Back 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 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 readingI hate all the “hocus pocus” that goes on in the marketing world. You know exactly what I’m talking about… All those tricks and tactics that make for a great clickbait blog post—but somehow never seem to pan out when YOU try them. Like the way double optin magically transforms your subscribers from listless louts […]
Continue readingSo last week I did just about the dumbest thing yet in my career as an email marketer. Here’s what happened… Recently my business partner John and I launched a new product for Simple Programmer, a short video course called 10 Ways to Make Money from Your Blog. Now it might seem a little weird […]
Continue readingSubscriber Taylor writes: Hey Joshua, love the content. After someone has gone through an email course and gotten a hard pitch, how long do you wait before pitching the product to them again? The thing to keep in mind when it comes to pitching is this: If your subscriber doesn’t buy, they haven’t said “No.” […]
Continue readingBack in the ’70s, the savvy marketing minds at fast food chain McDonalds crunched their sales numbers and made a discovery: A sizable bite of each restaurant’s customers bought a burger and nothing else. They decided to try a test. The sales clerk would wait until the customer had placed the order—then hit them with […]
Continue readingOnce I heard a story about a German man who’d just gotten a shiny new GPS unit in his car. That little device seemed magical—he could just punch in his destination, then shut off his brain and follow the prompts to wherever he was going. Until… One day his GPS steered him wrong—and he drove […]
Continue readingWith all the experiments I have running right now at Simple Programmer, some days I feel kinda like this guy: One of the most interesting tests I have going is around the pricing for our flagship product, How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer. Hang around here a bit and you’ll hear me yakking […]
Continue readingA few years ago, just after I’d launched my first product online, I got a lot of flak for the price I was charging. While most books are priced in the $5-10 range, mine was pegged at $19 (an absolute fortune, I know!). And pretty regularly I’d get an email that went something like this: […]
Continue readingDon’t you hate when you ask a “marketing expert” a question— And they reply with something like, “That might work, but you’d have to test it to know for sure”? Sometimes that IS just a copout. Many times, though, it’s just the honest truth. Case in point: Last week I mentioned how I’m trying a […]
Continue readingA few days back I tackled a question from subscriber Carl about tapping your customer’s deepest desires. Like many other copywriters, I use a tool called an “avatar” for this. An avatar is a composite—a fictional character that represents your ideal customer. Carl asks a followup: When I did the exercises you have also done […]
Continue readingMy business partner John and I have this long-standing debate over pricing strategy. I’m a big believer in the “three-tier” pricing model. This is where you offer three variations of your product at different price points. Maybe you have a $99 version, a $199 version and a $299 version. John prefers a simpler approach: You […]
Continue readingLast weekend I traveled to Austin to meet up with my business partner John Sonmez and 250 other entrepreneurs for the first-ever “SumoCon.” The conference was hosted by the team from AppSumo, and I have to say I was impressed by the caliber of the people I met. (The annual revenue of the businesses at […]
Continue readingOne of the biggest challenges of my work with Simple Programmer is this: My business partner John can crank out products like crazy. This is the guy who created 55 multi-hour video courses on technical programming topics—in less than two years. He is a content production “Terminator.” You can’t stop him, no matter what you […]
Continue readingThis week a programmer named Eddy hit me up about testing out a piece of software he’s prototyping. I won’t go into too much detail in case he moves forward with it, but basically it’s a tool for “scraping” email addresses to put together lists of potential prospects that you can reach out to. We […]
Continue readingEver notice that sometimes knowing MORE about a topic (like copywriting), makes it HARDER to take action? Subscriber David, who runs a blog about website optimization, has himself all wrapped around the axel over a landing page: Before I go right down the whole build a course thing, I’m going to cheat a bit. I […]
Continue readingHere’s a dilemma that comes up a LOT: Pete runs a business creating church management software. His software automates and streamlines dozens of administrative processes—from keeping track of members’ tithes and offerings to keeping tabs on the kiddos during summer day camp. And precisely because this software is so powerful, it’s a struggle to focus […]
Continue readingI feel a rant coming on here. First some quick background. One of my goals for this year is to finally get myself into a fitness routine that I enjoy and can stick with long term. The approach that I’m trying out right now is called “gymnastics strength training.” I’m basically following a (modified) version […]
Continue readingThis always makes me smile: Every so often I’ll check my page views in Google Analytics and see that dozens of older blog posts have each gotten a single page view. Usually that means that someone stumbled across my site and is digging back through the archives to read everything they can find. (Hint: 0.5% […]
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 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 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 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 […]
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