Your humble host & long-suffering storyteller has said it many times:
We are living smack dab in The Age of the Skeptic.
Even if you’re honest as the day is long… I guarantee you 99.999% of people who see even a perfect offer with proof & credibility-laden sales copy are like the guy in the old adage who smells flowers and immediately starts looking around for the coffin!
And who can blame them?
In the past decade especially, your customer has been conned, lied to, or in some way hurt by everyone he’s trusted — bankers, mortgage brokers, investment advisors, teachers, politicians and, yes, goo-roos selling them via so-called “bad ass!” advertising only to be let down, disappointed, or even downright scammed.
That’s the bad news.
The good news?
There is an enormous opportunity afoot if you do any kind of direct response marketing and copywriting whatsoever. An opportunity Yours Snooty has secretly been using for a long time to profit from, and that can work for you if you are brand spanking new to your market, lack credibility, have no track record or testimonials, nobody knows who you are, or even if you simply screwed up so badly you and your brand have about as much appeal as a leper in your market.
Come closer and lemme ‘splain, Lucy.
Many years ago, I heard the founding father of internet marketing as we know it (even Time Magazine basically admits as such…) and “Email Players” subscriber Ken McCarthy say:
(Paraphrased)
- The vast majority of people will never buy from direct response, no matter what you say, how great at selling you are, or if you are literally giving away gold bricks that smell like hope
- About 5% of people will buy everything — i.e. the hyper buyers
- Another 10% to 25% will want to buy what you offer, but need to be sold
(i.e. the skeptics)
Now, I’m no math jeenius.
But, it seems to me there are at least 2-5 times more skeptical buyers than hyper buyers. Which means, if you can sell to these skeptics, you will have not only 2-5 times more customers to sell to, but a much higher quality of customer to sell to than the contemptible new product junkies many hyper buyers tend to be made up of, as well.
And it gets even better, Chuckles.
Here’s more good news:
These skeptics are also the single most gloriously under-served, and under-marketed to group in probably every single market, niche, and industry, on the face of God’s blue earth.
Even better news:
There is a very simple copywriting technique I am teaching in great depth and detail in next month’s January “Email Players” issue anyone can potentially learn in about 15 minutes, and start using immediately after — yes, even if you just learned what copywriting is yesterday — to not only get the attention of this giant pool of skeptics, but potentially have them only wanting to buy from you, only trust you, and only want anything to do with you, over and above even much better marketers & copywriters you might compete against.
Take for example, “Email Players” subscriber Naomi Kuttner.
She sells in an extremely skeptical market full of people who have been plagued with very real physical pain, desperate for a solution, falling for lots of bad advice from trusted medical authorities, only to be let down, with layer upon layer upon layer of skepticism piled on top each other understandably now working against her. And, after hearing about this secret copywriting technique from me, she asked about how to apply it to her unique market, specifically.
Now, bear in mind, I really know nothing about her market.
Other than, what you know by what I described above.
But, I didn’t need to know all that much, I simply needed to know this technique.
Thus, when I gave her an example of how to apply it to her market, she not only got excited by the possibilities, but she asked if she could use my “ignorant” (my description- as far as me knowing the specifics of what she does for her clients) copy.
But, there is a caveat to this.
There are some markets this technique will NOT work on.
Here’s a real-life example of what I mean:
I once wrote a sales letter for a (at the time) well-known affiliate marketing guru many years ago. His product was so much like one of his other products he was very adamant about making sure it didn’t “cannibalize” (his words) his other product’s sales. So I gave it a shot, and did not use any of the hype and bull shyt affiliate marketers want to hear, including using the technique I have been talking about in this email that works on sane people.
The result?
Way lower-than-expected conversions.
True, that could have been the offer, and that very likely had something to do with it. Many affiliate marketers tend to be naive and have a drooling biz-opp seeking mentality. But even they, I suspect, knew something in the milk wasn’t clean about the offer being too much “like” one of his other offers they had already bought. But, when he told me about the low conversions, his exact words were:
“It needs more hype, hype sells.”
So I sally forthed and removed all proof, all credibility, and all traces of the secret copywriting technique I have been teasing you about here from the sales letter as the client requested. And, I stuffed it with as much hype as I could think of without lying or exaggerating and bending the truth like the rest of the advertising in that market does… and he was much happier with it.
Now, I have no clue how well it did after that, nor do I care.
I needed to take a shower after writing that revised version.
I only bring this up because, as I recently explained to “Email Players” subscriber and freelance copywriter Nick Fornoff, there are some hyper buyers who want to be lied to.
Who want to hear bull shyt.
And, yes, who will only buy from nonsensical copy full of copywriting “hacks” and nonsense that lie, mislead, and trick.
Thus, if you sell to these types of idiots, the copywriting technique — I have never seen taught in another copywriting book or course, because it’s not really a “copywriting” technique, I simply adapted it as such from another aggressive sales-related industry — in the January issue will not only NOT work, but actively work hard against you.
But, if you sell to intelligent people?
People with a very real problem with a very real desire to solve it?
And if you have a very real offer with very real value?
I predict it will change the entire game for you, for the rest of your marketing career. It is not something that will go out of style, and is completely ever-green, that worked thousands of years ago for the ancient Greeks and Roman merchants, and still works today just as well, if not better in this Age of the Skeptic, especially.
All right.
Enough of this.
Here’s the link to subscribe in time to get this issue while you still can:
Ben Settle
P.S. Last Summer, another “Email Players” subscriber told me:
“The most common objection I seem to face is (since I’ve entered a new market with no prior visible presence)… ‘If you’re so great, how come when I’ve never heard of you’ or ‘why is there nothing when I google you’, ‘why should I trust you’, etc. The market seems to have been completely sucked of trust by ever evolving claims etc. I have some good proof, but since everyone else is using similar proof, it doesn’t have much of an impact as far as trust goes.”
And, this secret copywriting technique, taught the way I show it specifically in the January issue, can overcome all of this rather easily.
Thus, perfect for people new to their markets or copywriting.
If you are a freelancer, you may have to sell clients on using it, though.
That’s how counterintuitive it is.
In fact, I can almost guarantee you will.
But, ironically, that will be a problem you can solve by running this technique on them…
Here’s the link:
