Ben Settle

Lo and behold:

Recently, I wrote about why I’m against so-called “nurture” sequences and “good will” emails, and any kind of email that isn’t selling (or at least makes it obvious something exists for sale, and showing them the next step to take).

Well guess what?

I posted something similar in my facebook group.

And, one of the founding fathers of Internet marketing as we all know it — Terry Dean — added:

Agreed. “Nurture sequences and goodwill emails” that don’t sell are dumb.

I have multiple clients who have pretty hefty ad budgets where we’ve tested when to sell in their autoresponder sequence. Immediately day one is the answer.

We do a slightly different approach and often have a short content video immediately after opt-in with a link to the sales video or sales page right under it. But each email is content/personality/sales.

The psychology doesn’t even make sense to “nurture” them. They’re searching now for help. They subscribe to your list now for help. And you’re going to make them wait till next week for help!

I hear ya, Mr. Dean.

(No surprise, I learned this mindset from him.)

All that sell-without-selling horse shyt does is make it take longer for you to solve your prospect’s problems and get paid for doing so. I can just imagine industry pioneer Marty Edelston (the late founder of Boardroom — 9 figure direct response marketing company) in the early days when he spent his last $3,500 to hire the great copywriter Gene Schwartz saying, “Okay Gene, don’t sell anything, we’re going to send out a week of ‘nurture’ mailings instead of selling them outright, we don’t want people to think we’re a bunch of greedy salesmen!”

No, those guys knew how to sell.

They knew how to combine content with promotion.

And, they knew how to do it *while* building the relationship.

I cut my teeth studying those guys.

And, later, I cooked up a system for doing so in email. The result is emails that combine content and promotion. Emails that make an offer. And, emails many people admit they look forward to reading and buying from.

I can show you how, too, True Believer.

It’s what my “Email Players” newsletter is all about.

August issue goes to print soon.

Subscribe here today to get it in time:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A question that waifts by like a stale fart in the breeze every now and then is why I don’t let people pay for “Email Players” for a year in one shot. After all, they have the dough, they want to give it to me, and they are even eager to do so.

My reply to that?

I get why people want to do that.

I am the same way.

But, I also don’t like being in debt or buying things on time.

By selling things in advance that have not been created yet, that puts a kind of psychological stress on my wee brain that sucks all the fun out of doing it for me. At that point it becomes a chore and something I have to fulfill on.

Thus, my answer is always no.

Think I’m the only one?

Think again, Buster.

Even the great Terry Dean, when I interviewed him once, told me he is the same way with his newsletter. People who have been buried in a bottomless pit of debt and financial problems in our lives tend to not want more debt.

Yes, even product-fulfillment debt.

(i.e. such as selling yearly subscriptions.)

Being bound to having to do it for a year in advance would take all the fun out of it.

So anyway, for those who keep asking “why no yearly?” — now you know.

And, as my pal GI Joe used to say:

“Knowing is half the battle”

Giddy-up.

To check out my *monthly* “Email Players” newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

The short answer is:

You sell ‘em something.

A better answer, though, is from this ex-freebie seeker’s own confession:

Confession of an Eternal Tyrekicker

Hi Ben,

I am writing this to confess that your wicked ways work.

The context….

I hoard information. I am an info junkyard – an alphabet algae – a web janitor to be precise.

And while i always got the kick while gobbling up your free podcasts, it’s you putting them behind a paid curtain that has their stature raised in my prying eyes.

Now, I am actually looking forward to them.

Suddenly and strangely, they seem more valuable, though it is the same content that was accessible to me for last few month but, I used to take that info for granted.

No more. Even if for peanuts, it has value for me.

A huge psychological kick to my lazy groin.

Now I am waiting, as in really waiting … And it has saved me the painful route of doling out free value till time immemorial just to look nice while staying broke.

Broke like a broken broom.

I am grateful, master. For your deft ways are subtle ….

Hail the King of Virtual Villains

I shall do you proud one day.

“King of Virtual Villains”

I hereby accept that title.

Hail to the king, baby…

Anyway, so I gave you the “what” to do to convert fire-breathing freebie seekers into repentant buyers, seeking your gracious forgiveness. Now, for the “how” to do it. There are several ways to go about it. But, in my humble (but accurate) opinion nothing beats good, old fashioned “retro” email.

Specifically, the way I teach it.

You can learn how in my “Email Players” newsletter.

When you subscribe today you get a free copy of my “Email Players Playbook” shipped to your doorstep, and also an unadvertised video of me teaching some of my best stuff in Vegas.

