A little while back I mentioned a proven landing by Gary Bencivenga that he wrote for his fresh pressed olive oil club. One enterprising subscriber named Lea got curious and Googled the ad. She writes: ~~~ That landing page is so long and so old school. I went to check it out and immediately lost […]
Continue readingI’m always amazed at what you can learn from your customers if you just listen. Case in point: Recently I had a 15-minute Skype call with a software developer from Ireland. He’d bought our “How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer” course, worked the system, and in just over a year he’d become Internet […]
Continue readingFunny story (and true): Back when I was first talking to my buddy John Sonmez about teaming up with him to grow his Simple Programmer business, we had a long conversation about his flagship $299 course, “How to Market Yourself As A Software Developer.” I went into “Mr. All-Knowing Marketing Consultant” mode and launched into a […]
Continue readingWhen I was 9 or 10, I went through a “lock phase.” I had a little collection of locks—combination locks, bike locks, even an old deadbolt lock off a door. (Seem weird? This is nothing. I was a strange kid.) Naturally I had a whole wad of keys, too. Skeleton keys, steel keys, house keys… […]
Continue readingThe first time I heard about this strange thing called “copywriting,” something inside me said, “YES! That’s for me.” And so naturally I ran away. I hid behind all kinds of rationalizations. “You could never do that.” “You’re not a good enough writer.” “It’s too hard—and too risky.” But one day something happened that woke […]
Continue readingReader Ian is selling an online course about a WordPress plugin called Gravity Forms. He asks: ~~~ Thanks for the emails, lots of good stuff! My questions is… my course has been selling (poorly) for about 2 months and my subscriber base (about 490 web designers) already knows about the course as I’ve sent out […]
Continue readingThe last week has been a rough ride on the entrepreneurial rollercoaster for me and my business partner John. After a solid sales month in April, along moseys May and— Everything dies. What was really weird was, we have 3 different products at different price points ($5, $99, $299) and NONE of them were selling. […]
Continue readingOne of my clients, Andrew, runs a biz in the mortgage marketing niche. After reading these emails for the last few months, Andrew realized that the ability to write good copy for his business is one of the highest value skills he could possess. He asks: ~~~ Would you mind sharing the names of some […]
Continue readingJust over 2 years ago I approached the guys in my mastermind group with a crazy idea: What if we recorded our weekly calls—where we dig into our businesses, hash out ideas, celebrate our victories, conduct brutal postmortems on our failures—what if we put all that out as a podcast for the whole world to […]
Continue readingRecently I critiqued a landing page for a client named Jeff, and it was one of those good news/bad news scenarios. The writing was pretty good… but NOT for a landing page. I gave Jeff a homework assignment to study Gary Bencivenga’s amazing “Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club.” Jeff buckled down and hand-copied that sucker—a great […]
Continue readingCan I be perfectly transparent with you for a minute? Right now I’m confused, frustrated and a little discouraged. Here’s what’s going on: March and April rocked in terms of sales for Simple Programmer (the “other” website I help run). Last month we set a new revenue record if you don’t count product launches and […]
Continue readingMy oldest son (who’s five as I write this) is kind of a strange kid sometimes. For example: He’ll eat broccoli all day, but he doesn’t like pizza. Or grilled cheese. (“There’s too much cheese, and Daddy why is it so melty?”) I’m a little old school, and I believe that kids should learn to […]
Continue readingHow soon is too soon to pitch your product? That’s a raging debate among email marketers. On one extreme, there are experts who claim that new subscribers need an “incubation period.” And like fragile baby chicks, if you expose them to a cold-blooded sales pitch too soon, the budding relationship will wither and die. On […]
Continue readingYesterday I shared my “A2E formula” for email courses: You attract your subscribers with the benefits of ENLIGHTENMENT… You keep them engaged with ENTERTAINMENT… And you close the sale with AGITATION. Every email in your course should contain the three elements in this formula, starting from the very first day. Here’s what that looks like… […]
Continue reading“You’re FIRED!” That was the subject line of one of my favorite marketing emails I’ve ever written. The email falls on Day 1 of the “5 Learning Mistakes Software Developers Make” email course I wrote with my business partner, John Sonmez from Simple Programmer. And it’s a great example of my “A2E Formula” for email […]
Continue readingOne time I got a plea for help from a fellow software developer-turned entrepreneur. He’d built a web app to help other business owners improve the SEO on their website so they’d rank higher in Google. And he’d even gone so far as to create an email course to get people to take his software […]
Continue readingI’ve noticed a bit of a trend lately: A rash of “marketing professionals” who take down all the optin forms and popups from their website, then write crowing, self-congratulatory blog posts that get picked up and shared all over the place. These marketers become instant folk heroes in some circles. They’re lauded for taking the […]
Continue readingEver play chess? I used to play against my grandpa almost every time I visited him. He liked to “talk trash” while we played. “Are you sure you want to do that?” “Is that really the best you’ve got?” “As long as you’re just *giving* your rook away…” Really screwed with my 12-year-old head while […]
Continue readingMy buddy Derick once put together an email course for JavaScript developers. He picked a topic that he knew would be popular—the insanity surrounding JavaScript’s use of the keyword “this.” Ever hear the old “Abbot and Costello” routine, “Who’s on First?” Take a couple of minutes and watch this: That gives you a pretty good […]
Continue readingWell THAT was fun. Yesterday I finally published the monster sales page I’ve been yapping about for the last couple of months. The product is a downloadable course that shows software developers how to use smart marketing and positioning to advance in their careers. All told, this hulking piece of copy weighs in at 11,375 […]
Continue readingProduct launches are dang near magical. It’s like some kind of spell falls over your audience that makes them go into a buying frenzy. For my very first product launch, I had a rinky-dink list of just 157 people. Yet somehow from that tiny list I made something like 32 sales—that’s a conversion rate of […]
Continue readingI still remember the moment I decided to write my first ebook. I was out in my yard, mowing around the raspberry bushes and listening to a podcast. The host was explaining how he published his own books and sold them from his website. Ah, the siren song of “passive income.” Stop trading hours for […]
Continue readingFriend and fellow Entreprogrammer Derick is in the middle of drastically revamping his membership site business. Among other changes, he’s doubling his prices and switching from a monthly subscription to an annual one. (Remind me to write more about this in a future email—the whole “monthly membership” approach can be a **huge** mistake if you’re […]
Continue readingAs a teenager I went through a “golf phase.” Overall I was pretty terrible. I could hit pretty well with the medium- and short-range clubs, mainly the 7, 8 and 9 irons. But put a driver in my hands and I’d fall to pieces. If you’re not too familiar with golf, you really need to […]
Continue readingIs there a way to take a claim that seems off the wall, or even outrageous… And with a minor twist, make that claim seem much more believable? I was reminded of this great copywriting technique recently during a call with my coaching student Kathy. She surprised me by announcing at the start of the […]
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