Ben Settle

Behold this question about having enough ideas to write daily (7x week) emails:

“oh I have so much RESISTANCE to this. I already feel I email my list a lot (3x/ week usually). I know you must get this a lot, but what do you send on the days you don’t feel like you have anything interesting or valuable to say?”

The bottleneck is, you are making it about you, instead of them.

If you make it about them the problem switches to having TOO many ideas.

For example:

My highest converting emails in weight loss (a market I am not “part” of, so not as easy as writing to my main list) rarely focused on claims, or testimonials, before & after pics, promises of losing inches, whatever. Nor did I ever once struggle with what to write about o. If anything I had too many ideas to write about and it was a matter of picking which ones.

The reason?

Because they were not about me, they were about them.

Take, for example, an email I did about a woman despairing because her friends were always trying to sabotage her weight loss goals demoralizing her by deliberately tagging her heavy Facebook pics. I didn’t ‘write’ that. The market did – it was a true story. And it did ridiculously well, while barely mentioning the offer. In fact, before the great “World’s Most Feared Negotiator” Jim Camp died, I was on a live teaching call with him, and told him about that email. He said it was a great example of what he would teach about influence-by-Vision.

But it was not MY vision, but the market’s.

It’s the difference between having a market-first vs a marketing-first approach to copywriting.

Market-first puts writing emails on easy mode.

Since I’m already doling out my favorite copywriting lessons, here’s another one. But, it’s not from me. It’s from one of the greatest copywriters who ever lived under God’s blue earth: the great Doug D’Anna, who I have learned much from about this over the years. He has this idea he teaches “the bridge to the breakthrough” and it goes like this:

Copywriting is not about building a bridge from your product to your prospect.

It’s about building a bridge from your prospect to your product.

It really is that simple.

Unfortunately, though, nobody but nobody can complicate what’s simple like copywriters. I don’t why that is, as it should be the exact opposite. And that is why as far as copywriting techniques go, the most important of them all is simply learning, practicing, and honing one’s ability to reduce the complex and complicated into something simple and consumable.

Do that and you almost can’t lose.

I don’t care if it’s sales letters, videos, courses, emails, or public talks.

Master this skill and you can have almost anything you want.

“But BEN!!! Is there a course that will show me this????”

No.

And if there was, it probably wouldn’t be very useful. This comes from doing the work, putting in the time, making the mistakes, learning from your blunders, connecting with your customers every day… rinse & repeat over and over and over and over… for months, years, and decades. The beautiful thing about email is it lets you practice this while making sales at the same time literally every day to speed up the process.

In my experience the #1 thing a copywriter can do is mail their list daily.

Yes, daily.

Even if you have no list, write an email as if you do.

Then get to work building it, growing it, serving it.

To learn more about the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A few years ago, my accountant wrote this ditty to his clients:

If you use the Postal Service to mail your tax returns, spend the extra money for certified mail. For $3.75 you can purchase certified mail. Yes, you will have to stand in a line (or you can use the automated machines in many post offices), but you now have a receipt that verifies that you have mailed your return.

About fourteen years ago one of my clients saved $2.42 (I think that was the cost of a certified mail piece then) and sent his return in with a $0.37 stamp. It never made it. He ended up paying nearly $1,000 in penalties and interest…but he did save $2.42.

It boggles the mind how expensive being cheap can be.

Most people demand everything fast, free, and yesterday.

And most people are dirt broke – which I doubt is a coincidence.

Another example is email:

I’ve lost count of how many email marketers — who supposedly “know their numbers” — will cheap out on what is essentially the beating heart of their business by price shopping for the platform they use. They will take gigantic hits in inbox deliverability, time lost and never to be regained from diddling around with clunky interfaces, and whining about having to pay per email (which is becoming the norm for all ESPs anyway, wild west of the internet has ended, Tex…) instead of focusing on building a better list, writing better emails, and making better offers, building out 1-click upsells, and delivering experiences that would allow them to more than recoup that money if they were simply in front of more leads — including leads who aren’t getting their emails at all due to them being so cheap.

Another example:

Our Low Stress Options company.

A small handful of people (we don’t cater to cheap people, so get very few of them) over the past few years have used Low Stress Options to make out so well that the monthly fee to use the software, get ongoing guidance, etc is the proverbial drop in the bucket… but they dropped out thinking they are “saving” money, which those of us using it, learning, growing inside it, getting better (and, thus, making more profits as a result, far more than the measly monthly fee) laugh at their small thinking.

Ten years ago this sort of thing used to astonish me.

I just could not fathom why anyone would step over dollars to pick up pennies.

But then I realized some people are just born cheap.

It reminds me of the guy who bought Marvel Comics and they went bankrupt many years ago. He was also so cheap he made employees use the public rest room to save on the water bill, and would go around at night looking for staples and paper clips, and penalizing people for not reusing them.

So this is definitely a thing.

Personally, I am convinced these types cannot help themselves and it’s literally in their DNA, probably. These are often also the types who live and die by a spreadsheet in marketing focusing only on the bottom line, while ignoring the intangibles of time, emotion, and energy that, if invested properly, add MORE, not less, to ye olde big ol’ fatty bottom line (revisit this last December Email Players issue for more on that). These types will both literally and figuratively drive 50 miles out of their way to save five cents per gallon on gas.

I wish I could say that was an exaggeration.

But alas… no.

I’ve seen this and much worse, and you probably have, too.

I almost feel sorry for them.

Almost.

Because, they are not innocent victims, they are willing victims. And in my experience, there’s not much you can do in these cases but price your offers in such a way that scares them off like the timid little woodland creatures they are behaving like, and focus on people who do value time, comfort, and convenience over a few pennies saved.

I don’t know who needed to hear this.

But I can think of a handful of people on my list who will take offense.

And that’s good.

I said what I said, and so it is.

Things ain’t getting cheaper, after all, so you might as well learn how to sell.

To learn how to do that see the paid Email Players newsletter:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

When you are in direct marketing long enough, you eventually get haters.

Of course, a lot of what haters say are lies and projection. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say they weren’t right about me sometimes, too. Like, for example, the people hating on me for my deadline rules.

Yes, dear reader, I am a dick about deadlines.

One guy even called me a “Deadline Nazi”, which was amusing.

And they absolutely are right about that.

I simply don’t care the excuse, or circumstance, or the person asking me to make exceptions for my deadlines. Long time customers, peers, and even good friends, or just people I highly respect up in this bid’niz, have been denied access to premiums & discounts due to missing a deadline. I have no doubt left much “spreadsheet money” on the table as a result. But spreadsheet money is a pittance, in my experience, to the long term sales that come from the benefits of enforcing deadlines.

Even good friends have wondered if I do this just for the sake of being an arsehole.

But that has nothing to do with it.

I do it first and foremost to serve the very people who think I am being a jerk.

What I mean by that is this:

By being a “Deadline Nazi” people who missed out from their not being able to tell time or from just being flakey or even from legitimately missing out for legitimate reasons beyond their control (which is rare, it’s almost always from them not paying attention, not the deadline itself)… are often the first people to buy the next time I have a special offer or launch something or sell something as an affiliate with a clearly defined deadline attached to it.

And, I have long noticed they develop better overall attitudes, too.

In other words:

Obnoxiously enforced deadlines not only make them better customers… but better people, too. I have seen this enough times to know this is not a fluke. The mentally unstable ones will keep hating on me for it. But the normal people, who I want to deal with, are the opposite.

And a big part of that is sticking to my deadlines.

Added to which it’s rather selfish of people to ask to make exceptions in the first place.

Why should someone who played the flake (my affiliate, product launch, and special sales campaigns are almost always at least 4 if not 5 days — plenty of time to buy) get special treatment over someone who was a responsible adult and grown up and bought within the deadline time, didn’t wait until the last 30 seconds where a cart can hiccup or a card can be rejected for any reason or no reason at all… and respected my time and business?

The answer:

They shouldn’t.

They should be punished.

And that punishment, like when punishing any bad behavior, leads to good behavior. Or, at least, makes it more likely to result in good behavior. People want to mystify this but it’s just plain common sense. The small thinking and Needy mind cannot comprehend it, though. And the small thinking and Needy are usually the haters and trolls anyway.

That is no coincidence in my opinion.

Anyway, I don’t know where else I’m going with this other than to throw some red meat to the responsible and curious.

For more on the paid Email Players newsletter go here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Or, at least, an argument certainly can be made:

“There are tons of people who hate me. They hate my movies and whatnot. But you know, hey, my films have made a lot of money around the world. 2-something billion dollars, that’s a lot of tickets. They said that I wrecked cinema. They said that my, uh…cutting style. They say I cut too fast. And yet now you see it in movies everywhere. Do I take pride in people knowing my style? I think it’s nice people know a director has a style. And you can reinvent yourself, too.”

i.e., he told the critics and the movie snobs to Post Bizeek.

I remember when his 1st Transformer’s movie came out, a popular magazine called it:

“A fanboy’s wet dream”

Which may have been the most accurate media line ever penned.

All Michael Bay movies are like that.

I don’t care if it’s his magnificent movie “The Rock” or Transformers 2.

The reason Bay’s movies make so much money is because he caters to the fans. He does NOT cater to gatekeeping executives, snobby movie critics who probably can’t even use their iPhone’s camera much less a movie camera, or pedantic film nerds on Twitter and Facebook high on estrogen-fueled rage at Marvel movie casting decisions while typing just to hear themselves write.

Bay delivers exactly what his fans want:

Big explosions, hot chicks with big bewbs, and lots and lots of big action scenes.

More:

I’ve been an unrepentant Michael Bay fan since I first saw “The Rock” in 1996. To me that was the coolest movie I’d ever seen — and in some ways still is. And early on in my copywriting career, I deliberately used Michael Bay movies as my “template” for sales letters and emails much like Gene Schwartz used Joel Silver movies as his. My approach was to, no matter what clients, marketing goo-roos, or especially other copywriters said/thought of my ads/emails… cater to fans, just like in the way Bay does.

i.e., be the market’s wet dream.

If it’s writing to my own list, I give the fans what they want.

If it was writing for clients, I’d dig up what those fans wanted and cater to whatever it is.

Believe it or not, it was not unusual for some of my new clients to despise my work and drafts I’d hand in, argue with me about it, and only reluctantly run it… due to this approach. It wasn’t until after they ran one of my “fanboy” ads and saw the sales that they would trust me and let me do my job. Frankly, probably only one client ever really “got” this — and he was by far the biggest and most successful I’d ever worked for, as well as the most fun to work with. He was the kind of client where you think are you going to far and then he goes in and takes it even farther.

A true rarity.

It’s probably why at the time he floated the idea to me that, “We should write screenplays.”

To this day I take the same “cater to the fans” attitude in everything I write.

Yes, including articles and other non-copywriting content.

Example:

A couple weeks ago, I ghost wrote a newspaper article for the Oregon Eagle about our Low Stress Options Trading. While most financial articles are dry, boring, and stuffy… catering to boomers who think “buy and hold” is still a good idea in 2025 when most companies only last about 10 years now (vis 70-90 years in the past) on the S&P 500… I went the opposite way and wrote only to the FANBASE section of the market we cater to. And I did it by picking a “fight” with the so-called Warren Buffett approach to investing and showing why Troy’s low stress trading approach is safer, sounder, and superior.

“Our” kind of people want what we have to say and love that.

Guys worried about retirement who think Buffett walks on water?

Not so much.

They want to still believe it’s 1984 and will almost certainly turn their noses up at it in the same way Bay’s critics turn their noses up at his films, even as we collect more leads (fans), cater to them, have a long term mutually profitable relationship with them for months, years, and probably will continue to have even for decades.

One more thing.

Call it a fun juxtaposition of the times if you want.

But around the same time I saw that Michael Bay interview I also saw an interview clip on Twitter posted by a guy named Nerdrotic. The interview featured Troy Duffy who was the writer/director of the popular Boondock Saints movie.

And he put it like this:

“One of the very first lessons I learned in the movie business, which is if you are lucky enough to have a fan base, you do what they want 100% of the time or you’re f–cked”

Indeed.

Anyway, give the fans (market) what they want. Ignore all critics, clients, copywriters, your idiot Facebook friends, and anyone who tries to get you to do it any other way. And if you need some inspiration for this then fire up a Michael Bay movie.

Whatever movie you choose will NOT make you any smarter.

It may even temporarily seize an IQ point or two.

But I daresay it’ll make you better at copywriting, emails, content creation, and direct response.

And you want to know something else?

If you take the info in this email and combine it with what I teach in the paid Email Players newsletter you almost can’t lose, in my totally biased (but no less true) opinion.

More on Email Players here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

When I wrote my 6th novel in the Enoch Wars series (Hell’s Frankenstein) I deliberately made it more exaggeratedly violent, gruesome, gross, disgusting, disturbing, and all-around horrifying.

The reason:

I knew it would be the shortest of the books.

And so I wanted it to be the most memorable — but in a creepy & disturbing & I would say heinous way to make it absolutely clear what evil looks like.

For example:

One of the scenes in the book has to do with a zombie eating a group of children in order to “power up” to open a portal to hell. And, a full seven years before everyone outside of Q anon was talking about adrenochrome due to the movie Sound of Freedom came out, I was playing with the theme of evil (in this case a zombie) growing stronger, younger, and more powerful in direct proportion to how much terror-prompted adrenaline is in their victims’ (children especially) blood at the time they consume them. Between that and what I write about in the 9th novel “Serpent Seed” — also touching on themes a full year or two before the mainstream caught on, but that I have been studying for nearly 30 years now — in some ways I argue, in my totally biased & irrational opinion, my novels are turning out to be spoiler alerts…

Anyway, back to the writing lesson:

It was already a disturbing, disgusting, gut-wrenching scene to write in 2016.

But after Willis started crawling the earth four years later?

I don’t know I could write that scene or story.

In fact, I remember asking my publisher Greg Perry if I should edit that scene. That it was way too disturbing, even for Enoch Wars. And that maybe, just maybe… I took it a bit too far. But I will never forget what he said in reply, almost dismissively, as if I had just asked the dumbest question ever conceived:

“No. Let monsters be monsters.”

He was, as usual, correct.

And so I left it in.

But it’s an even more disturbing scene to me now post Willis. And this is the case even though I used a technique I learned from A Clockwork Orange (the movie) I learned in a film class back in 1995. That technique being to “blunt” and make horror and violence a bit more palatable by putting an almost cartoon-like spin on it. In A Clockwork Orange, for example, when Alex is being forced to watch films about violence and rape, Kubrick made the victims have almost clown-like hair or exaggerates the goofiness of their surroundings, etc.

They come off as just bizarre details to the uninitiated.

But I suspect it was deliberate, probably to try to appease the censors.

Whatever the case, I used it in Hells’ Frankenstein.

I don’t want to give the punchline away, but I like to think it ultimately worked as intended.

On the other hand:

The 9th novel (Serpent Seed) was the only book in the series written after Willis was born. And it had a huge impact not only on the story, but also the themes and emotional content I poured into it, that would never have been in there otherwise. As a lots od parents know, having a child totally changes the way one looks at the world. And it is reflected in that book vs the other eight.

Same with my late dog Zoe.

She was dying as I wrote and did the first round of edits on Serpent Seed.

And there is an epilogue (about a dog) that I deliberately waited until after Zoe passed until I wrote it. Literally the same week, while mourning her death, I poured it all into that epilogue. That epilogue would not have had the same impact had I written it a decade earlier, a year earlier, a month earlier, or even a week earlier.

The point of all this?

I am not sure there is one point.

But I will say this:

There is a scene in the movie Sideways where the character Mia is telling Miles about her approach to wine tasting and enjoying. She doesn’t just think about the wine. She thinks about the people who picked the berries and bottled it. How many of them might be dead by the time she drinks it. And she is cognizant that a bottle of wine is a living, breathing entity that will taste different on the day you open it than if would if you opened it on any other day — past or future.

That is how writing works.

What you write today would be totally different if you wrote it yesterday or tomorrow, a year ago or a year from now, a lifetime ago or towards the end of your life. This email would not be the same if I had written it yesterday, or if I waited until next week.

Would it be better or worse at another time?

No idea.

And neither will you with your writing.

All you can do is release the Kraken and write.

The good news is, God invented editing.

And editing can save many an email, sales page, article, book, or, yes, novel.

All this applies to my email methodology in the paid Email Players newsletter as well.

More on that here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

A new subscriber to my list thinks he found a glitch:

“when you click on the link on your [blog] labeled ‘emailplayers . com’, instead of going to emailplayers . com, it redirects back to your blog with the CTA being to sign up for the newsletter and app”

Once every few years or so, someone will point this out, thinking it is a glitch.

But it is that way by design since 2011 or 2012.

And it has helped grow my email list with a lot of responsive, pre-qualified leads.

Why do this?

Because the only purpose of my website is to build my email list. That is it. And so, I could not care less if someone already on my email list ever goes back to my website (like the guy above did for whatever reason)… unless it is to resubscribe if they for whatever reason leave the list. And, in fact, anyone finding & buying any of my main offers without first getting on my list are not qualified for such offers anyway, unless/until they get on my list. And that is why they are punished for not first getting on my list, with higher prices and less access to free content they can only get by being on my list.

All roads lead to the list.

It can be a free list or selling an offer up front that puts them on a buyers list. But the power of direct marketing is the list. Always has been, and always will be. “All roads lead to the list” is the most reliable direct marketing principle I have ever followed. The list is (or should be) the beating heart of a direct response business.

I don’t care what you’re selling, either.

This is literally direct marking 101.

But these days?

So few take this attitude it might as well be 401-level class.

As for monetizing an email list?

That is where the paid Email Players newsletter comes in.

More on that here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Earlier today in the BerserkerMail Facebook group I was asked the money question for list building:

“does anyone have a recommendation for an article publishing platform?”

My response:

I am always on the lookout myself for such sites but I do not think they really exist.

The old ones used to rely on SEO and adsense, etc. I guess they aren’t as profitable anymore. Sites like Medium are a joke. Substack doesn’t seem all that useful for list building purposes as far as attracting new leads, just good for writing to current leads which you might as well do on your own site. Twitter is a good place to write articles if you have a following or want to build one, but it’s not the same.

That said:

A month or so ago, I was on a call with Tom Woods for his podcast. And he had his web guy on Paul Counts. And Paul was telling us how things are starting to shift BACK to the old days in some ways – old school email, old school websites, old school forums like warrior forum, etc.

We will see, but it was good to hear someone else talk about how the current structure of all traffic going to empty-headed influencers and dumb money investor funded social media accounts, etc is not really sustainable. Nobody is producing anything, it’s all based on clicks, algorithms, and rage baiting people.

None of this answers your question, but I have no answer to your question other than write on your social medias, exaggerate ALL your opinions almost to the point of absurdity, and be a relentless self aggrandizing prick.

Like it or not, that’s what gets attention on there for the most part.

Eventually I suspect the pendulum will go the other way where people search for and follow substance.

But until then you have to play the cards you are dealt.

There you have it, my too many sense…

Fortunately, there are lot of ways to build an email list without turning into a dopamine drip-dealing dancing monkey on social media.

And when you’re ready to monetize that list see the paid Email Players newsletter:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Recently I wrote an email listing Christmastime movies for marketers who like money.

Which then got this reply:

“Does any of these movies actually help? Or is it just content to produce over xmas time?”

Magnificent reply guy valor.

Especially since the exact helpful parts to watch/look for in each and every movie I listed were literally spelled out, in detail, in the very email he was reply guy’ing to. Which tells me he’s either (1) semi-illiterate and can barely read, or (2) was too lazy to bother reading, or (3) simply has TikTok brain.

I would not be shocked if it’s that last one:

TikTok brain.

It’s a phenomenon that is ruining a lot of people up in this industry. You can see it in the NPC-like lines they use in lockstep unison, the low IQ-bait trends they follow, and in the questions they ask — including questions where the answers are in the very email they are replying to like in the above guy’s case, or else are a 10-second Google search away.

Something else to think about:

I’ve seen email marketers worrying about having to compete with TikTok.

But you’re not really competing with TikTok. You’re competing with TikTok brain.

To beat that you have two options:

1. Dumb your emails down to Baby Shark level

2. Ramp up your lead curation/qualification game

Many are headed toward door #1.

But personally, I prefer door #2.

You can never really get rid of the TikTok brained ones of course. But in my experience, by not appealing to the boys and ghouls haunting TikTok and social media day & night, you will usually get a lot more of the higher quality leads who are actively avoiding learning from or consuming content from anyone who has TikTok brain like a lot of your competition who use TikTok no-doubt have.

One last thing.

I made some predictions for 2025 and beyond a few days ago.

And now here is another:

Email marketing will eventually be the exclusive domain of the thinking man or woman. Not just email marketers, but people who get on email lists at all. The Idiocracy boys & ghouls will stick to TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and other similar apps. It may take a while for the cold email chumps to burn out (or get drafted for the next forever war), but I see it as inevitable.

When that happens?

Those who already have a list they are mailing each day will make out like bandits.

Those who wait, will lose out.

That’s my prediction — rooted in bias as it is.

If you want a head start on using email see the paid Email Players newsletter here:

www.EmailPlayers.com

Ben Settle

Below is my latest Oregon Eagle article titled:

“Ancient Egyptian Marketing Secret Overruns Local Businesses With New Customers”

Here goes…

Behold a marketing secret from 1600 B.C.:

Many years ago, the late advertising genius Bruce Barton (the second “B” in today’s billion dollar BBDO ad agency) recorded a radio broadcast about the Biblical patriarch Joseph — who was like a god in Egypt. Everyone knew and loved him, and he was second only to Pharaoh himself. Then he died, and the scriptures say a new king of Egypt arose…

“Which Knew Not Joseph.”

All that prestige, influence, and “clout” up and vanished overnight, with his people enslaved soon after, closely followed by their children being genocided! And Barton’s point was every day, all over the world, new “kings” (customers, prospects, leads, clients, etc) are constantly rising up. And unless your business is there, in front of them, every day, they will forget you and… know YOUR business not.

Hence the power of relentless, daily contact with your market.

And, specifically, the power of relentless daily email contact.

But before I write another word, here are my biases:

I have been publishing and selling a print newsletter (called Email Players) about email marketing with subscribers in over 50 countries for nearly 15 years. I also co-founded and sell my own email broadcasting/autoresponder platform (called BerserkerMail). And in my admittedly biased opinion, email truly is the 8th wonder of the world — right up there with the Giza Pyramids.

The reason?

Because it lets you tap into a phenomenon best articulated by the brilliant “Mad Man” era copywriter Leo Burnett called:

“Friendly Familiarity”

He described it like this:

“the No. 1 factor in building confidence is the plain old-fashioned matter of friendly familiarity. . .When you meet a man on the same street corner every morning and learn to like the way he smiles, the way he dresses, and the way he conducts himself you are much more likely to be a prospect for the automobile or the insurance policy he may sometime want to sell you than you are for that of a stranger. . .Attitudes and convictions about products and companies do not spring into your mind full-blown, no matter what the stimulus. They grow.”

Take Fred Rogers and Johnny Carson, for example. They were arguably more popular than the President of the United States due to their daily, relentless contact with their audiences. Oprah is another example. Strangers on the street told her the most intimate details of their lives due to her daily, relentless contact with them. People not only watched and listened to these celebrities, but they talked about their shows at work, at the dinner table, and at the water cooler.

And guess what?

If you use email correctly it can grant your business — like Pharaoh granting celebrity status to the lowly slave Joseph — a similar kind of power over your clients, customers, and leads. The key word is “correctly.” Almost all businesses mess this up, and come off as annoying pests who get ignored and deleted on sight.

But not your emails, my greedy little Eagle-Eye.

Because next time I will show you exactly how to use this amazing marketing tool to get overrun with new business, banish cash flow anxiety forever, and transform your business into the proverbial “Joseph” in your own little corner of Egypt.

So stay tuned, the best is yet to come…

And so it is..

If you want to kick 2025 off strong, I have a pile of treasures stored up in my free mobile app.

Around 40+ hours of content, give or take.

And it’s all free, yours for the learning.

Here is the link:

www.EmailPlayers.com 

Ben Settle

P.S. You’ll need a smart phone or iPad to access the app.