Ben Settle

Got quite a few people in a tizzy last Friday.

Everyone wants the scoop on the “naughty” copywriting word.

The word everyone uses in their ads, but that’s killing your response (even though all the BEST and brightest copywriters have used it for decades). Like I said, the December Crypto Marketing Newsletter (which mails next week) shows you what it is. And also why it’s killing everyone’s response rates on sales letters, opt in pages and even PPC ads.

Until then, methinks I’ll fan this curiosity flame a bit more.

What could this deplorable word be?

What. could. it. be?

Is it “free”?

Uhm, no.

Free is still cool in ads.

What about “guarantee”?

Nope, not that, either.

What about “new” or “easy” or “simple”?

No, nope and nada.

Those words all work like gangbusters.

Look, we could do this dance all day long. And I bet if I looked at one of YOUR ads, I’d see you using this extremely common word, and probably murdering your own sales, opt ins and other conversions.

But for now all I’ll say is this:

Since NOT using this word my sales have gone up.

My conversions have gone up.

And, yes, my PROFITS have gone up.

Do you wanna know what this word is?

You would?

Then check out the next Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue.

However, this puppy goes to print soon.

Subscribe before it’s too late at:

Ben Settle

Someone took exception to yesterday’s email:

“Ben, I don’t agree with your assessment about not learning from one expert. Didn’t you mostly study only Gary Halbert’s books and teachings? And it gets expensive learning from multiple gurus.”

Well, not so fast there, daredevil.

For one thing, I’m not saying to buy everything from everyone.

That WOULD be a waste of cash.

I believe in buying one product, learning ALL you can from it (by consuming it multiple times) then moving on.

That saves money and time.

Plus, you won’t get sucked into any emotional hype fests.

As for learning mostly from Gary Halbert…

That is true with copywriting.

I DID mostly only study his stuff at first.

But (1) he certainly wasn’t the only one I studied (not even close) and (2) had I dogmatically followed his advice, I would have LOST money. Heck, I DID lose money for a spell while dogmatically following his advice on blind faith.

It was a very expensive mistake, too.

And it had to do with giving away your best info free online.

Big mistake.

Big, big, big, big mistake.

And I did it for YEARS.

But, here’s the thing:

What he taught on that subject probably DID work for him.

However, it did the opposite for me — it cost me money. So I made some adjustments based on something I’d learned from a DIFFERENT expert (i.e. I started mixing and matching) I was also studying and – VOILA! – I started making way more sales and I’ve never looked back since.

So yeah, don’t dogmatically follow anyone.

Not even your favorite goo-roo.

Unless, of course, you like losing money…

Ben Settle

P.S. Oh, and hey, speaking of not blindly doing what others teach… the next Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue includes a HUGE insight about a single word EVERYONE online uses in their ads that’s killing your response — and yes, I used this word excessively myself in my ads (and so does just about every copywriting “guru” I’ve ever studied) until recently, thinking it was a good word to use.

Well, guess what?

It’s a NAUGHTY word (conversion-wise) that kills sales.

I’d bet green money you’re using it, too.

And hurting your sales (big time).

You can get the details in the next issue.

But it goes out soon, so if you want it go to:

Had a marketing epiphany a couple nights ago.

A brave Crypto Marketing Newsletter subscriber submitted his first sales letter for critique to the private Yahoo group subscribers get access to.

And some of us let the “hounds” out on him.

Nobody was an a-hole or anything.

And everyone gave him great advice.

But one of the pieces of advice I gave him was about not binding yourself to just one marketing teacher. You see, like almost of all of us do at first, he was basing his strategy and much of his ideas on what one marketer in particular teaches.

Nothing “wrong” with that, necessarily.

In fact, the marketer he is learning from is my friend.

But, this marketer’s stuff is NOT always the perfect fit for everyone in every situation (nobody’s is). And the advice was it’s okay to take what works out of what he teaches and mix and match with other ideas and approaches, etc.

In other words…

Don’t be a marketing “purebred.”

Be a marketing “mutt” instead.

I mean, let’s face it — even in nature mutts have less health problems, are often (but not always) more intelligent and, yes, tend to live longer.

Same goes with marketing.

Be a mutt, not a purebred.

Don’t fixate on ONE teacher and blindly follow suit. Instead, test, question and experiment with ideas from multiple different teachers, experts and resources.

Then, use what works, discard the rest.

Anyway, something to think about.

Ben Settle

P.S. If you’d like to start interacting with Crypto Marketing Newsletter subscribers and get your ads critiqued via a “marketing mob” like this, go to:

Last week I saw a cool video about lying.

Someone was forwarding it around FaceBook, and it was a clip of the old Johnny Carson Show where Johnny was playing a crooked politician hooked up to a lie detector at a news conference.

Every time he lied the machine buzzed…

BZZZT!

It was one of the funniest things I ever saw.

My stomach was in PAIN from laughing so hard. And afterwards it got me to thinking about online marketers.

How many blatantly LIE in their ads?

Inflate their numbers?

Or distort facts to get a sale?

You know, like…

“We have 10,000 people on this call tonight…”

BZZZT!

“We will never offer it this cheap again…”

BZZZT!

“I started off broke without a penny to my name…”

BZZZT!

“This sales ends today…” BZZT! (i.e. when they already have an “after sale” planned for the next day)

BZZZT!

“We only have 39 of these eBooks left…”

BZZZT!

“There was a problem with our email server so I’m sending this out again…”

BZZZT!

And on and on and on….

Anyway, this stuff always amuses me.

And it makes me wonder:

If their product is so good, why lie about it?

Ben Settle

P.S. The next Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue goes to print in just two short weeks. It’s a double-sized issue “year end” training packed with lots of info on how to get traffic and better conversions.

Subscription info at:

Got asked an interesting question about email.

This person has been reading my emails (via my blog) for a while now, and noticed a sharp contrast between how MUCH content I put out vs my colleagues, peers and, yes, competition. Specifically, while everyone else does longer posts, that are often multiple pages long… mine are short and almost… “thin” compared to everyone else’s.

And the question was… why?

Shouldn’t I be trying to out-write everyone else?

Pump out MORE content?

And spend more time than they do?

No way!

For one thing, I do these mostly every week day.

I miss a day here or there, true.

But I’m more or less consistently putting out something each and every week day — rain, sleet or shine. It’d be nutz over chocolate for me to spend that much time every day on a single email/blog post.

And secondly, I specialize in “popcorn” emails.

What do I mean by “popcorn” emails?

Well, I shamelessly swiped that concept from the movie industry which makes most of its money from “popcorn” flicks — movies that won’t win any awards — but will often be a fun, escapist adventure people love to watch.

That, my friend, is the kind of emails I do:

Escapist.

Fun.

An adventure.

And, yeah, with tips tossed in for good sport.

Anyway, I could drone on forever about email.

Which is why I have a couple detailed trainings on the subject as bonuses for new Crypto Marketing Newsletter subscribers — including an “unadvertised” bonus training I recently did for one of the Internet’s largest home business training websites.

For more info get ye over to:

Ben Settle

I admit, I’ve never been to Texas.

But that doesn’t stop me from liking (and shamelessly USING whenever applicable) one of the best phrases they use down there in the lone star state:

What does that mean?

Basically, it describes someone who’s more image or projection than actual substance (or, as some like to say, they “talk the talk but can’t walk the walk”).

This describes a LOT of people online, too.

For example, people who brag about having…

• A big list but can’t make a sale if their life depended on it

• An arsenal of copywriting “tricks” and “chokes” memorized, but can’t sell their way out of a paper bag

• Lots of Facebook friends & Twitter followers… but no customers

• Thousands of blog readers, but no email list

• All the latest super-duper “space age” computer software and gadgets… but can’t create a sales funnel that makes them more than a few bucks per month

• $10k worth of books on their shelves they haven’t read

And on and on and on…

Kind of amusing, aren’t they?

But dangerous if you let ’em sweet talk you.

Anyway, next month’s Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue is a double-sized special training on how to to generate a stampede (how’s that for Texas lingo?) of traffic.

It ain’t me teaching it, though.

When it comes to traffic, I don’t have cattle… or even a hat!

But my friend Jim Yaghi does.

And he’s got LOTS of cattle, too.

In fact, he’s a computer scientist who understands Google’s AI (artificial intelligence) platform and how to gets lots of cheap traffic from it. And the next issue is me grilling him on his little-known, monkey-simple traffic secret you never hear from the mainstream “Google-roos” (i.e. Google goo-roos).

Fascinating stuff.

And it’ll let you end the year with a BANG.

Subscribe before it mails out at:

Ben Settle

Got a special “goodie” for you today.

Below is an in-depth interview I did for one of my Street-Smart Email course customers Ryan McGrath a little while ago.

It’s not just about email, though.

And methinks you’ll find the insights extremely valuable.

(If you **apply** them, of course)

Enjoy…

QUESTION: What’s the Street Smart Email origin story?

BEN: About two years ago I started doing an intense study on email marketing. I was studying the great Matt Furey’s emails and his teachings on the subject, as well as a half dozen other people whose emails I liked reading (and buying from), and got real inspired to start doing more email promoting.

So I borrowed from one expert.

Then another.

And another… combining things they taught, taking some parts out, adding other stuff in… basically like a scientist mixing and matching different potions.

The result?

My sales started going up fast!

It was just incredible how big the difference was in sales.

But as good as all these teachers are, I found myself constantly tweaking things and testing things which led to new discoveries and ideas none of them were teaching. Ideas that made my sales go up even more and with less effort. And so, over the course of several months of writing literally hundreds of emails and developing my own unique “system”, I started noticing sales going up even more (and I have a small list).

I also noticed my clients’ sales going up, too.

Anyway, long story short…

People on my list started asking me to do a course on the subject. I guess they liked what they were seeing (I mean, it was selling them on my products) and wanted to know how they could do the same.

I resisted at first.

But I had a gut feeling I should at least entertain the idea.

So I started writing notes down of what I was doing, just in case I ever decided to take the leap and do a course. Well, as you know, I made the leap and all those notes, ideas and discoveries are now what I call “Street Smart Email” — because a lot of it is really not what you will learn in other books and courses. Instead, it’s information you usually only learn on the “street” so to speak — writing emails day in and day out (I write a daily email during the week) by continuously honing your craft and getting better.

QUESTION: This product is mostly audio — Why did you decide to use audio recordings vs. a traditional written book/binder format?

BEN: What I did was make an outline of everything I wanted to teach (in bullet point format) and started just… going through it point-by-point. The result was about 5 hours of content. I then had all the audio transcribed for people who like to read.

Personally, I’m a reader and prefer information in text.

But most people are not that way.

Most people tend to like audio and video.

Now, I’m not much of a video guy so I didn’t even go there. But I’m very comfortable with audio. Plus, I think it’s extremely powerful to both listen to information and read it to absorb it better.

So this way customers get the best of both worlds.

QUESTION: Did you record and produce the audios yourself, or did you hire someone to help? If you did it yourself, was it a difficult process?

BEN: Yeah, I did it completely myself (except the transcribing).

At first, I was going to have it all dolled-up with bumper music and really professional sound quality.

But then I realized two things that changed my mind.

The first was, I wanted it to have a “street smart” feel to it.

I didn’t want it too jazzed up afterall.

Maybe a little crackling in the audio every now and then (I recorded it on a simple digital voice recorder hooked up to my telephone) wasn’t so bad. How can something be called “Street Smart” if it’s built like it’s an academic type product?

But besides that, people are conditioned to value things that are low production value.

Don’t ask me why this is, as I have no idea.

There are exceptions to this, of course, but there’s a reason why you can only get $15 for a book in the book store when that same information can be packaged in a plain binder with photo-copied pages and sell for 10 times as much.

Or in an eBook for about twice the price (even though it’s “air”).

They proved this years ago.

I heard Dan Kennedy tell the story of Jeff Paul’s “make money in your underwear” product. I may not get this exactly right, but from what I understand, they tested it out as a beautifully packaged product with all the bells and whistles and sales were low and refunds were high. Again, people just aren’t conditioned to pay a lot for stuff that looks like it could sell in the book store or in a Nightingale Conant catalog.

So they toned everything down.

Photo-copied pages.

Ugly design.

Bare bones production.

The result?

Sales went up and refunds went down!

Crazy, isn’t it?

QUESTION: What are some of the advantages of using audio vs. written text for a course? (Advantages for the product creator? For the end-user?)

BEN: Audio is very portable.

You can load it onto your iPod or MP3 player.

It’s also very easy for most people to absorb.

Again, reading is hard for most people. I love reading, personally (I love audio too, though). But the reality is, it’s neurologically hard for most people to read. It’s not that they are dumb, it’s just not easy on the brain for most people. So when you’re dealing with a lot of material, it helps to have it in audio and/or video as well as text.

It’s also easy to create.

You can do it in one sitting when you get comfortable with it.

Then you can have it transcribed, smooth it out a bit, and you have a book written in a fraction of the time it would take to start writing it out page by page. In fact, even if you are not going to use the audio, it’s still a great way to “write” a book.

Just talk out your content and have it transcribed.

QUESTION: What advice would you give to someone who is interested in your email marketing course, but doesn’t yet have a product of their own to market?

BEN: Start mailing your list every day, right now.

Don’t worry how big your list is, either.

Just start sending them a daily tip or idea. I am not talking about sending them blatant sales pitches (you can do that at times, but there’s a fine line in how you do it), but just something interesting, fun and useful.

For one thing, this gets them used to hearing from you.

And for another, it positions you as a leader in your market.

People naturally gravitate towards (and buy from) leaders in their market. So positioning yourself as such now can give you a HUGE advantage when you do have a product. Especially since many people will see you as a market leader if they hear from you more often than your competition if you do it right.

So I would say start sending emails now.

Don’t put it off, and frankly, the feedback from your list may even tell you what to put in your product which will make it easier to sell.

QUESTION: Where should people go to learn more about the Street Smart Email Course?

BEN: They can learn more about Street-Smart Email at:

Or, if they want a smaller “taste” of my methods, and not spend the $795 right now, they can subscribe to my Crypto Marketing Newsletter and one of the bonuses is an hour long interview about email I did for Daniel Levis’s members.

They paid as much as $78.00 for it.

But it’s free to my Crypto Marketing Newsletter subscribers:

Recently I watched a kick assimus documentary.

It was about Stan “the man” Lee — who created characters like Spiderman, Hulk, Ironman, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four (and a gazillion others…) And he was talking about how, early in his career, his publisher only sold comics based on trends — what was selling by other comic book publishers at the time.

So, for example:

When westerns were selling, they did westerns.

If the trend was romance, they did romance stories.

If it was war stories, they did war stories.

Problem was, Stan wanted to write super hero comics and not a bunch of girly men books about romance or whatever the trends dictated. And so he was “this” close to quitting and doing something else.

Then his wife (the original Nerd Girl?) stepped in.

She knew he was quitting anyway.

So she suggested writing one last story the way HE wanted to and get it out of his system.

Stan agreed and wrote the first “Fantastic Four” issue.

The result?

People loved it!

Sales went through the roof!

And it was (quite literally) a multi-billion dollar decision that spawned the entire modern super hero comic book industry, along with its resulting movies, TV shows, toys, etc.

The point?

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box.

Or to go against what the rest of your industry is doing (especially how they are advertising or what they are selling).

Yeah, it’s risky.

But anything worth doing is ALWAYS risky.

So no need to be a wuss about it.

Ben Settle

P.S. The upcoming December Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue is all about an “outside the box” way to do Google AdWords (used by computer scientist and AdWords super star Jim Yaghi) that mainstream Google goo-roos either don’t know about or purposely don’t talk about (not sure which).

Plus, it’s got some other (non PPC) goodies that can immediately drive up anyone’s response (including a doozie of an idea that blew me away when I heard it and prompted me to immediately tweak my ads).

IMHBBO**, it’s “must reading” if you want traffic.

Subscription info at:

**In my humble but biased opinion

People keep asking me about freelance copywriting.

I don’t know if it’s the economy or what, but there are definitely worse ways to make a living than by writing ads (sure beats digging ditches).

Well, the first thing I suggest is specializing.

In other words, don’t be the general practitioner of copy.

Be the brain surgeon.

Or foot doctor.

Or dermatologist, etc.

What you specialize in is up to you (obviously), but here are a few things to pick from:

• Long form sales letters

• Video scripts

• Emails and auto-responders

• Speech writing

• Fundraising

• Catalog copywriting

• Newsletter promotions

There are more than that.

But if you simply picked one of the above to focus on, and excel at, and become known in the market as the “go to” person for that speciality, you will probably never have to worry about getting gigs again.

Instead, people will gravitate towards you.

And nobody else will be good enough for them.

What about how to FIND clients?

That’s a whole other ball of ear wax.

Many other people have created products on the subject (some good, some not so good). And I even recently wrote a Crypto Marketing Newsletter issue on the subject last month (back issues are available for sale only to paying subscribers).

So there’s plenty of info out there on that.

But the above should put you on the right trail…

Ben Settle

P.S. One “how to get clients” product I recommend is Ryan Healy’s “Get Clients” report. Ryan has had some 70 clients in the past 4 years (give or take).

So he definitely knows how the game is played.

And (even more important) how to WIN it.

Here’s my blatant affiliate link:

Plus, if you buy from my affiliate link, email me your receipt and I’ll send you a special MP3 I did with John Anghelache who’s no slouch when it comes to getting clients, either. In fact, he’s gotten gigs from the late Gary Halbert, Yanik Silver, Michel Fortin, Peter Stone, and other great clients who don’t suffer fools gladly.

Anyway, some awesome tips in this bonus.

And it’s yours if you buy Ryan’s eBook from my affiliate link and email me your receipt.

Here it is again: