Yet another reason to ignore copywriting gurus on Facebook

Many suns ago, one of my “Email Players” subscribers showed me something a well-known copywriting guru from the late 90’s/early 2000’s taught in a Flakebook group. Here’s what happened: A guy asked the group about where they can learn about writing fun, polarizing, and “edutainment” emails from other than Yours Crotchety. To which said guru said he doesn’t get off on those types of emails, and feels prospects don’t want a doctor joking around, etc. All of which I found rather amusing. Why? Because I’ve always taught to modulate everything to your market first. i.e., market first, tactics second. Or, as I like to put it: Market first vs Marketing first. Big difference between the approaches. For example: We didn’t convert almost 50% of our list in the female weight loss market by joking around about the problem, or going all “Ben Settle” on them. There’s nothing funny about being fat to the woman who we sold to, being made fun of behind your back, not seeing the scale go down no matter how hard you workout and diet, with people trying to keep you down by tagging your heavy Facebook pics on purpose, or thinking of you (and treating you) like the “fat friend” when going out, asking when the baby is due, etc. Not to mention the abuse many suffered at some point. And the overall tinge of sadness many live with day in, and day out in that market. So I adapted all the copy to the market. There was certainly entertainment value in a lot of my marketing. But I didn’t come at them with jokes & puns or light hearted fun. It was always all about them, their problems, their preferences, not mine. Anyway, it’s a timeless lesson. And it’s especially timely, too, because my popular Copy Slacker book (which is on sale at a fat discount until Sunday 5/19 at midnight EDT) spends a lot of time on how to research and approach your copy from a “market first” position. In fact, it even includes several sales letter analyses in one of the appendices — where you can see how I approached different markets with more serious tones (like weight loss, parents looking for college funding for their kids, etc) as far as tone and style. All modulated to the people in it. The point? If you want to learn how I do it, ignore these ill-informed gurus who can’t even be bothered to get all the facts first before nattering on about what I do, and learn from the source get Copy Slacker book at this weekend’s fat discount off the listed price. Use the link and coupon code below. And if you want it at the sales price, high tail it over to: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/slacker]( And use code: ROPER at the checkout. Make sure you see the price change before entering your info. Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA