A daily dose of emotional copywriting tips, marketing strategy, insights into human psychology, selling online and other marketing insanity.

Reader beware.

There’s an unlimited amount of marketing knowledge available to you online. The problem is, especially for those who aren’t experienced enough to see it for themselves, a lot of it is awful.

And when you hear bad advice, and apply bad advice, you get terrible results.

Here’s a few nuggets from the poor house I’ve came across lately.

“You shouldn’t email your list more than twice a week at most, or else you’ll scare your subscribers away…”

Sweeping generalized statements like this are always dangerous. This is true if you’re just blatantly pitching products.

But it depends on your marketing plan. And if your plan involves building a relationship (it should), you probably want to email a little more frequently (with solid content).

“Newbies should stick to article marketing and SEO. Wait until you have more experience before using paid traffic like Facebook or Adwords”.

The first thing I ever did to make money online was set up an Adwords campaign. I was profitable (although lucky) from day 1 and earned money while I learned.

If you’re broke, stay away from paid traffic. But if you can afford to spend some money learning and testing, there’s no better time to jump in and start seeing what works than right now. And if you do get it right the first time, you’ll be in the black and ready to scale up much quicker than if you’re shooting for organic traffic alone.

“You can find writers on elance who will create your emails for $1-$5 each”.

Yeah. You can also get a sales letter for $20 and someone to manage your PPC campaigns for $10 a month.

You show me a writer who can create an email series that gets opened, read and actually converts people into buyers for $5 an email, and I’ll keep him busy full time.

Don’t get me wrong. I consume as much information as anyone. I LOVE to learn.

But I’m skeptical of everything I read until I see it works for myself.

And you should be too.

Everything I talk about in my emails are based on MY experiences. It’s what’s worked for ME. And while I encourage you to test and model based on what you learn, ultimately you’re going to have to figure out what works for YOU.

And chances are slim to none that some stranger in a forum is going to be able to tell you what’s going to work for your business.

Read and learn. Get advice. But be skeptical, and never take anything (even if it’s from your favorite “guru”) as the gospel until you’ve tested it yourself.

Take care,

-Scott Murdaugh

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Two big words…

Similar meanings, but shockingly different when you really look closely.

So what’s the difference?

Here’s my take on it…

Persuasion is trying to get someone to see eye-to-eye with you when you both stand to benefit. Like a wife trying to persuade a stubborn husband to go see the doctor because he hasn’t been feeling well and it could be something serious.

Manipulation is persuasion with total disregard for the other party. Like a used car salesman selling a lemon for a ridiculously high price to a young driver because he sees her as an easy mark.

In the marketing world, we see a lot of both.

Unfortunately manipulation seems to be more prevalent.

You probably see it every day too…

“Not Rich? This Is Your Ticket…”

“Copy And Paste My $100k Per Month Clickbank Account…”

“Get Google Ads FREE…” (An oldie but a good example).

In all fairness, it’s a tough line to walk.

Every time I write an ad, even for a spectacular product, I know going in that most people who buy won’t benefit…

The world’s greatest diet pills won’t help someone who sits around and eats potato chips all day.

The world’s greatest marketing plan won’t help someone who would rather watch 8 hours of TV a day than take action.

So am I just manipulating all of those people who buy but don’t benefit?

Nah.

As long as the product can deliver on the promises, in my mind, it’s perfectly ethical.

It’d be like selling a house that the new owner never stays in and then feeling guilty about it.

When you influence through persuasion you gain trust and customers for life.

When you manipulate you take advantage of people, you lose respect, and you’re just another scumbag marketer…

Two very different outcomes…

And the subtle difference between the two is keeping the needs of your prospects in mind and never making promises you or your product can’t keep.

Take care,

- Scott Murdaugh

P.S. Speaking of promises, I said I’d mention my new product today. I ran into a little slow down with the technical side of stuff, so it’ll be another day or two. More details soon.

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The customer is always right…

Except for when they’re not.

There are people in this world you flat out shouldn’t do business with.

As a copywriter, I choose the people I work with very carefully.

I’ve ran into guys who I just couldn’t see eye-to-eye with.

I’ve had people tell me “the check is in the mail” only to never see it happen.

I’ve had people want me to write the copy without seeing the product first because they’re afraid of me stealing their ideas…

I’ve had clients asking if I can “match the quote” from a writer on e-lance.

These are all huge red flags. Luckily it’s rare that I run into situations like this, but when I do I don’t think twice about it, I find other people to work with.

The same can hold true in any kind of sales though…

I know the owner of a construction company who a lady hired just so she could have her lawyer draw up a contract with fine print and then sue him when the job was done. Not even joking… Luckily he caught the fine print.

If you sell digital products, there are people who buy just to upload your stuff to torrent sites, share it with thousands of people and then turn around and ask for a refund…

There are customers who will email you 30 times over a $27 product…

And if you don’t stop them, there are customers who will do this to you over and over again.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t listen to your customers, you should.

Or that you shouldn’t offer stellar customer service, that’s critical too.

Customers are always right…

Until they become more of a time and energy leech then they’re worth.

There are people out there who will hurt your business more than they’ll help it if you end up selling to them.

And no amount of money is worth that headache.

-Scott Murdaugh

P.S. I’ve been working on some new projects of my own over the last couple of weeks and I’ll tell you about the first one tomorrow.  It’s a very cool (and outside of the box) way to drive traffic.

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There’s one thing that drives me CRAZY…

And if you can avoid doing this, it automatically puts you in the top 10% of what you do, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling.

What is it?

It’s doing what you say you’re going to do.

This may sound like common sense, but it’s become a rarity these days. So much so that just doing what you say you’re going to do can make you a hero in your customers eyes…

A couple of examples…

I’ve worked with a lot of designers. Almost every company I’ve worked with misses the deadlines. Sometimes they don’t answer emails for a few days. Sometimes the work looks nothing like we talked about.

The first exception that comes to mind is MiniSiteFrog.com. They’ve always been on time for my clients. They always turn in awesome work. And as a result, when a client needs graphics, they’re the first company I recommend, and I get no kickbacks for the referrals.

Another example, I keep an eye on new products that come out online in all kinds of niches.

If you sell a product that promises to teach people how to make $10,000 a month, and none of your customers end up making $10,000 a month, how many more products do you think they’re going to buy from you?

Unless you’re selling to idiots, none.

And a big one for me…

It’s rare, but I’ve had a few occasions where potential clients were pumped up and ready to move forward on a project. And say something along the lines of “I’ll send you the money in a couple of days”…

When a couple of days go by suddenly things get “pushed back” a couple of weeks. I don’t have time to move my schedule around to accommodate last minute changes…

If every client I have did that I’d never be able to plan or schedule anything and my biz wouldn’t survive.

So I have to drop them as clients.

It goes both ways.

The point being…

Doing what you say you’re going to do is rare these days.

Promising a little and doing a lot is even less common.

Do those things, because they are rare, and when you do them you build relationships and customers for life.

Peace,

-Scott Murdaugh

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Here’s a tip…

And if you can get everything else in place, from being a trusted adviser vs. a salesman to grabbing attention, it can generate some amazing numbers…

How amazing?

A client of mine recently shot up to double digit conversion rates on cold traffic selling a $77 digital product when we implemented this.

This is nothing new, and it’s been around as long as modern marketing has been around.

What it does is makes it as easy as possible for your prospects to say “maybe”…

The trick is to take the selling resistance down to zero.

First, we offered a 21-day $1 trial, with a single $77 rebill ONLY if they wanted to stay on board.

On top of that we had a 60-day no questions asked guarantee that begins after the initial rebill.

Again, this is nothing new. It’s famously called the “puppy dog close”, referring to pet store owners saying “keep him for a week, and only if you decide you want to keep him, come back and pay next week”…

Who’s going to return a puppy, right?

You MUST have an awesome product to pull this off, or else cancellations and refunds will be through the roof.

You also need an irresistible offer just like you were selling it for $77 without the trial. It requires just as much persuasion.

It’s probably not the best way to go in a lot of niches…

But it’s a great way to get people checking out your continuity programs.

As a rule of thumb, the more risk you take on yourself and the less you leave to your prospects, it’s going to have a dramatic impact on conversions. It’s a great way to get people to check out what you’re offering.

Again, it’s not always the best way to go.

But, it can do some incredible things if you pull it off right – I’m talking dramatic increases in response.

Definitely something worth testing.

Something new tomorrow!

Take care,

-Scott Murdaugh

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