Ben Settle

About that “refund policy” email from Tuesday…

“Email Players” subscriber Ian Stanley comments:

“I recently got signed up for email players and bought the 37 dollar up sell. Sat down and wrote the 5 emails based on your template and loaded to my auto responder. This was to a list I have kept in horrible contact with and hadn’t spoken to in months. Less than 100 people and I got a sale on day 2 for 77 dollars. That’s a damn good return on my investment. By not allowing a refund you can be damn sure I will read the email players playbook at least 5 times so I can get all the gold nuggets you have in there. The difference between trying to reverse engineer your emails and actually getting your paid product is massive. Any fence sitters should know that. Can’t wait for my first newsletter. Not allowing refunds definitely increases someone’s chances of success.”

This is the mark of a winner, IMH(BA)O.

He invests in his business.

Doesn’t procrastinate.

And rapidly implements.

(And sees results.)

This is how every successful person I know thinks. And, unfortunately, the opposite of how most think, which is why most people are not qualified to subscribe to “Email Players”.

They ain’t ready.

Are still too timid.

And, not prepared (psychologically) to commit to their success.

Anyway, down to bid’niz:

The May “Email Players” issue goes to the printer in 6 days. It covers all kinds of topics including Obama’s email campaign strategies (that brought in the lion’s share of their $600+ million in donations).

But, don’t subscribe unless you’re prepared to work hard.

Do LOTS of writing.

And, profit like a boss.

Here’s where to subscribe:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Tonight I’m being interviewed by David Garfinkel and Brian McLeod for their “Fast Effective Copy” live monthly training.

And, one thing we’re gonna talk about is… email.

(Shocked?)

As well as bullets.

And subject lines.

And a simple (but profound) mindset “shift” that separates the truly great copywriters from the lesser wannabes (something I learned directly in conversation from two of the world’s top “A list” direct mail copywriters about 6 years ago… that’s made my ads 10x’s more successful than they would be otherwise).

We’re also gonna rap about another important email tip:

Enjoying yourself.

Have some FUN, boss.

Believe it or not, I have an opinion on this.

And, (as usual) I’m right:

If you’re not having fun writing an email you should toss it out and write something that IS fun.

Why?

Because if you’re bored then your readers will be bored.

And if your readers are bored they’ll bail.

And if they bail, you lose the sale.

It’s kinda like picking up chicks.

Another thing I’m an expert at (heh).

Chicks like a challenge.

They like unpredictability and fun.

And, they like an exciting adventure.

Well guess what?

So does your email list, babycakes.

Most people are terrified of saying something confrontational or outside-the-box or (gasp!) controversial in their emails for fear of people unsubscribing.

But controversy doesn’t cause lots of unsubscribes.

Being BORING does.

In marketing boring equals death.

You can’t bore people!

Nobody in the history of the world has been bored into buying from an email or sales letter.

Sigh.

Is any of this getting through?

Or are you gonna keep SPURNING me?

Anyway, about that interview…

It’s tonight at 8:00 EST.

And, you can register free here:

http://fasteffectivecopy.com/members/monthly-training/live-training

Ben Settle

Let’s rap about testing.

If you listen to various goo-roo orthodoxy, they’ll brag and pound their chests about how they just “test their way to success.” As if learning the solid fundamentals is beneath them and just throwing up A/B split tests is the best thing you can do, yada yada yada.

I won’t say this is totally without merit.

After all, even a broken clock is right twice per day.

But it’s a terrible foundation to build on.

Why?

Because if you don’t have the fundamentals down, then you’re just testing two turds against each other and seeing which one doesn’t stink as bad.

In the end, all you get is a less stinky turd.

And, as a wise person once said…

“You can roll a turd in powdered sugar, but that won’t make it a jelly donut”

The point?

By all means test!

Test your sales letters.

Your opt in pages.

And your lead generation ads.

But don’t SPURN the fundamentals.

When it comes to email, I can teach you the solid fundamentals in about 2-3 hours in the “Email Players Playbook” that comes free with your subscription to the “Email Players” newsletter.

May is a good month to jump on board, too.

Why?

Lots of reasons.

Including:

• An in-depth analysis of Obama’s campaign email strategies (they raked in well over $600 million online, and the majority of that dough was with email)

• How to profit from dead people (it’s not as morbid as it sounds)

• How to make $$ from people opting OUT of your list

• An email format that lets anyone make out like bandits (especially for people who are still terrified of pitching in emails)

• Ann Coulter’s “easy email” writing secret

• How to get a huge discount on Daniel Levis’s “Effortless Influence” product which I’ve used to help crank out some of my most profitable emails

• And a ho’ bunch more…

This baby goes to the printer in 9 short days.

Subscribe here while you can:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

People make email WAY too complicated.

Especially people obsessing over open rates, click thru rates, opt out rates and deliverability rates.

You’ll waste your life doing that.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. Yes, there are *some* things you can do for deliverability.

But, delivery is mostly outside your control — dependent on your auto-responder’s relationship with ISP’s, staying off black lists, deleting accounts that get lots of spam complaints (when other people using your auto-responder get high spam complaints, it can hurt your deliverability), etc.

2. If you take the long view today’s open rates are irrelevant.

Why?

Because silly, you can come at them again tomorrow…

3. Open rates are hard to accurately track.

Especially with smart phones which don’t usually have images turned on (and thus, aren’t tracking opens).

4. Higher click-thrus don’t necessarily equal higher sales.

Nor do higher open rates.

Spammers sometimes get huge click-thrus and opens, but few sales. A guy once asked me how I track my ROI if I don’t track opens.

Which was odd.

I mean, how would you track ROI with opens?

Opens aren’t sales…

So, what’s the solution to all this?

It’s simple:

Instead of obsessing over things mostly outside your control like better email deliverability… focus on writing better emails.

Building a *responsive* list.

And, yes, learning to sell.

(In a way people like buying from).

You’ll make more sales.

Waste less time.

And there will be peace in your world…

Speaking of peace:

The next “Email Players” issue delves deep into the psychology behind our Nobel Peace Prize winning president’s 2012 campaign fundraising emails. (Most of the $690 million online donations were via email, NOT social media.)

Lots of cool insights.

And, lots of profitable insights, too.

Subscribe in time here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

So I heard another Internet “death of” prediction.

What happened was, my droog Jon McCulloch was listening to a CD from a (very well known) Internet marketing guy. Someone probably 95% of online marketers would recognize. And, yes, a guy whose name I won’t tell you (dontcha hate when I do that, ya little gossiper?)

The “who” doesn’t matter anyway.

It’s the “what” he said I want to skewer.

And that is:

“Email marketing is dead”

Riiiiight.

I guess I didn’t get that memo.

As my sales (and those of many of my “Email Players” subscribers) are higher than ever using good old “retro” email.

Anyway, people are always pronouncing email dead.

Usually they blame social media.

And spam.

And lower open rates.

Yada, yada yada…

In a way they’re right, though.

Email IS dead for most people.

Like people who give away lots of “content.”

Who write emails as if they’re static sales letters.

(Which is a big mistake, BTW).

And, who simply don’t know how to sell.

For them?

Yes.

Email is dead as a hammer.

For the few of us who know how to use it?

It’s alive and kicking.

Who knows?

Maybe one day we’ll see the death of goo-roo predictions.

Until then, realize this:

Whenever someone (especially a goo-roo selling an alternative to whatever death he’s pronouncing) says a media, format or platform is “dead” (i.e. long form sales letters, email, plain text, etc), you can be sure it’s alive and breathing.

Although I gotta admit:

I kinda dig my competition believing email is dead.

It’s less competition for me.

And, less competition for my “Email Players” subscribers.

(Not that we have “competition”…)

So keep predicting, ye goo-roos.

And we’ll keep profiting.

Subscribe to “Email Players” here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Never a dull moment ’round here…

Yesterday I was forwarded a Facebook group message where some dude critiqued my email “sequence.”

Apparently, he recently got on my list.

Read a grand total of two emails.

(He mentioned my “welcome” email and lawyer email.)

And from those two emails pronounced I’m doing everything wrong, have no credibility and am “screwing myself” by not giving away lots of videos, content and reports. In fact, he was particularly hung up on lack of content and “proof”, and lamented how I did not build any “rapport” with him, show any desire to help him, or give him any reason to trust me.

Is he right?

Am I doing it all wrong?

Should I renounce my wicked ways?

Uhm, no.

Just the opposite, in fact.

For one thing, right off the bat he was confused:

I don’t even have an email “sequence.”

Only the “welcome” email is auto-respondered.

And that has a pdf of the first “Email Players” issue.

Pure content.

And, valuable content, too.

Same with his lame “proof” complaint.

I use 13+ ways to prove claims or build my credibility in my emails (and 2 of them I use in almost every email I send out, including THIS email). I’ll probably do an “Email Players” issue about this eventually.

But, they’re “invisible.”

That’s kinda the point.

I’m not trying to impress “advertising critics.”

I’m trying to sell my product.

And speaking of which…

Yes, of course I’m always selling.

After all, I *believe* in my products.

And in my way of thinking, if you believe your product can truly help people, then it’s your moral and ethical duty to at least tell them about it, yo?

More:

There are lessons (i.e. content) in all my emails.

Some obvious.

Some not-so-obvious.

But you can find value even in my emails aggressively making the sale. (Even if it’s just to see an example of how to sell with email — in that sense, I give more “for real” value than 99% of Internet marketers).

Anyway, enough.

Time to bottom line this:

My “Email Players” newsletter isn’t for advertising critics.

It goes against most mainstream email instruction.

And, it won’t make you popular with your peers.

But, it works for me.

It works for my subscribers.

And, I believe it can work for you, too.

More at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Never a dull moment ’round here.

Check out this question:

“Instead of buying your products, my guess is you apply your same products to your own daily emails. This is why i reverse engineer your daily emails and extract the good stuff out from them. My question is why should I buy your products if they are already applied to your daily emails (if they arn’t – then wtf)?”

The goo-roo fanboyism is strong with this one.

For one, you can’t “reverse engineer” what I’m doing.

You can try to.

And, you may even think you are doing it.

But I can assure you, you’re not.

And any one of my long term “Email Players” subscribers will tell you the same thing. This is why swiping my emails will not do you any good long term — you don’t even know what you’re swiping.

Example:

Sometimes I do things WRONG on purpose.

Yes, sweetie, I do this to you.

And all the “reverse engineers” like you.

Why?

Because it amuses me.

And because I know that in the long run it doesn’t hurt my sales since I do things the right way enough times where it doesn’t matter. This is why all the idiots who ripped off my “Avengers” email last year (apparently the goo-roo fanboys were scrambling for an original thought that day) will never make the money they could be making — while completely demolishing their credibility with long term customers, even if they get a few short term buyers.

As for should you subscribe?

No!

You should continue to fool yourself into thinking I’m giving anything even CLOSE to my best, most profitable tips away in my free emails. You should also continue to “reverse engineer” my emails where I do things purposely wrong. And, you should continue to sign up for free lists thinking that’s all you need.

That’s the ticket.

The rest of us will have the best customers.

Make the most sales.

And, build the biggest businesses.

To take off the training wheels, go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ta,

Ben Settle

By far my all-time favorite movie on Planet Earth is…

The Matrix!

I can watch it over and over and over.

(And I have…)

The best part is the “red pill” scene.

This is when Neo (the main character, for all ye cavemen who have been living inside a rocky conclave since 1999) is given the choice between taking two pills: A red pill and a blue pill. If he takes the red pill he will know the truth — that reality as he knows it is a big lie, and all humans are jacked into a giant computer, with their living bodies being used as bio fuel for machines that rule the world. If he takes the blue pill, he goes on in sweet, blissful ignorance, thinking he’s free, while really he is being enslaved, consumed and ultimately killed by the machines that control his reality.

So he takes the red pill.

Becomes disconnected from the machine.

And sees reality for what it is.

Well, guess what?

Every day I make YOU a similar choice:

Take the red pill or the blue pill.

I make you this offer every time I plug “Email Players.”

When you stubbornly refuse to subscribe, you are gagging down the BLUE pill. You go on unaware of the power of email. How it can near-instantly increase your sales. And how it can bring you a kind of peace of mind you’ll never find lobbing tweets and FaceBook “likes” into cyberspace.

Then, there’s the red pill.

That’s what “Email Players” is.

Only a few swallow it, of course.

Hey, a lot of people are scared of success.

(It’s a huge problem in society.)

Now, I cannot make you any guarantees.

I don’t know the future.

And didn’t write you today to tell you how it’ll end.

I’m writing to tell you how it begins.

Now I’m going to plug “Email Players”, and a few will subscribe. When that happens, I’m going to show them what the rest of the blue-pill goo-roos don’t want them to see.

A world where’s there no real competition.

A world without “profit borders” or controls dictating your income.

A world, NEO, where you succeed.

And, succeed BIG.

Where you go from there…

… is a choice I leave to you…

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

“You’re going to have your critics. Screw ’em”

-Mike Ditka

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again…

A day without a scolding piece of crap-hot HATE mail is like a day without sunshine around here. If I don’t get at least one pointlessly negative mindless rant email about what an arrogant SOB I am or whatever, well, I get a bit disappointed.

And you know what?

There’s a reason for this.

A reason that’s also a lesson.

A lesson that’s also an opportunity for you, dear one.

You see, once upon a time, I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh talking about how at least HALF of his audience hates his guts.

No… not just disagree with him.

Not just dislike him.

And not just can’t stand him.

But HATE him.

Yes, them h8’ers sure do love to hate.

And the irony is, all that hate turns into love for elrushbo because that polarization serves to turn on his fan base, who then come to his defense by tuning in and then buying from the advertisers on his show.

It’s the exact same with email, amigo.

Email is just talk radio.

At least, if you do it the right way.

So don’t be afraid to rattle some cages.

Get people MAD.

And, yes, even have people hate you.

It’s good for the soul.

(And also, for your bank account.)

More at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle