12:29pm
East of the Missippi
Saturday night, Uber sent a notification to my phone:
“Courier makes Black Friday returns easy.”
LMAO they’re capitalizing on people’s bad impulse control.
Oh, me?
You’re asking about my BFCM spending after I swore I wasn’t going to buy anything?
(more…)1:53pm
East of the Mississippi
Today I got a money-making idea for you.
Last night I braved the Minnesota winter, drove west for 30 minutes, and attended a networking event for corporate marketing executives.
Which, as you may know, I am not.
But it was open to the public (with the right sign-ups) and it never hurts to meet new people and perhaps find new opportunities.
Two people I chatted with were sharing ideas from Traction, a book about growing a startup without imploding.
“It’s hard for these companies,” Karen said while mercifully clarifying the corporate acronyms she and Chris were throwing around, “because they’re used to doing everything their own way.
“And as they grow, there’s a whole new set of expectations on their business.”
I took note of the book title––useful for consulting purposes––and the conversation wandered a bit.
But then she dropped this bomb:
(more…)2:32pm
Saint Paul
“Speaking of watered-down advertising, which is one of my phobias, I am reminded of the words of a wise old Scott: ‘If it were the proper thing to water whiskey, they’d have done it that way at the distillery.’”
——Communications of an Advertising Man, by Leo Burnett
Ads that don’t stand out don’t get attention.
And an ad that doesn’t get attention doesn’t sell.
And an ad that doesn’t sell?
What’s the point?
We’re surrounded by noise. The world gets noisier by the minute. Which means your ads have to stand out if you want them to be effective.
Yesterday I ran two ads that went to a partner’s landing page.
One was a typical ad. It has human faces (always a draw) and a bright orangish color. And it pulled roughly 0.23%.
The second?
(more…)2:13pm
Saint Paul
Hot deal alert!
…Once from the stage, I asked an audience of marketers who knew Dan Kennedy’s name.
Not a single hand went up.
Fact is, almost every marketer around today has been influenced by Kennedy’s work –– and many don’t even know it.
It’s hard to get more “upstream” than Dan Kennedy, with the breadth and depth of knowledge he offers.
I signed up for Kennedy’s No B.S. Newsletter a few years ago, which is marketing gold for $97 per month.
And it came with a huge box of bonus material –– too much to reasonably go through.
(If you’re on Dan Kennedy’s email list, you’ll see the same thing:
So many bonuses that it’s almost a turn-off from making a purchase. Because if you need all that to implement… who has time?)
Luckily, Dan’s printed newsletter stands on its own.
So do his books, which I highly recommend. (Find my summary of The Ultimate Sales Letter here.)
And his recorded seminars, like Personality in Copy that I recently discussed with Lawrence Bernstein, are also worth listening to multiple times. That one ran something like a grand to get a hold of… on sale.
Which makes this Big Deal of the Day a really BIG deal indeed:
(more…)9:06am
Saint Paul
Not gonna lie:
The fear of judgement holds me back.
Your judgement. People on social I’ve never met. My wife and kids. Friends, bosses, coworkers, whatever.
Not always, of course.
But it’s that stupid feeling that asks “who are you?”
Who are you to share those thoughts?
Who are you to try something new?
Who are you to make mistakes?
Imposter!
Years ago, some friends found this website. They didn’t like what I was writing about persuasion and how humans make decisions and how we can influence that decision-making process.
(more…)10:18am
Boston Seaport
A few years ago, for the Persuasion Play Podcast, I interviewed magician Paul Gertner. Paul lives here in Boston, where I am today for the world’s best B2B marketing conference (B2B Forum ftw!)
Magic, it seems, is a common interest among direct response copywriters, myself included.
Why? What is it about copywriting that draws more wanna-be magicians than, to put it in Justin Willman’s terms, the “plus-ones” that don’t care about magic?
(more…)9:05am
Saint Paul
I saw a video on LinkedIn just now where a woman walks through ehr video production using AI.
And one of the first things she mentions is how the AI tool can remove filler words.
The umms… The ahhs… and whatnot.
I used to do this for my Persuasion Play Podcast episodes.
Remove filler words. Shorten silences.
It added hours to my work. Like, 3x the length of the recording. So a 1 hour interview took an additional 3 hours or so. Before adding slides, splicing in the introduction and theme song, and writing show notes.
And today, AI can do it all for me?
Great, I’ll pass. Here’s why.
(more…)