This last Summer I watched one of the most titillating documentaries on Amazon Prime I’ve ever done seen called:
“Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan”
If you love those old stop-go animated movies like the old Sinbad flicks, etc, you’ll dig it.
As a kid I couldn’t get enough of it.
As an adult I find those movies far more entertaining and fascinating than all the overdone special effects movies Hollywood churns out. And if you want some great idea/copy fodder for your emails, sales letters, and other marketing, I cannot recommend it enough, even if you aren’t in to such movies.
I wrote down a list of ideas and lessons while watching it.
But there were two that stand out like a loud, wet fart in a library if you want to ratchet up your sales, response, and overall brand power.
The first of these notes I wrote down was:
“By just being super intense about what you do & the media you use, you can stand out even if that media is outdated”
Listen up, my fine feathered little Fledgling.
There is a reason why – for nearly the past two decades – I’ve been able to “get away” with, and make lots and lots and lots of sales, by stubbornly refusing to jump on all the various trends and bandwagons of technology and gimmickry other online marketers are always chasing.
Like, for example:
- Using ONLY plain text emails
- Preferring low quality – even hard-to-hear – audio to any kind of video
- Having zero production value to the videos I do shoot (including some in the pitch darkness of my bedroom)
- Writing regular books & not having multi-media products, online membership options, etc
- Using “archaic” software like 1shopping cart – which has gotten me laughed at while attending many-a mastermind…
- Selling exclusively with long scrolling online sales letters with near-zero graphics (and even those usually are just a pic of me with some cheap one-liner), video, or other bells & whistles
And the reason why is it ain’t the media or technology doing the selling.
It’s my passion for what I do, what I use, and what I sell.
That is it.
Period.
End of discussion.
Ray Harryhausen took technology nobody was using anymore or wanted to touch, and was so ultimately good at it… he inspired entire legions of filmmakers (like Peter Jackson, for example) to excel at and be at the top of their game in special effects that had nothing to do with the stop-go animation Ray did.
So it is in marketing and selling.
You don’t have to chase after every trend, innovation, or format you see.
And just because a format supposedly gets a better response or higher levels of engagement for Agora or whoever people reflexively parrot doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same for you. Especially if your natural attributes lend themselves to something else that you happen to do better than most others.
Anyway, on to the pitch:
It talk more about this, including a second powerful insight from this documentary in the bonus elBenbo’s Lair insert stuffed neatly inside the November “Email Players” issue.
If you want it, the deadline to get this issue is 10/31/20.
Here’s the link:
Ben Settle