Here’s where to subscribe:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

“I’m out of the Midwest. It was a good place to come from. It gives you a sense of right or wrong and fairness, which is lacking in our society.”

– Steve McQueen

Let’s discuss one of my favorite topics:

Anti-professionals.

“Anti-professional” is a term I started using about 4 or 5 years ago to describe a certain kind of businessman who’s like the old school cowboy on his horse going it alone, living by his own code of honor and following his own rules — the dude who doesn’t try to impress the customers (or anyone else, for that matter), but always gets the sale.

Anyway, it could be just a coincidence.

(Or, just blatant bias.)

But, when traveling to my home town to see the family in Illinois last time, it dawned on me how many of my favorite anti-professionals have midwest “roots.”

For example:

• Gary Halbert
• Steve McQueen
• John Hughes (the filmmaker)
• Dan Kennedy
• Johnny Carson
• Bruce Barton
• Rush Limbaugh
• Marlon Brando
• Ted Nugent
• Sam Childers (the machine gun preacher)
• Hellz, even Captain Kirk…

Anyway, those are just a few of a very looooong list.

And again, yes, I readily admit this is probably just bias.

But, I will also say this:

There’s a huge difference between the West coast (where I’ve lived the past 10 years) and Midwest (where I grew up) mentality. I noticed it even when I was home for a few days last time. I never liked living in the Midwest (and FAR prefer living on the ocean and away from all the congestion and strangling urban sprawl where I grew up), and only visit there when I have to… but, it’s as night & day a difference as the weather between the two regions.

And you know what?

Methinks those who’ve lived in both areas know what I speaketh of.

’nuff said.

On to business:

The “Email Players” newsletter has been attracting some fine blokes over the past couple years. From “A List” direct mail copywriters… to old school Internet marketers who were doing 6 & 7 figures online before many of us even had a computer… to “gurus” who even the rawest of newbies would recognize… and everyone in between.

There’s a reason for that.

To see what the fuss is about, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Today’s my birthday, and so I’m going to write about one of my favorite topics.

Here’s something posted in elBenbo’s Lair last week:

Is is just me or does the whole separate email funnels/lists for “Indoctrination Series”, “Ascension Series”, “Engagement Series” not provide any better sales than strictly pushing subscribers onto the already moving train right into the fire? All this stroking and petting, “Here’s who I am, I love you, you are worth it, here’s all the free stuff you can expect from me” emails only seems to put my subscribers into the wrong frame of mind. Yet 99.9% of IM’ers (even the so called famous ones) seem to scream “build a relationship with your list and nurture it, provide and build value first then ask for the sale later”….”you wouldn’t ask some stranger to commit to marrying you that you just met on the street….so why are you asking for the sale right away..these people don’t know you..”…LOL

That marriage analogy some marketers use amuses me.

It makes zero sense.

After all, I’m not asking them to only buy from me for the rest of their lives.

(Not on the first sale, at least…)

With my methods (can’t speak for the email ascension and indoctrination masters above) it’s far more analogous to telling a girl about a fun and exciting place I’m already at, and inviting her to come by — not really caring if she shows up either way, since I’m enjoying the party with or without her, and know there will be plenty of other girls there anyway. (That is what my email method’s are all about — not begging people to to buy, but giving them the *opportunity* to buy.)

Anyway, if the list incubation and freebie masturbation techniques above work for you, great.

Have at ’em, Tiger.

I know some people who swear by such things.

But, it’s all just fear of selling and projecting your feelz onto your market.

Or, even worse, just being clever (i.e. over complicating things) for the sake of it.

It’s also selfish, too.

How so?

Because it’s not about the customer at all — it’s about the marketer’s emotions. It’s like these so-called “good will” emails. It’s the marketer projecting their own biases onto their market. Customers have pains and problems needing to be solved. That’s why they are on your list. Screwing around spending days or weeks trying to pretend you don’t have something that can benefit their lives while they are suffering seems incredibly selfish to me. Far more selfish than being honest and upfront and telling them there is something for sale that can help them. I am not saying you have to bowl them over with blatant pitches each day. But it makes no sense (in my way of thinking) to not at least let them know your solution exists. Otherwise, it’s like if you have a splitting headache and go to the store to get pain killers and are told, “we aren’t selling pain killers, today, it’s a good will day, in the meantime here is a free pamphlet about pain…”

Anyway, I got lots more to say about this.

And, I will (in a future email — worry ye not).

But for now, here’s the bottom line:

If you want to build a rock-solid relationship with your list via email you can do away with all these “sell without selling” rationalization hamster tactics like incubating new leads before (gasp!) letting them know you have a solution to their problems… so-called nurture sequences… engagement series’, constantly moving free lines, etc.

They simply aren’t needed if you know what you’re doing.

All you need do is sell, give value, and build a relationship at the same time.

Frankly, I don’t know why people find it so hard to grasp.

Mail order and space ad people have been doing it for 100+ years.

(There is nothing new under the sun, fancy new names for old school techniques notwithstanding.)

Hey, want to give elBenbo a birthday gift you will benefit from instead of me? Then all I want is for you to draft an email right now. Include an offer your list wants. Put a clear call to action at the end. And then send it to your list immediately after.

We’re talking 15-20 minutes of your time.

Maybe you will make sales and maybe you don’t.

But, at least you’re playing in the game.

(Instead of sheepishly pretending to not be playing while still trying to play.)

Of course, if you want help with the *how* to’s of writing emails, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

More on yesterday’s “death of email” email:

One of my favorite facebook people in my elBenbo’s Lair group Shawn Lebrun says:

You’ll probably remember in Gary Bencivenga’s course… where he said using “The Case Against” and then finishing the headline with an opposite viewpoint than what MOST people have in that market.

And the curiosity of it gets enough people to check it out.

If I remember right, Gary said this contrarian viewpoint of a headline was always one of the best performers”

“Top Medical Expert Makes the Case Against Vaccines”

or whatever.

To sell, you gotta get noticed. To get noticed, you gotta stand out.

And to stand out, zig when the entire herd zags… ala “death of email”

That’s my 2 cents, which ain’t worth a nickel. Yeah I suck at math.

I totally (hellz… even totes!) agree 100%.

I thought Dan’s email was brilliant marketing, just a bit ironic, that’s all.

I do that sort of “case against” thing all the time, too.

But I don’t recommend using the dead medium to tell people that medium is dead. If nothing else, it opens the door to little bastards like me ribbing someone about it. Of course, the body copy can spin things in a way where it all makes sense, i.e. “I can show you a secret way of doing email that is still alive…”, and that’d be a different story…

And lest anyone think I’m immune to being called out on these things:

When I first launched “Email Players” as a print newsletter people were on me about that.

“Ben, isn’t that a disconnect?”

“Wouldn’t sending it via email make more sense?”

And so on.

Very good points, which, of course, I addressed via email.

Anyway, I’ve done some asking around and the word around the campfire in my circle (which, admittedly, is heavy user of email marketing) is sales have never been higher.

You do what you want.

But me?

I’m gonna increase my email efforts.

You can learn my wicked emails ways my boys and ghouls are using here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Came a question last week:

I’ve been hearing from Dan Doberman that he (and many in his Marketing Camelot) are seeing email open rates (and consequently, clicks and sales) cut in half for the past couple of months.

Are you seeing the same trend in your own marketing? So far I’m not, but wanted to hear your views on this.

My ex-spurt answer?

Dan is one of my best pals and also one of the finest marketing minds I know. Frankly, he’s one of only about 4 people on this planet I (irregularly) hop on Skype with to talk about marketing with for hours (literally) at a time. And, let’s face it, that was an excellent email (and made many good points). In fact, by my count, that’s the second time Sir Doberman of Chateau Dan has sent it in recent months (I got it twice in the same day last week — he sent it to his buyer’s list too).

I will assume it must be working like gangbusters or he wouldn’t keep sending it.

But, I can’t help it.

I MUST have some fun with this.

You see, I have yet to get a direct mail letter about the death of email about this.

I keep checking my mailbox outside each day looking for it.

I also keep asking the postman if he’s seen it, have been complaining to my local Postmaster about it, and even burglarized my neighbor’s mailbox to see if she got it by mistake.

But you know what?

So far, nada.

Have only heard this via *email*…

(Actually, truth is Dan DOES show up in my mailbox via his excellent print newsletter The Doberman Dan Letter where he sometimes rails against email in favor of offline marketing — still, I couldn’t resist ribbing him a bit with this — and told him I would — and I would completely deserve it if he declared the death of elBenbo in his next email…)

Anyway, to answer your question:

My sales are doing great and certainly not cut in half.

But, there are always going to be hiccups, gmail playing games with their inbox, major autoresponders being on ISP black lists (temporarily or otherwise), delivery issues, etc. Dan is 100% right about those things happening Internet wide right now. And, just as it’s always been (and always will be), for people who don’t know what they’re doing when writing emails and who don’t qualify their opt ins better, it is less effective, while for those of us who do know what we’re doing writing emails and who do qualify our opt ins better it’s all good in the email ‘hood.

More:

Any medium can die as a marketing tool.

(Ask the people who did broadcast fax — wiped out with the stroke of Congress’s pen.)

And, it could be email really will die some day.

But, until then, here’s something to think about:

One guy (can’t remember who) a few years back launched a product about how to sell with video sales letters using a *text* sales letter that had a headline proclaiming the death of sales letters. And, a few years before that, there was a big drama-queened-up report about the death of Internet marketing itself.

My point?

Death of marketing always comes with an agenda.

(Just like my agenda is always to talk up email — since that’s what I use and teach, which is why you should take ALL of us with a grain of salt until you test out what we say for yourself.)

But, on email’s behalf allow me to paraphrase Mark Twain:

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Also, I just mentioned having better opt ins.

Well, in ye olde August (yes, I’m already promoting that bad boy) “Email Players” issue, I am going to talk about how to make some tweaks on your website to dramatically ramp up your opt ins with your current traffic.

Social media people will likely roll their eyes with what I have to say.

(Remember, agendas: their agenda is not email, it’s social media, and vice versa)

But, since when have I ever cared about what they think?

Subscription info here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

True story:

I have a friend who has been plagued with insomnia. She has been tormented with insomnia off and on for years, and it made her feel like a zombie all day.

Anyway, I told her there are two fool-proof cures:

1. Not sleeping with your phone

(Or any other gadgets — notebook, Kindle, laptop, etc).

2. Reading the average Internet marketer’s emails.

Case in point:

Last week some numpty tried to pitch Misty the podcast announcer and email writer on some thing or another by responding to her daily email that she forwarded to me. I couldn’t even tell you what he was selling because, it was so long, droning, and full of nonsense, I never got to the punchline.

Just sentence after sentence of nothingness.

And, I got a bit drowsy merely looking at it.

So there you be.

Two ways to ease your insomnia.

And, a lesson on what NOT to do in your emails.

If you’d like me to take you by the hand (so to speak), and show you exactly how to write emails people not only don’t fall asleep reading… but enjoy reading and (yes) buying from, get dressed and head on over to this site:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Back when I was but a wee copywriting lad I remember getting John Thomas envy (so to speak) over world class copywriter’s ads. I’d see a Gary Halbert ad… or a John Carlton ad… or a Gene Schwartz ad… or a Gary Bencivenga ad… or any world class ad… and I’d think to myself, “how the hell am I ever going to be this good? What is the point? This is ridiculous, I might as well go back to the 9-5 world…”

I struggled a lot in the early days.

Just couldn’t get things the way I wanted them.

Then, one day, I saw a video from a Yanni concert.

Normally, I don’t listen to Yanni’s music.

But, in this case I did. And, it was of his orchestra doing their own version of Vivaldi’s “The Storm.” (I have always been a huge Vivaldi fan — always considered his work the highest level you could achieve.) Anyway, Yanni had his two top violinists do Vivaldi’s The Storm in his own style.

And, I must say, I think it is 10x’s better than the original.

Yes, I know some music purists will disagree.

But, that’s not the point.

The point is, I finally realized even the best copywriters CAN be beat.

They CAN bleed.

And, you CAN beat them.

They are not immortal.

They are just as flawed and screwed up and plagued with insecurities over their work as the rest of us — even if they make it look easy.

The point?

Ever since then I have never had A-list copywriter penii envy.

And, after reading this, neither should you.

I don’t care if you are a brand spanking new newbie fresh off the turnip truck… or if you are a seasoned pro trying to break into the ranks of the upper echelons of copywriting. If you have the talent you’re going to break through the wall.

Like Red Skelton told Johnny Carson:

(paraphrased)

If you have talent even a brick wall won’t stop you from coming through.

And if you think you don’t have talent then study up on Gary Bencivenga’s story. He is widely considered one of the (if not “the”) greatest living copywriter today. He was in the freelance business for 40 years and saw a billion (literally) dollars worth of testing.

But you know what?

He struggled like hell in the beginning.

I remember hearing him say he was just one angry boss’s bad day away from being fired on any given day in the beginning. And, even 10 years in, he considered himself a very mediocre copywriter.

All right, enough Ramen Noodles for the soul.

Here’s another tip:

The fastest way I know to make your sales letters pull better (and even exponentially better) is by sending your list daily emails to that sales letter in a way people *like* reading and look forward to buying from.

It’s what I teach in “Email Players” each month.

And you can learn it, too — right here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle