Glenn Livingston Mp3s)

The CTR on this was over 400% higher than the average, only beaten by ONE other message in over four years.

Why do you think this was?

I’ll tell you.

It’s the “no brainer” principle.

Establish valuable FREE  content that sells… then tell people where they can get more.

They’ve already consumed the value… so you’ve got all the PROOF you need in the subject line because they’ve already EXPERIENCED it.  (“Who wants more cookies and milk?”  DUH!)   (By the way, you can use this same proof principle to establish proof for your physical products by simply using a nice product demonstration on video)

They already associate me with solving DESPERATE PROBLEMS (figuring out how to get prospects to buy, and customers to buy more)

And it’s a unique offer… right there in that puny subject line… “ALL the cookies and milk you missed!”

Desperate problem, unique offer, and overwhelming proof.

Establish valuable free content that sells, then tell people where they can get more.

Of course “that sells” is the kicker.

Know how to do that?

I’ll spare you the usual rhetoric about having to know your market cold, etc.

Let’s assume you do.

How do you define the “free line?”

The best phrase to write on the inside of your eyelids is “Useful but Incomplete”

Like, for example, giving people your SECOND best click through generating email.

Or creating amazing cheat sheets, and sharing genuinely valuable methods and tips, but not putting the whole SYSTEM together step by step for everyone until they’re convinced and willing to pay you.

Useful but incomplete.

Someone send me a t-shirt with that on it please.  Or a bumper sticker.

(I know… my wife is chuckling now saying that’s kind of how she thinks of ME… “Useful but Incomplete”… oh well!)

Here’s another one of my best (but not my absolute best) tips.

Almost NO ONE bothers TAGUCHI TESTING their email subject lines.  But 90% of click through variance is all about the subject.   And if you’re generating traffic from your subject lines, you could be generating twice as much with better subject lines!

Food for thought,

G 🙂

PS – Have you see the new Guaranteed Video Traffic Service yet?   We’ll be ceasing the case study discounts shortly (we’ve almost chosen our lot)