Ben Settle

So I had a brain fart yesterday.

There’s lots of “corporate espionage” out there — where people covertly sabotage companies for financial gain or to even outright destroy them.

I’m starting to think this goes on online, too.

Some of the advice out there is just too loco.

So I got to thinking…

If I wanted to destroy another online business I’d simply disguise myself as a business coach and tell them things like:

1. Only mail when you have something to say or sell (NOT daily)

2. Avoid offending anyone (at all costs)

3. Don’t show your unique personality (sound “professional”)

4. Never talk politics (or be controversial in any way)

5. Don’t give a firm opinion (just say “test it” regardless of logistics, list size, budget, low traffic, etc)

6. Spend mucho time tracking open and clickthru rates religiously (instead of sales — what’s most important is who reads and clicks links, not who buys your product)

7. No misspellings (everything MUST be perfect)

8. Always get your colleagues’ opinions on your marketing (who may or may not have the problem your product solves)

9. Obsess over “conversion” rates (ignore ROI and sales)

Yep.

I’d teach them ALL these things.

And then, with a twinkle in my eye, I’d collect my coaching check, give ’em a friendly swat on the arse, and watch the carnage unfold.

Oh yeah, baby!

Hey, this is serious stuff.

After all, if you study the above list, you’d realize ALL 9 items are commonly practiced (sometimes even taught!) as the way to do business online.

Freaky, eh?

It’s a dog-eat-dog world online.

And we’re all wearing milk bone underwear.

Protect your nutz, amigo.

I show you how each month in “Email Players”:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

It’s ghoulishly scary how little many “email experts” know.

It’s not even a case of “all theory, no practice.”

It’s “all blindly-follow-the-crowd, no practice.”

In fact, check out these mangos:

I once read a quote from a major email company rep saying how you should use email to grow your FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube followers. In other words… send emails out sending your list to those sites, instead of your site.

Methinks that’s a bit… backasswards.

Frankly, it makes no sense.

It’s like having customers in your store (standing at your cash register ready to buy!) and then sending them to someone else’s store to learn more about you and your product there, instead of in your store.

Not saying never to do it online.

Once in a while it can be strategic.

But usually, it don’t make no sense.

Moral of the story?

To dig the best hole, talk to someone who digs holes each day in the trenches instead of shovel sellers hawking the latest cutting-edge shovels.

Common sense?

Yeppers.

That’s why so few do it.

For ongoing advanced email training from a ditch digger (and not just a shovel seller) check out the “Email Players” monthly newsletter.

It ain’t everyone’s cup of Jack.

But that’s for you to decide.

Pricing and details at:

Ben Settle

Subscriber Esti Allina shouts from Israel…

I have to say that reading your emails has been enlightening:

1. I’ve become way less anal about grammar
2. allow myself to be more me and come through in my communications
3. I’m relieved to know you’re not an Obama fan-boy! (no, there was never any doubt in my mind).

You ain’t just whistlin’ dixie about Obama.

To watch an Obama fanboy mindlessly spin his policies as “good” is to behold cognitive dissonance at work.

His fanboys may even be worse with that than the GW Bush fanboys were.

And THAT is saying something.

(Yes, I’m getting low on hate mail… bring it…)

And speaking of interesting comments…

I once got the One Email Comment to rule them all.

The writer basically said I made him feel like a follower of Col Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now” — I broke ranks with mainstream email goo-roos with a loyal cadre of email soldiers, going forth deep into the jungles of the Internet, getting medieval on our competitors with brutal “guerrilla warfare” tactics. Yes, it makes the rest of the “army” (i.e. other mainstream online marketers) scared and nervous because we do things OUR way and not the way of the play-it-safe ex-spurts do…

Oh yeah, baby!

I get SUCH a kick out of that analogy.

Anyway, there’s no real point to this email today.

I just felt like bragging.

But, fret ye not.

You can get bragging rights, too, when you start emailing the “Email Players” way.

It’s so blessedly easy, too:

1. Subscribe
2. Follow my instructions
3. Let the rest take care of itself

Go here next:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Every once in a while…

I screw up.

I know, I know.

You find that hard to believe.

And hey, in your defense, let’s be honest here… it happens so rarely, it’s hard to believe it’s even possible.

But alas, I made a pretty dumb n00bish mistake.

What was this grave mistake?

Not having a birthday sale.

Duh, Ralphie.

Everyone should use their birthdays as an “excuse” for a sale.

I mean, why not?

Luckily, this is salvageable.

Because until Sunday at the stroke of midnight (eastern standard time), I’m giving away my bestselling “Copywriting Grab Bag” system for $100.00 off.

However, a word of warning:

This product ain’t no sippin’ tea.

It’s THICK with info.

Takes months to get through.

And, has gotten rave reviews from some true “players.”

Like Ken McCarthy (“founding father” of Internet marketing)… Terry Dean (Internet marketing pioneer)… T.J. Rohleder (Old school mail order jeenius)… And even professional copywriters who write ads for Apple Computer, Tony Robbins, and other “celebrity” clients, as well as full time direct marketers whose businesses live and die by their copy.

Anyway, here’s the deal:

It’s $100.00 off until Sunday at midnight.

And there’s no money-back guarantee.

It’s sink or swim ’round here.

Here’s where to get it for $100.00 off:

www.CopywritingGrabBag.com/birthday

Ben Settle

Today’s my birthday.

And to celebrate, I’m gonna write about one of my FAVORITE subjects:

The foolishness of “social media marketing”.

Let’s pick on FlakeBook this time.

What is it with all these people obsessed with getting FaceBook “likes”? People are even spending money to get FaceBook likes (loco). And yet, a FlakeBook like is basically the same as a person driving by your store, honking his horn and giving you a toothy smile and a thumbs up (and not spending any money or even stopping in to say hello).

Whoopy.

Maybe that’ll give ya the warm fuzzies.

But will it put coinage in ye olde pocket?

Not likely, Chuckles.

Hey!

I know the social media addicts seethe like hippies at a gun show when I even so much as SUGGEST all those FakeBook likes are about as useful a marketing tool as the Good Year Blimp is.

But tough diddles.

I’m not here to make friends.

Or get a pat on the back from the goo-roo brotherhood.

I’m here to speaketh the trufe.

To keep you away from nonsensical theories.

And, to make you $$.

SPURN me at your peril.

OK enough!

I know email is like so, you know, 1996.

But it works like crazy.

In fact, it’s never worked better.

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

Get the lowdown at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

One of my website subscribers said something that was kinda cool.

He was replying to that “Ben up” email last week.

And he said:

“Dude… you’re the shit… your enemies secretly worship you…”

I like that ha ha

Now, I don’t know if they worship me…

But I definitely have enemies.

And the list of those enemies is growing faster than a super hero’s rogue’s gallery of villains. In fact, it’s growing so fast, I’ve started kicking around the idea of a writing a new book called:

“How To Make Enemies And Anger People”

(Dale Carnegie ain’t got nothing on me…)

Apparently, I EXCEL at both.

In the past 6 months I’ve been called everything from a huckster and chump… to a liar and asshole… to even an honest-to-goodness psychopth by one Internet marketing teacher.

Anyway, the point?

For better or worse…

I’m world class at this making some people angry thing.

(I’m SO good at it, I do it without even trying!)

But, you know what?

My ability to anger and make enemies is small potatoes compared to my friend Jim Yaghi’s ability to get people riled up.

Talk about tipping sacred cows.

He pretty much attacks everything.

Split testing.

Tracking open rates.

Swiping.

People who claim high squeeze page conversions (i.e. people will say they have a 90% opt in rate, but they don’t tell you they sent their house list to that page…not cold traffic…)

And the list goes on.

He finds sacred marketing cow.

Walks up to it.

Tips it.

The result is anger.

And, in some cases, probably even threats.

Never a dull moment on Planet Yaghi, I reckon.

This is why I insist you get on his list.

You won’t agree with everything he says. You won’t like everything he says. You may not even respect everything he says.

What matters is you DO what he says.

Trust me.

It’ll put more $$ in your pocket.

Here’s where to go:

www.jimyaghi.com/start2/dfyt-leads.php

Ben Settle

What?

You can’t get enough Jim Yaghi?

You want MORE Jim Yaghi?

But you still have SPURNED my advice to get your bootykis on Jim Yaghi’s email list?

Sigh.

You sure are stubborn.

So here’s yet another email Jim wrote (that I am reprinting with his permission) about another cool way to ramp up ye olde response. Something nary a goo-roo really understands, thus you don’t see them trying to teach it or pretend like they invented it.

(Goo-roos are funny like that…)

Ready?

OK Jim, hit it…

Why SWIPED Copy Fails

Haha this is hilarious!

Was doing, some err…”TV show swiping” online, when I saw two landing page pop-unders for two different BIG Gooroo clients of ours.

Normally, I just shut those annoying windows before they even load, because they’re noisy and irritating. But since they belonged to my clients, I gave them a second look.

The first, was an autoplaying video which brought me to tears.

The second had a REALLY familiar headline pattern.

Turns out, the headline itself was a near-exact swipe of one I developed for my Email Expert friend Ben Settle.

Now, Ben is an incredible copywriter; one of the best and highest-paid in the industry. He wrote the sales letter for my PPC Domination course, which set an industry sales record in its launch week.

But I’m the God of Traffic and landing pages are MY area of expertise.

Several months ago, I shared with him a landing page technique that I discovered works EXTREMELY well on cold-traffic.

Since he was launching his Email Players newsletter at the time, he asked my help to brainstorm a headline that uses my technique.

We called it Time Continuum Landing Pages…

Because of the way it works.

Essentially, the theory I based it on is to do with linguistic tense. My MSc and PhD topics were both on computational linguistics – knowledge from which I borrow heavily.

The theory:

Things that occurred in the past are EXPIRED and no longer valid. (i.e., false). And things that are to happen in the future, e.g., conditional statements, “you’re about to”-type statements, are unproven and hard to believe (also false).

But things that are in the present, are currently happening and cannot be disputed (i.e., true!).

There’s a lot more to it – and even Ben had difficulty doing it alone…but that is the gist of it.

So the landing page copy we came up with was:

“Simple Email Tips Putting Money In Bank Accounts RIGHT NOW…

“Top email specialist is divulging 24 proven ways to get people reading and buying EVERY TIME you send them email…Use the form below to open it now…”

Although Ben and I both agree that split-testing is a waste of time, Ben tested this headline for MONTHS against everything he could think of, and it ALWAYS out-pulled his new headlines.

ONLY for cold-traffic though. We had differing theories as to why, but in the end we agreed that Time Continuum is an amazing conversion strategy for cold traffic.

Why I’m laughing now is that the Gooroo Client who swiped the headline pattern had NO CLUE as to why it was working so effectively.

And although they probably increased conversions a little bit, they missed the theory that makes this technique effective.

Their swipe-modified headline still had “promises of future” (false) and didactic instantaneity (i.e., the button said “get instant access” instead of making a person FEEL immediacy as we do with ours).

This, I think, is a PERFECT example of what Gooroo Fanboys do to stay just Fanboys instead of business owners.

They swipe and copy away without understanding the intricacies of why things work and when.

Then they wonder why they don’t have the same results as the originator.

Look, if you want to get high converting copy, you have to become so intimate with the field of marketing, that you are a PHILOSOPHER.

In Academia, the highest degree of specialty you can get at university is called a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)…and you can get it in ANY field: computer science, business, linguistics, psychology, medicine…anything.

Because any TRUE expert must be a PHILOSOPHER in their field.

And if you don’t have years to master copywriting, traffic, and all the other components of marketing…well you’re not going to have very good luck in online business.

How’s that for a mind churner?

See why I insist you get on his list?

And, why I insist you do it TODAY (in the present)?

Here’s where to go:

www.jimyaghi.com/start2/dfyt-leads.php

Ben Settle

P.S. Happy Independence Day to my American subscribers.

Not that independence is a cherished concept in the US anymore (too many would rather suck on the government teet), but what the hay, might as well enjoy the fireworks…

Yesterday I told you about Jim Yaghi.

The computer scientist and lead generation master.

Remember that?

Well, today, with his permission, I’m reprinting an email he wrote about why split testing is (GASP!) a waste of time.

Yes, I know this goes against the grain.

But, most truth does.

In fact, I’ve been doing what he says (below) and my opt-in conversions are overall higher.

Definitely worth seeing if you get the same results.

So, without further ado…

Take it away, Jim:

Last night, I went to bed with the SPLITTING-EST of headaches.

Was gonna pass out; even after 3 pills of the strongest kind, and Voltarin cream on neck and head…the pain got the better of me.

Lack of sleep is the culprit – but like I always say – plenty of time to rest when I’m dead.

Speaking of SPLITTING…

How about what I said a while ago?

“Ben and I both agree that split-testing is a waste of time”

I knew someone would challenge me on it…and it was an Engineer client of ours who ended up asking, “What do you mean it’s a waste of time?”

Oddly enough, I was on a call with Ben Settle at the exact moment the email came in, discussing that exact topic.

When I told Ben YEARS ago that split-testing is stupid…he was shocked!

“Jim,” he said. “You are a SCIENTIST! Don’t you even have a Math degree or something? I thought you’d be the ONE guy who’d RELIGIOUSLY split-test everything.”

Yes I do have a math degree somewhere. But Nope, I split-test NOTHING.

Skeptical as Ben was, when I told him split-testing was stupid, he figured I knew what I was talking about and gave MY method a try.

Today, he and I laugh (all the way to the bank) at people who split-test.

Split-testing is an attempt to make SCIENCE out of marketing…which, let’s be honest, marketing is more a TRADE than a science. Or if you’re me – Handsome and Awesome – then it’s more of an ART than science.

Engineers and people from science backgrounds, they tend to enjoy the idea that marketing could somehow become scientific and predictable…although it NEVER really is.

It’s virtually random. Without order. It’s all grounded in PEOPLE’s EMOTIONS – no logical thing can describe or model it.

– Does this red button work better than this green button?

– Does this headline perform better than this other?

– Does this landing page convert higher than the old one?

All good questions.

But running the split-test itself could be DANGEROUS.

Not only do you risk killing a money-making version of your ad…

You also risk keeping the LOSER version instead of the WINNER versions over time, which will progressively DROP your sales rate.

It’s true.

Look, the whole concept of split-testing relies on statistics, which is the science of APPROXIMATING the FUTURE from OLD DATA.

All statistical tests start on the premise that a sample should on some level represent the population.

Meaning, if you run a statistical experiment in marketing, you’re doing it with the belief that the 1,000 or 10,000 people who see your sales message, behave like, and are a “good-enough” representation, of your ENTIRE market.

You certainly don’t show your ads to the ENTIRE market during a split-test.

And the ENTIRE market does not behave the exact same way as the 1,000 people you test.

And 10,000 people don’t behave exactly the same as 1,000 people in a test.

We know this much.

Sure there could be patterns in each group’s behavior, but it differs from one group to the next.

And theoretically, the bigger the group, the closer you get to describing the entire population of your market.

So split-tests may be MORE meaningful when you’re dealing with a sample size in the order of 10,000 – 100,000 hits/day…but that’s rarely when marketers are using split-tests.

One thing we can be certain of, is that SOME of your market will respond to Version 1 of your ad while others will respond to Version 2 of your ad.

And those who respond to Version 1 may not ever respond to Version 2 and vice versa.

This in itself is a good enough reason to NOT split-test.

Add don’t forget, that when REAL scientists run statistical experiments, they attempt to create a COMPLETELY controlled environment with as close to ZERO bias one way or the other.

Something you can ONLY pull off in a lab, with lab-rats, which we don’t have the luxury of online.

And they use tests like Chi-Square, Kendall’s, Pearson’s, or Spearman’s correlation to understand if the results of one variation against another might somehow be due to PURE chance.

(Meaning, they ALSO test HOW WRONG THEY MIGHT BE in reaching their conclusion!)

It’s so complicated; it’s enough to give YOU and ME both a splitting headache.

Let’s put it this way:

Split-testing is a dangerous tool in untrained hands.

Plus there’s a much simpler alternative that works better.

Whether your ad is Version 1 or Version 2, or V.3 or V.10, all you REALLY care about is that your ad is making money (or generating leads).

So if you run two versions and BOTH succeed in doing that (eg v1 gets 10% optin and v2 gets 30% optin), DON’T kill v1!

If you kill v1 because it scored worse than v2, you’re assuming that ONE ad is going to be responded to by 100% of your market.

That’s not true is it?

V1 got 10% of your market to respond. So keep it. Unless you want to turn away 10% of the population.

Instead, create a v3 based on v1’s success and run all 3 versions of your ad.

This way, you INCREASE your odds of getting an even LARGER share of your market to respond to your ads…WITHOUT turning away anyone else who behaves like those who responded to v1 or v2!

Hey, now you don’t suppose that’s the ONLY marketing trick I know, do you?

See, the point here is that I know GANGS of marketing tricks that make life easier, less complicated, and make much more money.

You can read about them here:

www.jimyaghi.com/start2/dfyt-leads.php

A question rolls in about testing…

“I’m totally confused by this testing vs. non-testing debate. If the concept of testing is not sound, then how does anybody know if anything works (other than generating a random quantity of sales?) What’s to say you should use one headline over the other if you can’t trust the results of either? Was Claude Hopkins full of sh*t when he coined the term “scientific advertising” for his book? Testing has to have *some* validity, right? Maybe only in broad strokes, but still usable.”

Who said you shouldn’t be testing?

I’m ALL for testing.

But realize testing emails is very unreliable.

And, can even harm your sales over time.

Example:

I’ve written many emails that kicked bootykis the first time I used them, but BOMBED the next time. I’ve also had emails do little or no sales the first time (and this spans multiple markets, btw), but drive in lots of sales when I lazily recycled them later.

See the problem?

The danger?

If I’d dogmatically relied on so-called “testing data” from tediously setting up A/B tests each day, I’d have missed out on lots of sales.

So I’m all about sales trends with email.

Not measuring metrics that are (at best) unreliable.

BTW, as a side bar…

This “testing” email stuff makes some people VERY emotional.

One blue-flame special went especially batty — including threatening to punch me in the face, demanding I show him a tax return, yada yada yada.

Amusing stuff.

My buddies and I found it hilarious.

Hey, I DO so love them haters.

They… complete me…

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, now, static pages are great for testing.

Especially opt in pages.

(And especially the kind of opt in page I’m teaching in the July “Email Players” — www.EmailPlayers.com — newsletter issue, which goes to the printer in a few days…)

But email testing data is highly unreliable.

Not always repeatable.

And, can cost you money as a result if you blindly follow it (it’s not a total waste of time, but you have to be careful).

Bottom line?

The real power is in regular communication.

In being consistent.

And, in knowing how to write to your market.

That’s my opinion.

And, as you know, I’m always right.

You can learn my email system at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle