The 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 […]
Continue readingA couple weeks back I was in Las Vegas, hanging out at the Palms Casino. I was attending an event called MicroConf, a get-together for entrepreneurs and startup founders. And I bumped into an almost-client, a tech CEO named Adam. Adam had reached out to me last fall about writing a new landing page for […]
Continue readingJust for a minute, close your eyes and think of a recent time when you bought something (especially something EXPENSIVE). Now, see if you can remember the “tipping point” where you became interested enough to buy. Chances are good it was a recommendation from a friend who tried the product and loved it. Or a […]
Continue readingOne of the toughest copywriting tasks to do well is fundraising for non-profits. You’re still facing all the normal human resistance to “selling,” and as if that’s not enough, you can’t fall back on the copywriter’s greatest ally—self interest. Reader Andy finds himself in this situation, and he asks: ~~~ How do you make a […]
Continue readingYesterday I did a copy critique for a business owner named Jeff. Jeff’s in an unusual business, at least as far as I’m concerned. While most of my clients sell 1s and 0s in the form of software or “info products,” Jeff sells meat. Beef raised on sweet clover and dry-aged to perfection. Savory lamb […]
Continue readingEver have a project that seems to just drag on and on and on… That’s me right now with this sales page I’m writing. Part of the problem is that I know there’s a lot riding on this project. The sales page is for my business partner John Sonmez’s flagship course, and if nail this […]
Continue readingOne aspect of marketing that gets people all wrapped around the axel is: DESIGN To see why, just pick up a magazine sometime and thumb through the ads. What do you see? Gorgeous photography. Open layouts with tons of white space. Tight little blocks of copy. It’s the same on the web. The “best” websites […]
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