Ben Settle

Let me tell you about the “waving guy.”

Back when I first moved to this area in 2007, we drove into a town about 30 miles south where I live and were greeted by a most unusual sight:

A guy walking up and down the street… WAVING at everyone.

As someone who is originally from the big city Chicago-land area, I must say, it was shocking.

Here was this guy walking up and down a major street through town, waving and “greeting” everyone driving by.

And when you honk your horn, he also bows and tips his hat!

Just the coolest thing you’ll ever see.

Since then, whenever we go to that town, we’re always looking for him. Sometimes we see him, and sometimes not. But when we do see him, we (along with most other cars) honk and wave back.

Corny as it sounds, it just makes you feel good to see this guy.

You almost look FORWARD to it.

It really puts things in perspective, too.

Here’s a guy who is being kind and decent for no reason whatsoever.

He doesn’t ask for anything.

Doesn’t want anything.

And doesn’t have any “agenda” but to brighten peoples’ days.

Which is exactly what he does.

We’ve even noticed that if we were feeling a bit stressed, angry, frustrated, etc, that it ALL goes away when we drive by this guy.

All that “junk” is replaced by a feeling of gratitude and joy. Like you’re just happy to be alive — free on God’s green earth.

Anyway, last time I saw him, I got to thinking:

What an awesome metaphor for how businesses should behave.

How much difference would it make to your business, your health and your overall peace of mind if people thought of YOU the same way people think of the waving guy?

Where people look forward to hearing from you?

Look forward to telling people about you?

And look forward to buying from you?

And not because you even necessarily have the “best” product or service. But just because you leave their lives a little better than BEFORE they did business with you?

Anyway, just something to think about.

How can you be the “waving guy” (or gal) in your industry?

The business people figuratively honk their horns at when surfing your website and reading your emails, and flat out feel GOOD they met and did business with you?

It’s worth some serious thought.

Especially today, with so much despair and chicanery in the world.

Ben Settle

You can read more about the waving guy, and learn his truly inspirational story here:

Ready to complete the first “marketing monsters” trilogy with me?

OK, then…

Here are even MORE blood-thirsty marketing monsters… and how to defend yourself against them:

**Wandering Business Wendigo**

This business USED to be a normal, healthy business.

But something happened and it stopped testing and trying new ideas.

To survive, it cannibalised its existing business by creating products that were basically the same as the ones it already sells.

That worked for a while, but it soon lost customers because nobody wants a warmed over version of something they already bought.

So with less customers buying… it got hungry and started cannibalising OTHER peoples’ products, marketing and ideas — creating cheap knockoffs and making just enough to live day by day.

This howling beast is now ALWAYS looking to feed.

And there’s only one way to stop it:

By creating your business, marketing and advertising around YOU.

They can always knock off your products.

But they can never truly knock off “you” or your personality.

**Deadline Dracula**

This night stalker is nothing if not charming.

He seduces and enchants new service providers (copywriters, designers, etc) into doing a job. Then, at the LAST minute, dumps a bunch of NEW changes on you to be completed by the deadline.

And because he knows you need his money, he expects you to do it otherwise he won’t pay you.

This wicked thing cannot be fully stopped.

But you can ward him off by being so good at marketing, you won’t need them or their money. Because you will have clients lined up to do business with you.

Doing that is like draping a big silver cross around your neck and wearing a garlic necklace so deadline Draculas won’t be able to stand the sight of you.

If you’re a newbie service, watch yourself.

This monster is probing you… stalking you… and waiting to strike.

**Serial Refunding Succubus**

This elusive demon likes to hop from one business to the next — buying products, copying the content, and then refunding them while you’re sleeping.

You can sometimes see it lurking on sites like clickbank and anywhere else they can have an easy refund policy.

You know it has struck when you make a sale and, within a few days, it’s already been returned.

Since it usually attacks while you’re sleeping, there’s not much you can do about it.

But you CAN help stop its rampage.

Simply keep a file (like I do) of anyone who refunds with a lame excuse and don’t sell to them again.

You can also tell your colleagues to watch out for them, too.

And there you have it.

The first “trilogy” of marketing monster emails. These things are out there waiting in the shadows. Watch for them and know how to recognize them.

Doing so will give you peace of mind and greater success.

Ben Settle

P.S. If you’d like to see the first two marketing monster lessons…

www.BenSettle.com/blog/encyclopedia-of-marketing-monsters

www.BenSettle.com/blog/return-of-the-marketing-monsters

Emails, emails, emails.
‘O how I love emails.
They’re short, they’re sweet.
And the smackeroos they make is
‘Oooo such a treat.

Okay, I KNOW that was just about the dorkiest poem ever written.

But it’s 100% true.

I love email, I’m a big fan of email marketing, and today, I’m going to give you some extremely helpful tips on the subject I call:

However, before you read them, just know this:

I call them “dumb” since they have cost me a lot of moolah. In other words, they are dumb for me to use. Maybe they work for you, but they’ve my hurt sales big time.

Remember, what works for me may NOT work for you.

So that said, here are my 9 dumb-dumb email mistakes to avoid:

1. Only mailing when you have something to sell

2. Following the herd (what everyone else is doing)

3. Being a controversy ‘fraidy cat

4. Caring what marketers (especially copywriters) think

5. Doing teasers, instead of full emails

6. Not being yourself — “warts” and all

7. Not having fun 🙁

8. Spending too much time writing your emails

9. Swiping other peoples’ emails instead of being original

OK, there’s a LOT more than that.

But if you simply avoided doing those 9 things for 30 days, I can almost promise you will see your sales go up, your traffic spike, and have new opportunities thrust your way you didn’t even know EXISTED before.

That’s been my case.

And I suspect it would happen for you, too.

Ben Settle

P.S. There’s also a 10th mistake I forgot to add:

Trying to get really good at this without guidance.

At least, this has been my experience. I used to sit there and try to “reverse engineer” certain marketers’ emails to see what made them “tick” with little or no success.

In fact, that would backfire on me and hurt my results.

Of course, maybe it’s different with you.

Maybe you’re a natural born email butt-kicker.

But if you want to learn some powerful tips from an email marketing master, check out the interview I did with Terry Dean in The Copywriting Grab Bag.

He’s one of the original email marketing pioneers.

And he really has email marketing down to a **science**.

Got some blatant Copywriting Grab Bag testimonials to share.

One of which is a video that reveals a cool info-publishing tip.

Here’s the first one…

Dear Ben,

I got your Copywriting Grab Bag in the mail and I was thrilled! I wanted to thank you right away but… I COULDN’T put it down!

The Ken McCarthy interview is pure gold! I’ve listened to it twice already and read the transcripts several times. Ken’s insight about the two biggest mistakes in ads are priceless.

Almost every line in that interview drops another copywriting gem and it crystallized a lot of what I read about copywriting. I’ve read pretty much every classic copywriting book out there, and some times it just doesn’t hit home…

But yesterday – I felt like lightning struck me!

Maybe I’m a bit TOO EXCITED… and I’m sure it will wear off, but that interview rocked. And I almost feel guilty just listening to that interview – It dropped some real gems for me.

There’s so much junk on the net that when you find real value it really hits you.

Thank-you Ben for making this information available.

—Courtney Houde

BEN: Glad you liked it so much Courtney, I agree with you — Ken’s interview IS extremely valuable. I love it how most copywriters have no clue some of this stuff exists. Don’t you?

Hello Ben.

We received your book and think its fabulous although I do have a little problem with it. It’s keeping us up at night.

For example, last night my wife read one of the sections. It talked about using testimonials to determine what benefits your market is seeing that you may not be. It struck a chord with me because I’ve been struggling with the exact same thing you were writing about.

We were excited to find someone like you who knew what we were going through.

Needless to say my trip to dreamland was a bumpy one. I kept thinking about my copy coming together as if by magic. I couldn’t wait until 4AM when I could rise and get at my word processor again.

So please don’t write any more of this stuff ok? I need my sleep.

I’m off to take a nap now.

—David Parsons

BEN: David, that testimonial “trick” is pretty cool and makes writing ads a LOT easier. I’m glad you’re putting it to good use, even if it robs you of a few hours of shut eye 😉

Finally…

Here’s a video testimonial about the older version (which doesn’t have NEARLY as much cool stuff as the current version).

Plus, it also reveals a “warp speed” way to create info products:

Hey Ben,

I did a review of your book:

Thanks for writing it and helping me get started in copywriting.

—Chris Blackerby

BEN: Chris, I REALLY appreciate you taking the time to do that.

I’m a **sucker** for a good video testimonial. Especially when it’s about one of my products 😉

Well, my friend, that’s it for today.

If you don’t have The Copywriting Grab Bag, what are you waiting for?

You can grab your copy now at:

Next time… something else.

Ben Settle

P.S. I recently took most of the interviews off my site. They are now ONLY available on the CD that comes with The Copywriting Grab Bag.

The value now packed into this product for $137 is almost unreal.

While back, I sent an email that stirred up the blog “purists.”

It was the one about why I send out FULL emails… instead of “teasers” that send people to a website or blog to read the message (like I USED to do, and like the majority of other marketers STILL do).

As expected, one of my long-time subscribers objected.

He said for every reason I gave for sending full emails, he had a counter reason to send a teaser sending people to a website.

And I have to admit, his arguments were ALL solid.

But, being an extremely savvy marketer, he tested full emails anyway

Here are his results:

Hi Ben,

I’ve noticed a WHOPPING increase in sales since mailing my newsletters fully in the email instead of sending my readers to my blog first.

Although I had many more “logical” reasons (as we discussed) to send people directly to my blog; the fact is you only need one reason to do something — the MOST IMPORTANT REASON which is SALES.

In my case, I feel I simply reached more people by communicating my messages directly in the email.

My last two emails made me much more than I expected.

Anywhere from 50 to 100% more sales than I anticipated.

So thanks for convincing me of sending out my full content in the email instead of trying to get people to read it on my blog.

It’s made a HUGE difference in my results.

Roger Haeske
The 41-Year-Old Teenager
http://Be40Look20.com

So there ya have it.

Just another reason to buck the Web 2.0 herd and test full emails.

Ben Settle

P.S. For even more advanced email teaching, check out www.StreetSmartEmail.com

Not that you should care…

But my favorite all-time movie — by FAR — is “Batman Begins.”

There are many, many reasons for this outside my pathetic geeky fanboy Batman comic book collection.

One of which is all the cool selling lessons in it.

Such as (for example) the pacing of the movie being a perfect sales letter “template.”

Or the way Batman makes “offers”.

Or how having a burning hot mission in life can help you move mountains. (And the irrational things people will do to get what they want.)

And so on and so forth.

But you know what?

The best sales lesson (IMHO) comes from one of the villains (Crime Boss Falcon Maroni) when he says:

Why is this a powerful sales lesson?

Because (at least in the business-to-business “make moolah” niches) this is what almost EVERYONE gets wrong.

Hey, it’s something I used to get wrong BIG TIME myself.

If you look at most of the sales letters and ads all they talk about is how much moolah you’ll make if you buy such-and-such a product.

BZZZT!

Wrong-o.

Money is almost NEVER the main hot button for anyone.

What all those smackeroos can DO for people are the REAL hot buttons.

Like time freedom, the ability to “get back” at someone who said they’d be a failure their whole lives (huge hot button), humiliating their competition, etc.

Crime Boss Maroni didn’t really care about having more moolah.

What he wanted was favors.

What do YOUR prospects really want?

It’s different for everyone.

And this is why researching your market is so ultra important.

It’s also why the “A” list copywriters I interviewed for The Copywriting Grab Bag (Doug D’Anna & David Deutsch) harped on the market, the market, the market — and not so much “technique”.

Powerful stuff when you understand what people REALLY want.

Ben Settle

P.S. OK, this will be the last time I speaketh of this:

The Copywriting Grab Bag price is going up sometime this weekend.

Frankly, I may just do it tonight to get it over with (it’s kind of a pain to change everything sometimes.)

Whatever the case, if you want “in” on this resource that’s been praised by some of the Internet’s most **respected** marketers & copywriters — like Terry Dean, Ken McCarthy, Ray Edwards, Ryan Healy, and more — before the price goes up, skootch on over to:

What I’m gonna say might sound strange, silly, maybe even crazy.

But if you market online, it could make a BIG difference in your bottom line.

Listen:

One of the coolest lessons in my copywriting book is about something many of us find rather…

… unsexy.

I know I did until I learned it.

And very few people are teaching this online.

But in Appendix 2, I interviewed Doberman Dan Gallapoo — an extremely savvy marketer who worked side-by-side with the late (great) copywriting & marketing genius Gary Halbert.

DD learned many cool tips and secrets from Gary.

One of which made an exceptionally big difference in his bottom line, but that he had to learn the “hard way”.

Here’s what happened:

It was Christmas many years ago.

Sales were low, and Doberman Dan was down to his last “bullet.”

In fact, sales were so bad, he literally wondered how he was going to put food on the table.

True, he had a big email list for his supplement business.

But the response was extremely weak for whatever reason.

So there he was — with the wolves howling at the door — wondering what to do, when he remembered something Sir Gary of Halbert taught him.

Something that’s FAR from “sexy”.

Something that, frankly, DD did not want to do.

But since his back was to the wall, he figured he had no choice.

So he went into his files and pulled the names of his most recent 1,000 buyers.

But he did not pull their email addresses.

He pulled their SNAIL MAIL addresses.

You remember snail mail, right?

I had almost forgotten about it myself until DD told me his story.

Anyway, so he cranked out a sales letter, sat at his kitchen table and started hand addressing envelopes.

Then, with his last bit of money, he had them printed and mailed.

What happened?

Would you believe a “Christmas Miracle”?

Hey, it happened.

Because just by snail mailing his 1,000 most recent customers, he got FLOODED with orders.

He was just blown away.

So he did it again the next month.

Again, the orders poured in.

Frankly, the moolah came so fast, he broke out his calculator and did some figurin’.

Lo and behold…

Doberman Dan discovered if he’d been snail mailing his most recent customers for the past several years, he would’ve made an extra $100k per YEAR.

And that was a conservative estimate.

Anyway, here’s the point:

If you have a lot of customers and are only using email, you could be leaving a ton of moolah on the table.

I’m dabbling with snail mail myself and in future emails I’ll let you know how it goes.

I once heard Dan Kennedy say (paraphrased): “The best thing that’s happened to email is direct mail.”

With these snail-mailer numbers, that’s pretty hard to dispute.

And by the way, speaking of offline marketing…

Here’s a comment from a pro copywriter about another appendix in The Copywriting Grab Bag:

Ben,

Mike Winicki’s interview ALONE was worth the book price.

Few people understand the power of offline media… fewer know how to use it… let alone give away all those RESOURCES in that interview.

Until I read that interview I was on this wavelength: Yeah, I understand offline is powerful… but HOW do you actually use it step-by-step?

After I read that interview, light bulbs lit up… OH…. THAT’S where you find celebrities and cheap media buys. I wrote to Mike after I read that interview. I HAD to say thank you for all that value.

-Colin Y.J. Chung
Freelance Marketing Strategist

BEN: I hear ya. In some ways Mike’s is the most valuable interview in the book.

He may have zero name recognition, but he’s just a FOUNTAIN of info.

In fact, I remember wanting to just keep asking him questions 😉

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m raising the price next week. So if you want the ‘grab bag, grab it while the grabbin’s good:

Ben Settle

You can learn a LOT about marketing living in a small town.

Not lessons for what to do.

But lessons for what not to do.

Here’s what I mean:

As much as living in a small town suits my introverted, Big Foot-hunting ways, it’s sometimes painful watching the local businesses commit suicide.

It’s like they do the exact OPPOSITE of what smart businesses do.

In fact, it totally reminds me of “Bizarro” Superman.

Bizarro Superman is like Superman’s exact opposite who lives in the backwards Bizarro world.

In other words…

Up is down, down is up, he says hello when he leaves, says goodbye when he arrives, has freeze vision (instead of heat vision), flame breath (instead of frost breath), etc.

And that’s exactly how many of these local businesses operate.

For example, we got Bizarro customer service.

Instead of making you want to come back and even tell your friends… you get yahoos at the counter purposely making people stand in line for several minutes while they talk to a friend in line or on their cell phones.

We also got Bizarro hotel staff.

Instead of hiring competent people who, you know, tend to do a good job, some of these locals ONLY hire cronies and family members who KNOW they can’t be fired and treat people (especially tourists — the town’s “bread ‘n butter”) like lepers.

Heck, we’ve even got Bizarro INVESTORS around here.

This one dude’s pouring $30 million smackeroos into a new, high-end hotel/spa/thingy seemingly without much accountability or strategy.

Believe it or not, a chamber of commerce person actually said:

“We don’t need customers, we got $30 million.”

Dumb.

Anyway, here’s the point:

All of this is the exact OPPOSITE of what (most of us) do in marketing — where we test, measure and bend over backwards to make customers happy.

And it really puts things in perspective.

It also proves the late Earl Nightingale right when he said:

“If you want to succeed, just look around at what everyone else is doing, and do the exact opposite.”

That simple advice has served me well for a long time now.

And it can serve you well, too.

When you see the “bizarro marketers” out there doing things you know are hurting them, even if they have “goo roo” status, do the opposite.

Fight that urge to blindly follow people, and do what’s right.

Do that, and you’ll probably never go wrong.

Ben Settle

P.S. Speaking of “Bizarro marketing”…

Last time I raised The Copywriting Grab Bag price, I caught hell because I didn’t give a “warning” like everyone else does.

Instead of hammering you with emails about it, I pulled a “Bizarro” and didn’t say anything.

So this time I’ll do it “proper”:

The price is going up again next week.

So if you’re on the fence about getting it, now’s the time to “grab” your copywriting book:

Can Beavis & Butthead make you a better copywriter?

I believe so.

They did for me, at least.

In fact, each and every episode contains a powerful copywriting secret you can use to make your ads FAR more likely to be read, understood and BOUGHT from.

Here’s the story:

About 14 years ago, just after I graduated high school, I took a job at Office Max.

I often worked late, and didn’t get out until about 10 pm or so.

So I’d go home, flip on the boob-toob and, lo and behold, the only thing I felt like watching was… you guessed it… Beavis & Butthead.

Now, if you’ve never seen Beavis & Butthead, let’s just say it’s “raunchy”. Not NEARLY as raunchy as some of today’s cartoons (it’s no “South Park”). But it was still a pretty raunchy show for its time.

Raunchy… but oh SO entertaining.

Anyway, so I’d watch the show and, like most people who watched it, would find myself sometimes quoting the show.

As they would make up such colorful words to insult each other: Dill hole, butt munch, monkey spank, etc — and the list goes on.

There was never one intelligent word spoken.

Never anything to increase your IQ.

Certainly never anything you’d ever get confused about.

And you know what?

Strange as it sounds, I’ve sorta “recruited” Beavis & Butthead to help me write better ads since.

Because whenever I write an ad (depending on the market), in order to make sure my ads are 100% crystal clear to read, digest and respond to… I tend to ask:

“Would Beavis & Butthead get what I’m saying here?”

“Could they grasp that I want them to click on this link to order?”

And so on, and so forth.

Hey, it may sound stoopid (let’s face it, it IS stoopid).

But it works like gangbusters to make ads clear and easy to read.

Maybe you’ve heard the statistics about how the average person (at least here in the US) reads at a 5th grade level.

And that, when writing ads, that’s the level to write at.

But I say take it a step further and write at the “Beavis & Butthead level.”

If THEY can understand it, ANYONE can.

And the easier your ads are to read, the more moolah you’ll make.

Anyway, that’s a wrap for today.

You can learn more bizarre ways to make your ads easier to buy from in The Copywriting Grab Bag:

Ben Settle