Ben Settle

This’ll be a quickie:

Last Friday Copyblogger.com posted an article I wrote containing 3 “plug ‘n play” email templates I’ve used several times in multiple niches to nab more sales.

They’re mostly fill-in-the-blank.

And pretty easy to adapt.

Anyway, they’re waiting patiently for you at:

www.CopyBlogger.com/email-marketing-templates

Ben Settle

P.S. If you want more templates than you can eat, then check out the “Email Players” newsletter. I’m always showing examples of emails I’ve used that have made lots of sales — and often with “psycho analysis” of WHY they worked.

Details at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

I love me a good Seinfeld episode.

And recently I saw the episode (“The Chinese Woman”) where George Costanza’s mom got to talking to Jerry’s girlfriend over the phone about why she’s getting a divorce. Because her name was Donna Chang, she thought Jerry’s girlfriend was Chinese and therefore possessed wisdom she did not.

And so, at Donna’s advice, Mrs. Costanza decides not to divorce.

Until… she realizes Donna’s not really Chinese.

“I thought I was getting advice from a Chinese woman! Well, then that changes everything!”

And suddenly the divorce is back on!

Anyway, it’s one of my favorite episodes.

And there’s a HUGE lesson inside:

Most people really do place value on things that are exotic and different. It could be Chinese medicine, American movies, French food, whatever.

Exotic sells, mi amigo.

Want to make more sales?

Create an exotic persona.

And let it ooze all over your emails.

It’ll make you more persuasive.

Just ask George’s mom…

Ben Settle

P.S. Got this from Email Players subscriber Etienne Juneau:

“I used to average 2 sales a week before applying your Email Players style of emails and now I’m at 5 sales a week, on average. Same traffic, same sales video, same everything, different email strategy. Thanks Ben!”

Not too shabby, eh?

That’s a more than DOUBLE his sales.

Just sending emails the “Settle way.”

To see if you qualify for “Email Players”, go to:

www.EmailPlayers.com

I don’t find hype very groovy.

Never have.

And, God help me, never will.

So when I say on the “Email Players” sales letter you can (literally) double your income using JUST email, I ain’t just whistlin’ dixie!

Proof?

Check out this note from Email Player Naomi Kuttner:

Here´s an interesting story you might like.

I´m in Buenos Aires now (taking a holiday – I´m from New Zealand.)

One week after I arrived my laptop broke, so while it was getting fixed I could only work in internet cafes on these old 1995 computers. So all I could do really, was email my house list. So I subscribed to your Email Players newsletter and have been writing emails (almost) every day.

And….these have been the 3 most profitable weeks ever in my business.

Seriously, I´ve literally doubled my income over the last three weeks.

Thanks heaps!

Best Regards
Naomi

’nuff said…

Hey, some say I indulge in a pit of… puffery… when I claim you can as much as double your income (and make a nice, comfy living) writing a short, fun email each day from anywhere in the world.

But, as you can see, I kid ye not.

This is the real deal, baby.

And you can do it, too, at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A little “public service announcement”:

Recently, one of my Email Players subscribers asked what printer/fulfillment house I use for physical products.

So here’s the scoop:

I’m a BIG fan of physical products.

But one thing that can make it a big fat pain in ye olde gluteus assimus is finding a good printer-fulfillment house.

I’ve used 3 different companies in the last 2 years.

The other two did everything much slower.

Plus, I had to manually put the orders in a spreadsheet each day (pain in the buttkus) and send them over, and then hope they got everything right (too often orders were missed, with understandably pissed off customers emailing me a month later asking where their $77-$137 product was…) One of the places (a highly reputable one amongst the goo-roo crowd) would have charged me $400-$800 per MONTH just to go into my shopping cart and download the orders each day (5 minutes of work per day — max). And the other one’s email program wasn’t reading the auto-generated 1ShoppingCart email notices correctly (can you believe that?)

Not good at all.

And just one big headache.

But the company I use now at the above link does everything — print, ship, fulfill, willing to auto-pull orders from the shopping cart (no extra charge – although I just let 1SC email them the notifications now) — and even sends me a daily printout of all my customers along with their tracking numbers.

Even better:

They send tracking info directly to me AND the customer.

(Unless it’s USPS, whose tracking is worthless anyway.)

I’m extremely paranoid about product deliverability.

So this was huge for me.

And, to top it off, their prices are lower than the others.

Anyway, bottom line?

I do less “thinking” than if I was digitally delivering everything because I don’t have any tech crap to deal with. In fact, I don’t do any “thinking” at all. If something comes up, I email Michelle (the “super woman” there who deals with all the fulfillment, etc, and is just “on” everything like white on rice — only thing she’s missing is a cape…) and it’s taken care of.

So I highly suggest checking them out.

I don’t get any “kickbacks” for referring them.

I just know they’ll take care of ya.

Here’s the link:

www.SelbyMarketing.com

Ben Settle

I’m a sucker for good TV.

But often, I come to the best shows late in the game (i.e. 2-3 years after they debut). This happened with “24”, “Dexter”, “Burn Notice” and, most recently… “Breaking Bad” — about an underachieving chemistry genius who gets cancer and, to take care of his family, starts cooking the purest and most expensive meth in New Mexico.

And you know what?

That got me to thinking about YOU, recently.

Here’s what I mean:

While back my pal Ryan Healy wrote an article about how scientists discovered reacting to a never-ending stream of “information bursts” (you know, like checking your email…) literally “excites” your brain to the point where it dumps dopamine into your system — the stuff that creates feelings of happiness.

It makes you feel goooood.

And the MORE you release it, the MORE you crave it.

And the MORE you crave it, the MORE you want to keep doing whatever caused ye olde “pleasure dump” in the first place.

Hey, I’m no health goo-roo.

And maybe I’m just watching too much “Breaking Bad.”

But know what this sounds like to me?

Checking email is like taking drugs!

Freaky, eh?

But at the same time, it sure explains why so many of my “Email Players” subscribers are kicking booTAY (in the past 24 hours alone two subscribers told me how doing email the way I teach has doubled their sales).

Because people LOVE a good email.

They look forward to it.

And (if you do it right) their brains FEEN it.

They need their fix, Heisenberg.

Give it to them!

Anyway, food for thought.

To start writing “addictive” emails like that, go to:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Ever see the movie “Transformers 2” (2009)?

Arguably one of the dorkiest movies ever.

No doubt it’ll leave you a few IQ points dumber. But, at the same time, as dumb as it is, it’s easily one of the most entertaining movies I’ve ever seen, too.

I loved every idiotic minute of it.

And apparently so did a lot of other people.

(It grossed almost a billion dollars in sales!)

Question is, how?

How could a movie so blatantly stoopid, make so much money?

What’s the big secret?

Answer:

Mindless, escapist fun!

That’s right, baby!

I remember reading an interview with the main actor and he even said the movie was just mindless, escapist fun. You weren’t SUPPOSED to come out thinking about the meaning of life or have some kind of artsy-fartsy mind-blowing experience you could tell your children’s children about some day.

You were just supposed to have fun.

Mindless fun.

ESCAPIST fun.

And guess what?

It’s the exact same with emails.

People wonder why I sometimes write mindlessly pointless emails about things like 10 goo-roo fanboy commandments… or about the time I farted in study hall and looked at the kid behind me (so everyone thought he did it haha)… or about how FaceBook is turning grown men into whiney little sissies… etc.

It’s the fun factor.

The escapist fun.

No, you won’t win any awards.

And you won’t get passed around social media land.

But it can make you more sales.

(If you do it right.)

Maybe even LOTS more sales.

Anyway, more advanced email training at:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

So here’s my theory.

Not sure it holds water.

So if you see some “holes” in my theory, feel free to treat it like a George Lucas movie and ignore the plot holes and just enjoy the show. Anyway, so I was talking to my pal Jim Yaghi about why people will go around and promote really bad and complicated products for goo-roos even when they don’t get a commission.

It’s practically an epidemic.

Mayhaps you’ve seen it?

Some goo-roo comes out with a shiny new object product, the gullible (predictably) snatch it up and start telling everyone how great it is… even though the product sucks, and even though the goo-roo “evangelist” knows it.

Why would they do that?

Especially when it hurts said goo-roo evangelist’s rep?

Here’s my theory:

Misery loves company, right?

So the goo-roo evangelist bought a bad product and spent a TON of money on it. Now in order to justify his purchase and not feel like a fool, he warps everything around in his tired, confused brain (Google “cognitive dissonance” for more on this) to make it sound like the best thing since sliced watermelon.

He then goes forth and tells everyone about it.

Raves about it on forums.

And sells it HARDER than the product author does!

This happens a lot in MLM.

People get into a bad deal, drop a lot of money, and then feel compelled to get other people in so they won’t be alone in their misery.

Jinkies!

Anyway, that’s my theory.

Take it for what it’s worth.

(About 100 “bytes” of info).

For something far more valuable, go to:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Ever hear of a “phantom” email list?

Of course not.

I just invented the term.

And I invented it to describe a list that does not exist, but is still there in a “disembodied” way much like the way in movies how a ghost exists, but is not really there. In this case, I speaketh of a website that has traffic… but no names are being collected.

This, my friend, is pure HORROR.

Especially if it stops you from writing emails.

In fact, people ask me all the time, “Ben, I don’t have much traffic, when should I start building a list?”

The answer is…

Yesterday!

Start collecting them names!

And, even MORE important, writing them emails.

Yes, write emails before you even have a list — while said list is still a “phantom” floating around your website.

Why?

Well, think about this:

Earlier this year I created a new site in the male health market and had zero traffic coming in. So every day I started writing emails and putting them in an auto-responder sequence.

I’d also put them in article directories.

And, I’d put them on my site.

If I would have had the time, I’d have also read those articles into a recorder and put the MP3’s on iTunes, and turned them into YouTube videos with screen capture software.

That way you kill three birds with one stone:

1. Creating content
2. Generating traffic
3. Having emails pre-loaded into your autoresponder

So get crackin’.

Give your list a flarkin’ BODY.

And then check out “Email Players”:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Otherwise you’ll be haunted by “phantom profits.”

And those are TRULY scary…

Ben Settle

A little while back I put up a “media” page.

This is a page on my site which has copies of various audio interviews I’ve done on radio shows (as well as podcasts). And there are many strategical and profitable reasons for having such a page — like attracting more traffic, generating high quality prospects for your email list, rock-solid credibility, and the list goes on.

Mucho benefits.

Zippo drawbacks.

Anyway, someone asked how to get on radio like that?

Do you have to mail & fax press releases?

Call reporters up?

Have connections?

Absolutely not!

In fact, while I AM a big fan of faxing press releases, I no longer do it that way. Now I use plain old “retro” email to do it. It’s free, it’s fast (I have gotten interviews lined up within minutes of sending an email to a reporter) and it’s highly efficient.

More:

The same method can get you on podcasts, too.

Podcast interviews are list building GOLD MINES.

Especially if they have big audiences.

(After all, podcast listeners are near their computers…)

Plus you can be a total luddite to do them. Frankly, for building my email list I am finding podcasts to be my favorite (and probably most profitable) method for adding new people to my list who are prospects and not merely “suspects.”

The key is knowing how to get booked.

What do you say in the email?

And who do you contact?

Well, guess what?

This is one of several list building secrets taught in the next “Email Players” issue and its accompanying bonus reports and audio CD training.

It goes to the printer tomorrow.

To subscribe in time, go to:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle