Ben Settle

An Email Players subscriber asks:

“Here’s a thought that popped into my mind. You seem to have an uncanny ability to link a story/metaphor/comment anything that comes to you, with the offer you sell daily. And it doesn’t even get repetitive. Every email is unique. Every email delights in a new way.So, my question today is… how do you do it? Connect two different concepts into a cohesive narrative – i don’t even know what to call it.”

Survey says:

Writing an email every single day moves mountains and answers all questions.

I preach this, as it was preached to me by the great Matt Furey (High King of email, without whose teachings God-only-knows what lowly kind of existence I’d be eeking out online…), even as I do my part to preach to others as often as possible, and demonstrate each and every day of the week, and sometimes multiple times per day in some weeks.

That is it.

That is the entire secret.

Without writing daily emails for the past 16 years I probably never would have written the nine novels in my Enoch Wars series with it’s many World-Building complexities, interconnections, and storylines spanning thousands of years… with two other series of novels cooking up in my psyche as I type this. Without writing daily emails I’d never have written all the non-fiction books I’ve done. Without daily emails I never would be able to pump out sales copy as quickly as I am able to. Without daily emails I would not have gotten even 5% probably of the ideas generated as a result of writing each day for the 100’s of affiliate and other campaigns I’ve done over the years.

Without writing daily emails I’d go mad at this point.

I have to do it, or my brain feels like my belly would going a day without eating:

Emptiness.

My trolls would argue my head is already empty, but be that as it may.

So writing is the answer. Writing begets writing, which begets ideas, which begets money. Do enough of it and turning chaotic thoughts into a cohesive narrative is routine. Nothing you even have think about, much less worry about, in my experience.

It’s just… automatic.

So that is my answer.

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Ben Settle

Came a question:

“Most email service providers recommend emails with lots of graphics.  Why is that and why do you prefer straight text emails?”

I could go on about my usual shtick with this.

But instead, let’s put it this way:

We are currently testing out paid ads for BerserkerMail as I type this. And during one of the calls we had, we were discussing themes and ideas for ads they could test. And one of the ideas I had to test was to:

1. Show a screenshot of an email with images all prettied up and slick in an inbox.

2. Show that exact same email, in the exact same inbox, but with images turned off – like some 30%+ (last I checked, at least) of email clients have set by default due to protect their customers from viruses, malicious code, porno, tracking, etc. Not to mention the growing number of people using emails worried about privacy who manually make sure they are turned off.

The reason for testing this?

Because my pal Shane Hunter is spearheading these tests. And one of the angles he wants to take is to demonstrate how BerserkerMail’s No Images policy protects our clients, increases their deliverability, and gives a better end-user experience. And with images turned off, an email with pictures will almost always look completely nonsensical, with even the text parts being tainted by empty squares where the pictures are supposed to be. And oftentimes even the alt text put in place that people will see in case images don’t load also look just as nonsensical.

There are some goo-roos whoo drool on the carpet doing angry pushups when we write about this.

But nobody cares what those burnouts thinks anyway.

Especially as more and more are coming around to this on their own lately.

Besides the above, as far as why I personally prefer plain looking text emails?

It is the same reason I don’t put pretty little HTML formatted tables in emails hoping mobile phone’s screens don’t force readers to have to finger scroll to read each sentence in an email (makes emails not even worth bothering to read), and instead let text wrap naturally:

I am all about controlling the user experience as much as I can.

Guys like Steve Jobs with Apple and Walt Disney with his animation knew the power of doing this, and were often ridiculed for wasting time & money on such details… only to blow right past their lazy, boring competition valuing flash & dash and completely unreliable & inconsistent metrics over substance and starting with the market first vs the marketing first. I prefer to start with them, then work backwards to the marketing. Do that and you probably will never go wrong.

I can already hear some dorklord IM goo-roo parrot the typical:

“NO! You have to test it!”

Sure, Spanky.

Tell that to the guy with a 1,600 person list with only a handful of sales each blast.

Very few email marketers have a big enough list, much less the discipline required, to get anywhere close to a legitimately useful test. My biz partner at BerserkerMail Troy Broussard – a trained scientist who was a Nuclear Engineer and former Executive Director of Technology for Encyclopedia Brittanica – spent a lot of time as one of our industry’s “go to” email automation guys. He also wrote what was considered to be the “bible” for marketers using Infusionsoft especially. And he did the tracking/testing/automating for as many as 50 million emails per month in some cases. He can (and has) go on for hours about all the dumb info that marketing goo-roos trawling social media spread about this topic to impress the make money online mopes who believe anything they are told.

All right so that’s that.

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Ben Settle

One of the more amusing ironies I’ve witnessed since the day I hopped back on Twitter in early 2023 after 5 years away is:

Everyone accuses everyone else they disagree with of being an NPC.

i.e., non-player character

Someone who has no independent thought, just follows the crowd, parrots the corporate media and “experts” as if that makes them learned (often the opposite), and has no real individuality or critical thinking despite claiming to. And yet a lot of the same people on twitter barking “NPC!” at each other — in lockstep unison — often use the exact same language and metaphors and buzz words making them all sound exactly alike.

Here are just a few of my favorites:

* Few

* Next level

* Maxxing

* Based

* IYKYK

* Tell me you ___without telling me you ___

* Can confirm

* Many such cases

* Built different

* Fight me

* AF

* Lesson there

* Your ancestors would be ashamed

* Anon

* Make it make sense

* Woke up and chose violence

* LFG

* Banger

* Skill issue

* You___, I ____. We are not the same.

* Hot take

* Unpopular opinion

* NGMI

* Never forget what they took from you

* You don’t hate the media enough

* I’m never deleting this app

* I think about this a lot

* Hope this helps

* Raw dogging

* *checks notes*

There are many more.

And there is certainly nothing wrong with using any of the above, by the way. I am not even mocking it. Frankly, I am sure I have used at least a few of them myself at some point. I mostly just have a strange fascination with observing the hierarchical effect Twitter has with its current crop of influencers and their followers. I’ve even contributed a few terms of of my own to the mix that I reuse like the word “goo-roo” I invented waaaay back in 2009.

I see everyone using it, all over the place, and it pleases me to see it.

It’s one of the few cookies I’ve added to the cookie jar of knowledge of the direct response industry. Although it’s admittedly probably more of a crumb than a cookie. And very insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I will take what I can get..

So I am just a guilty of this happening as anyone probably.

Few.

All right enough.

I actually do have a copywriting point to this.

Unfortunately, the copywriting community as a whole are mostly NPCs from what I can tell. Total conformist goo-roo fanboy and fangirl types. It’s one reason I started disassociating from the copywriter community back in 2018. Copywriters are supposed to be rebels, and outside-the-box thinkers. But all they do is parrot the same, tired lines to every question, thought, or idea — like “test!” or “quit guessing!” or “you can’t measure what you don’t track!” and other banalities that, while not totally false, are not totally true either, in as much as they simply are not relevant to more and more online marketers who have smaller lists and/or audiences.

I am sure it all sounds good in a listicle though, probably.

Do what you want with that info, or do nothing with it.

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Ben Settle

One of my favorite people to read on Twitter is doctor Abud Bakri.

And one of the reasons he’s one of my favorite people to read on there is not only his deep research into circadian rhythm and health, but because he’s a fundamentals kinda guy. In fact, his bio literally says:

My favorite supplements to make amazing GAINS ? 

– L-SLEEPanine

– Acetyl-go-to-gym

– Omega-proper-macros-3

It ain’t about taking another pill, supplement, or drug for him.

It’s all about dialing in sleep, exercise, eating right, getting your body in sync with the sun, understanding the duology (being out in the bright days, sleeping in the dark at night, hard work during day, deep rest at night, etc) of biology, and the list goes on.

i.e., he’s all about the fundamentals.

And so it is with my teaching approach to copywriting, email, marketing.

Everyone out there is looking for a new tactic, a new trick, a new tool (fapGPT), a magic headline formula, a shiny new designer brand goo-roo to follow, whatever it is… when it all comes down to dialing in the fundamentals first. I would guesstimate this is my advice to at least 99% of the Email Players subscribers (who can email me their questions, as part of the subscription) who come to my righteous table looking for help on why their offers or campaigns aren’t converting as well. And while a lot of them want some kind of over-complex, sexy, and expensive solution… to shamelessly swipe Abud, my advice is to pop these copywriting supplements first:

– L-LISTanine

– OFFERzempic

– Co-COPY-Q10

Almost all marketing problems can be fixed with those 3 “supplements” —

Grow list, create irresistible offers, write better copy

And in that order.

List is #1, offer #2, then the copy which is #3.

I didn’t invent this rule, I simply follow it.

And you know what?

It’s never once let me down…

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Ben Settle

One of my all-time favorite movies is:

“Rocky Balboa”

I like it so much for two reasons:

1. It got rid of the nasty taste in my psyche left by Rocky V which, far as I am concerned, does not exist, never happened, and ain’t “canon” as the fanboys like to say

2. All the great success lessons embedded within

Take, for example, the part where the current champ, Mason “the Line” Dixon, who is hated by everyone, seeks counsel from his old trainer Martin — the guy who made him into the champ, but was dumped in favor of managers who took over Mason’s career once he got big. Mason is now publicly ridiculed and despised by boxing fans for having never fought a true contender, holding his own greatness back in the process and he knows it deep down.

Here is the conversation:

MARTIN: You got everything money can buy, except what it can’t. It’s Pride. Pride is what got your ass out of here, and losing is what brought ya back. But people like you, they need to be tested. They need a challenge.

MASON: But you know that ain’t never gunna happen, there ain’t anybody out there Martin.

MARTIN: There’s always somebody out there. Always. And when that time comes and you find something standing if front of you, something that ain’t running and ain’t backin up and is hittin on you and you’re too damn tired to breathe… you find that situation on you, that’s good, Cuz that’s baptism under fire! Oh, you get thru that and you find the only kind of respect that matters in this world. Self respect.

The gut shot in the above exchange:

“There’s always somebody out there”

A lot of online marketers — especially social media guys & ghouls who made it big due to the nature of algorithms and the power of charisma & status (a good power to have, btw, if you got it) without having to learn the basics of marketing — who have been coasting along since 2015 or so, are now finding this out. You can see it in their ever-more-desperate posts. Their whining about algorithms not being as generous as they used to be. Them having to resort to bottom feeding click bait for engagement and getting paid on views instead of actually producing anything that benefits lives.

There ain’t no way that’s going to last.

Whatever the case:

To use another Rocky analogy, once you win your title you have to defend it.

While you get successful and want to coast and lay back a little… that’s when Clubber is training, working harder, gaining ground, coming after you. I have seen this over and over and over in the past nearly 23-years since I’ve been up in this business. It is why I always, every day, and have been doing so this whole time, from the moment my eyes open in the morning… focus on something one of my high school coaches used to drill into our heads:

“You can always outwork the other guy”

I have found this to be true across the board.

You can’t control natural talent and aptitude.

But you dayem well CAN control how hard you work.

Anyway, something to think about in the coming weeks, months, years as the economy goes completely to pot. (The recent talk of lowering interest rates and flooding the economy with more debt notwithstanding — it will only delay the inevitable if it doesn’t totally crash everything, best to be ready…)

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Ben Settle

Not long ago a guy on my list told me of his inferiority complex.

Like, for example:

* He has never had a single significant win in his life, achieved nothing noteworthy

* Even when giving it his all he always is beat by people who half assed it or didn’t work as hard as he did

* He was haunted by this as a student and it has crawled into his professional life

* He watched it developing into a negative cycle of self-loathing in “real time” now

* He feels like he will never be good enough

* He thinks he is always looked down upon by people

* He thinks he will never achieve great things

* He is at a point where he has no confidence in his ability to achieve goals, which leads him to quitting early things he really wants to do (he ended up quitting Email Players too, I will add… despite telling me how much he loved it, benefited from the info… and is one of the reasons I have my No Coming Back policy: I can’t fix one’s desire to self-sabotage and am a meat ‘n potatoes guy… not a dancing monkey for those who can’t function in life without something ‘new’ to stimulate their dopamine production when they haven’t even implemented the ‘old’ stuff yet…)

* His “dumb brain” (his description) is always whispering in his ear, “why try if I can’t hit that mark I set for myself?”

* He has tried many mindset “hacks”, tried working harder than he usually does but to no effect.

Okay, you get the picture.

Fortunately, there IS a cure for this phantom problem, for those plagued by it.

I know this first hand because I was once in an even worse state.

However, to explain this cure I have no choice but to tell you about an obscure audio cassette tape I listened to waaaay back circa 1998 or 1999 when I, too, had zero confidence, was riddled with anxiety, plagued with imposter syndrome, and had all the marks of a self-loathing & self-sabotaging wretch who despite having decent looks and a higher status friend group than most… couldn’t get a date with a pocketful of $100 bills.

The MLM company I was in at the time sent the tape out.

And the speaker was one of the company’s co-founders:

Tom “Big Al” Schreiter.

And I remember him talking about the idea of how we all have a sort of internal “thermostat” that dictates how successful we are in any aspect of our lives. There is nothing bat shyt woo-woo about this. It’s all very practical. And basically what it means as far as business is, we all have a certain psychological comfort zone with how successful we will get. Just like a thermostat in your house will raise or lower the heat based on the temperature you set it at, so it does not get any cooler or hotter… so it is with human beings when it comes to things like money, status, success, skill mastery, whatever it is they want.

Some people have very high thermostats.

Most have very low thermostats.

So, for example:

If you are used to and are therefore comfortable making $25k per year then, no matter how hard you work, you will very likely never do better than that. In fact, if you do somehow go higher than $25k, you will subconsciously sabotage yourself somehow… probably to the astonishment of those watching… to make sure you get back to that $25,000 where you are psychologically comfortable. Same if you make less one year… you will somehow find the ambition, opportunities, energy, and means to get back UP to that $25k where you are comfortable.

Same with other aspects of one’s life.

I remember hearing a Dan Kennedy bit on this a few years ago, too.

He said he knew a salesman who made something like $5,000 each month, on the dot, like clockwork. And during months where he did exceptionally well for whatever reason… he would get VERY creative about getting back to that $5,000 the next month. Gary Halbert wrote about the woman he was with for seven years doing something similar. When they were together he said she would not let them ever get “too” successful… blaming it on her money guilt-ridden upbringing or something like that.

You can witness it in the news on the regular:

* Athlete or actor gets big overnight.

* They go from making hardly anything to multiple millions.

* Somehow, someway…. they lose it all.

Happens to lottery winners, too, and it’s all do to that thermostat.

So it ain’t just some isolated thing you hear on motivational tapes. And once you stop listening to the crowd, stop listening to the herd, and stop following the so-called experts off the cliff they are marching towards… it all can turn around quickly.

When in doubt take Earl Nightingale’s advice:

(paraphrased)

“If you ever wonder what you should do, look around at what everyone else around you is doing, and then do the opposite and you’ll probably never make another mistake for as long as you live.”

Frankly, the hard part is dealing with rank ‘n file people afterwards.

For example:

Many years ago I was dating a woman who had her MBA and was successful “on paper” I guess. And she would get irritated with me because I did not interact much with her friends the (few) times we hung out with them. I’d rather have been waterboarded than hang with these people, but made an appearance every now and then. And all these people would talk about was office gossip, complaining about their bosses, not making enough salary, what insignificant comment this guy or that girl office politician said… bragging about their jobs which were not all that impressive, but I guess was to the boomers they were trying to impress… while I’d be sitting there thinking about my next email campaign or info product I was about to launch or event I was set to speak at. Just totally (and, admittedly, rudely) zoned out, ignoring all the boring normie talk, wondering why the hell these people didn’t do something to improve their miserable lives instead of complaining about them?

The reason?

Because they LIKE where they are, and are there by choice.

Ain’t nobody can change that part but you.

Anyway, enough of that.

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Ben Settle

Following is a bit from Kamala being interviewed by Oprah.

And it’s like a masterclass in how to sell to wine aunts:

KAMALA: We are an optimistic people. We are an optimistic people. Americans, by character, are people who have dreams and ambitions and aspirations. We believe in what is possible. We believe in what can be. And we believe in fighting for that. That’s how we came into being because the people before us understood that one of the greatest expressions for the love of our country, one of the greatest expressions of patriotism, is to fight for the ideals of who we are.

Delicious word salad.

It’s even more useful to watch the video and her tipsy mannerisms and tonality — as if she’s sitting on the floor Indian style in her living room on a Friday night after scrolling the dating apps, talking to her cat, 2 or 3 glasses deep into that first bottle of red, slice of pizza in hand.

That is why if you sell to a market with lots of wine aunts:

Study Kamala.

They are all voting for her and she sells them magnificently.

A swipe file handed to you on a silver platter every time she speaks.

There are those who probably think I’m being a smart ass here. And I won’t deny it is fun watching this election cycle whenever they let Kamala talk. But I am 100% serious about studying her if you sell to a market full of wine aunts. It’s like anything else where if you want to sell more with email, sales copy, marketing… look at who is doing a great job of selling them.

The words they use.

The phrases they choose.

The methods they use to try to emote or project or rationalize.

Then bottle that up and pour into your copy.

And when you’re ready to turn all that lovin’ into emails?

That’s where my paid Email Players newsletter comes in.

More on that here:

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Ben Settle

Here we go again, with another attempt to gank Trump yesterday.

I’ve been hearing all kinds of conflicting stories about it, and the government lapdog media lies pile so high these days you need a space shuttle to stay above it. So I don’t pretend to know any more details than anyone else does. What I do know is, just like last time someone tried to whack him, Trump did what not 1 in 1,000 online marketers arguing with strangers on social media and doom scrolling their phones all day seem to ever be able to get around to:

Write an email to his list asking for money.

Personally, I suspect he does it himself in a lot of cases, or maybe dictates it for someone to send out for him, during times when he gets especially fired up. Not everyone needs a team or fapGPT to write an email, after all. But the point here isn’t who wrote it. The point is it got done, the opportunity was seized, and revenue was generated.

What about you, Hoss?

Did you write your list promoting something today?

No?

I’d ask why, but really, it’s none of my business either way. I am writing this merely to shame those reading this who know you should be writing an email to your list each day promoting something, but don’t. And also to remind you that while you’re too lazy to mail your list, someone else is mailing his list, and as a result that someone else is now, as I type this even, getting the sales you should be getting to people who are on both your lists who are only hearing from him and not you… because you’re too lazy to mail something.

All right, ‘nuff said.

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Ben Settle

And in just 3 steps:

1. Watch the Trump v Kamala debate tonight and take notes

2. Listen closely to the candidate you want to LOSE

3. After the debate, write a 500 word email selling someone who also wants that candidate to lose on why they should vote for that candidate i.e., sell them on the candidate you both hate.

And do it sincerely, not in a snarky or sarcastic way.

Really go to bat for Kamala if you like Trump, or Trump if you like Kamala. If it makes you a bit sick to think of it that is good. Think hard, and pull out the benefits, proof, claims, stories, all of it. i.e., if you think Kamala is going to ship 20,000 3rd worlders to your plush safe town, what would you do to sell the people of that town it’s good for them? Or, if you think Trump is going to turn America into Handmaid’s Tale, what would you do to sell women who hate him on why he would be good for them?

Truly (temporarily) “become” a copywriter for the other side.

Why put yourself through this exercise?

Because doing so can do more for not only your sales but also your powers of persuasion, copywriting, email, influence than reading any book or going to yet another mastermind or scrolling through some dorklord’s Facebook feed about copywriting ever will. It will force you to use all the tools at your disposal, force you to see another point of view, and force you to apply all the knowledge you’ve been accumulating about marketing.

After that?

If you want to learn the ins’ and outs’ of my way of doing email go here:

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Ben Settle