Subscriber Jason is rapidly building an audience in a hot niche: Programming for virtual reality. His email list is growing fast—and now he has a problem. He writes: I’ve been trying to follow your advice and blogging pretty consistently as well as doing some promotion for the site. Daily unique user count has gone up […]
Continue readingWhen it comes to getting people to take action, one of the most powerful tools in the marketer’s arsenal is FOMO— Fear of Missing Out. In other words, “scarcity.” If you’re not using scarcity in your email courses and promotions, well… YOU’RE the one missing out. The best way to do that is not always […]
Continue readingOne of my all-time favorite marketing sayings is: “Nobody ever buys a drill because they wanted a drill. They buy a drill because they wanted a hole.” This came up in my recent interview on the Freelancer Show. Resume coach (and up-and-coming email marketer) Jennifer caught the interview and says: I just finished listening to […]
Continue readingOn a private forum I belong to, the whole topic of “incubating” new subscribers came up recently. There are two warring schools of thought on this. One group INSISTS that you can’t just sell to your new subscribers straight out of the chute. That just turns people off. You have to “incubate” them for a […]
Continue readingA few months back I jotted down an idea for one of these emails: “I just wrote a sales page, and I’m scared” That’s typically how I feel whenever I turn a new piece of writing loose on the world. But it’s ESPECIALLY true of copywriting projects like email courses and sales pages… Compared to […]
Continue readingGot a question from a subscriber named Jim. (OK, OK, you got me. Jim is my dad. Yes, my dad AND my mom are both on my list. Hi Mom and Dad!) ANYWAY… After a couple of decades running his business, my dad has a list of maybe 1,000 or more past and current clients, […]
Continue readingAt the lake where I take my boys fishing, every so often you’ll sometimes see these HUGE black shadows that cruise just below the surface of the water. These fish are easily as big as my leg. MONSTERS, especially compared to the tiny little sunfish we usually catch. Last time I went fishing with my […]
Continue readingRight now I’m running a little social media “experiment.” There’s this site called Medium.com that seems kinda cool. The idea is, you write a great blog post and publish it on Medium. And when a handful of people read and “recommend” your post, Medium gives you a boost—they make your post go viral. At least […]
Continue readingWhen I was but a wee young “copy cub,” my copywriting mentor Richard assigned me to write an email sequence. I was pitching a 3-day “fix your business” summit for struggling independent tax advisors. I started doing some research to find out what keeps your average tax advisor awake at night, and I stumbled onto […]
Continue readingRecently a subscriber asked for my feedback on an email he’d written. The email caught my attention instantly with the first few lines. He was telling a story that I could relate to, and I was eager to see where he was leading me. But a few short paragraphs later, my eyes glazed over. I […]
Continue readingBrand new subscriber Sam is juuuust getting his business off the ground. He writes: Really enjoyed all of your emails so far, and I’m looking forward to learning more. Here’s where I’m at: – Just starting out with 200+ subs – Using mailchimps free account – A Bryan Harris, 10k subs student – No autoresponder […]
Continue readingA few weeks ago I took my oldest son fishing for the first time, and we shared the lake with this young married couple. They were doing the typical “fishing thing”: You pick a spot, plop yourself down, spear a fat juicy worm on your hook, throw it out there and… Wait. Patiently. And wait […]
Continue readingBack in college I edited the student newspaper, so I was always sniffing around campus for juicy rumors. One of my favorite sources for stories was the “faculty senate”—a giant monthly committee meeting where all the professors would get together to debate college policies. Now the reason I liked going to faculty senate was NOT […]
Continue readingOn the rural dirt road where I spent my teen years, there was this weird “house.” The guy who lived there didn’t have enough money to build a house the traditional way… You know, dig out the basement, pour a foundation, frame out the living room and kitchen and bedrooms, put on a roof… What […]
Continue readingMy first reaction when I learned that LeadPages had acquired Drip was: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ After all, Drip is one of my 2 favorite marketing tools. And LeadPages? Well, let’s just say that we have a checkered past that sent me running straight into the arms of Thrive. So I was NOT a happy camper when […]
Continue readingBack when I was a wet behind the ears “copy cub,” one of the projects I tackled was a script for a short, explainer-style video. The product in this case was a supplement designed to boost energy and fat-loss. During the initial interview with the client, I picked up on some MAJOR red flags. The […]
Continue readingLast week an email with this bombshell subject line detonated in my inbox: That time I almost hired a Baby Snatcher…THIS is why recruiters research you I have to say, after years of following the best email marketers in the biz, I’m pretty jaded when it comes to subject lines these days. But there was […]
Continue readingLove this one: “Ask me, ‘What is the secret of comedy?’” “OK, what is the secret -” “TIMING!!!” That’s from one of my all-time favorite writing books, Wired for Story. This question of timing comes up with email courses too. Namely: When should I pitch my product? Timing is a HUGE factor in making sales—and […]
Continue readingThis is an embarrassing story I’ve never admitted in public. It’s kinda gross too—consider yourself warned. When I was around 10 years old, I used to spend the whole summer playing outside in our little suburban yard. And one summer in particular, I remember noticing that my arms were getting pretty tanned. This was a […]
Continue readingA few weeks ago I had a coaching call with an entrepreneur named Ben who’d just launched his first digital product. He’d created an email course to sell the product and run a few dozen subscribers through the course with no sales. He was hoping to get my feedback on the email course and sales […]
Continue readingThis summer I finally got to take my two oldest sons fishing for the first time. There’s this 5-acre pond nestled in the woods behind our church, with a fountain that shoots a bloom of water 20 feet in the air. Very peaceful and picturesque. I decided to take them both individually for some “daddy […]
Continue readingYesterday I showed how teaching flips an “analytical switch” in your would-be customer’s brain that more often than not will kill your sales. When I first got into marketing, I really struggled with this. Teaching is fun—it comes natural to me and I really enjoy it. The idea of teaching *less* in my emails just […]
Continue readingOne of the best marketing books I’ve read in a while is Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. (It’s a bit ironic, because the Heath brothers take lots of potshots at marketing, including copywriting legend John Caples.) To me the most fascinating part of the whole book was the anecdote that starts on […]
Continue readingInquiring minds want to know: How long should my email course be? I have an easy rule of thumb that I usually follow. But before I just give you a rule to follow mindlessly, here’s the thought process behind it. Now I’m going to assume for this discussion that you’re creating your course because you […]
Continue readingWhen I was 11 our family moved from the suburbs to a 100-year-old farmhouse in rural northeastern Ohio. Since I was homeschooled and living a solid 30 minutes from civilization, I got into some pretty weird hobbies. This one year in late winter, I saw some sap oozing from a maple tree in our backyard, […]
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