Recently I decided to get rid of a whole pile of old books that had been sitting in my attic for several years, unused. Since the books were all on the same esoteric topic—Gregg shorthand if you’re curious—I took the lazy way out: I threw the books together in a pile and took a photo […]
Continue readingOne fear that newcomers to email marketing have is: SPAM COMPLAINTS. Spam complaints are nothing to take lightly. Rack up enough of them and you could find yourself locked out of your email software. Or you could wind up on the “naughty list” like subscriber Justin, who writes: Have you had to deal with de-listing […]
Continue readingAs a new marketer, one of the questions I used to agonize over was: How often can I send a “hard pitch” to my email list for a given product? Entrepreneurs seem to go through several phases of growth on this. At first, when you’re new to marketing, the idea of pitching at all is […]
Continue readingIn an email last week I described how I might go about constructing a “myth busters” email course to sell a product about learning the Go programming language. Subscriber Craig replied with a question: Wondering how your approach to this would work for selling a service (like we do for PodcastMotor)? I find that a […]
Continue readingLast week I signed up for an email course from a well-known guru in the “launch-a-best-selling-book” niche. I won’t name names here—I don’t want to beat up on the guy, since he seems to really know his stuff. For all I know he might be killing it with this course. I doubt it though. From […]
Continue readingOne time when I was a kid, I was splashing around in a creek with a few friends of mine. At one point one of the other boys happened to look down, and he saw something stuck to his leg. It looked like a worm, but it was in fact— A leech. Utterly repulsive. I […]
Continue readingWord of warning: I’m cranky this morning. Why’s that? Well, I just had to handle a refund request from a customer who goes by the name of Nick W. Normally I do NOT mind refund requests. The whole point of this for me is providing a service, and if a customer feels they didn’t get […]
Continue readingSo here’s a dilemma for ya: Is it better to spend time optimizing your existing sales funnel—split-testing optin forms, experimenting with new lead magnets, fine-tuning the copy on your website… Or should you just bust your butt and hustle to get more traffic to your site? My take on this is, there’s a time for […]
Continue readingBack when I was still writing and selling ebooks for programmers, I had this mental hangup that cost me a LOT of money: I was convinced that NO ONE would pay $50 or more for a book or course in my niche. Why? Because the software I was teaching developers to use cost $50. And […]
Continue readingOne of the biggest challenges when you’re climbing the copywriting and email marketing learning curve is: Looking at what’s working in other niches and businesses and reverse-engineering it to find the principles you can apply to YOUR business. Software developer Wojciech is at that point. He asks: ~~~ I enjoyed your series on email courses […]
Continue reading“You ever write a ‘sideways sales letter’?” I was deep in some sticky code for the iOS app I was coding when the Skype message from my copywriting mentor popped up. I had no clue what he was talking about—all I knew is, I was about to find out. At the time I was holding […]
Continue readingIn my first “real” programming job I worked at a large healthcare company in Pittsburgh called UPMC. At the time, Google was making a push into the healthcare market with a product called (what else) Google Health. And the team I worked on was tasked with building an app to help patients get their UPMC […]
Continue readingWendy is an author who writes and publishes indie fiction on Amazon. Her husband Josh, a loyal reader, is giving her a hand with marketing. Over the last year they’ve built up a healthy email list—and now Josh finds himself at a crossroads. Because selling Kindle books for $2.99 isn’t the path to a sustainable […]
Continue readingThe other day I was on a call with my business partner John, scheming about the upcoming launch of his second book. As an aside I asked him how much revenue he was earning from his first book, “Soft Skills: A Software Developer’s Life Manual.” I won’t disclose the details here, since that revenue is […]
Continue readingComes a question from a fellow Josh: Love your emails and I occasionally listen to the Entreprogrammers podcast. I’m actually in a mastermind group with Wes Bos too 🙂 I’ve been working on my wife’s marketing, she writes and indie publishes fiction books on Amazon (http://wendyowensbooks.com). I’ve been using drip for the past two months […]
Continue readingMany moons ago, when I was still learning the online marketing ropes, I bought into this really crippling lie. I can even picture where I was when this lie sank its talons into my brain: Pushing a shopping cart toward the checkout at Wal-Mart, a podcast chirping away in my ears. The guest on the […]
Continue readingBack when I was bootstrapping my way into a new career as a programmer, I remember hearing about this hot new tool for building websites called Ruby on Rails. The idea behind RoR was to streamline the process of creating a new website from scratch—and allow developers to build complicated features quickly and painlessly. The […]
Continue readingLast week I sent an email that boiled down to this: When you’re not seeing the sales come in like they should, don’t panic. Chances are what you’re doing is working, and you just need to be patient as more people trickle through your marketing funnel. Well, reader Tobey cracked me up with this reply: […]
Continue readingIn the programming world, there’s a popular approach to writing code called “test driven development.” It works like this: Before you write a single line of code, you first spend a minute to think about what tiny, simple step you could take toward the feature that you want to build. Maybe you want to write […]
Continue readingCopywriter Nick confides: Damaging confession: I hate doing research for clients…especially when their field is dull -OR- like a current client, their offer is clearly inferior (he’s trying to sell a Ford Pinto for Tesla Model 3 prices, to boot)… Do you have a game plan mapped out for doing kick ass research as quickly […]
Continue readingGet a few marketers together in the same room for a bit, and it won’t be long before someone brings up “avatars” or “personas.” That’s because they’re excellent tools for understanding and connecting with your customer. Too often though, I see entrepreneurs and marketers who invest the time and effort to put together an ideal […]
Continue readingA couple years back I consulted with a business owner who wanted to grow his email list. His idea was to hire me to turn me loose on his home page, which at the time was a kind of a “showcase” for his services… And have me rework it into a high-converting landing page to […]
Continue readingOne of the very first changes I put in place when I took over marketing for Simple Programmer was: Extend the length of our guarantees. The idea of going from a 30-day money back guarantee to a full year gave my business partner the heebie-jeebies. And Email Copywriting Workshop alumnus Devendra is feeling the same […]
Continue readingHere’s a scenario I see a lot: Entrepreneur has a product idea. Builds a small list. Launches a product. Money! Then our entrepreneur sets up an evergreen sales funnel and… No money! That’s pretty much what happened to a reader named Sam, who recently launched a video course teaching English as a second language. So […]
Continue readingSubscriber Sam recently ran a 24-hour product launch for his very first product—a video course with an accompanying workbook that helps students to improve their skills speaking English. He writes: So a little update. I made just over $350 in sales in the 24 hour promo – which I’m pretty happy with for my first time […]
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