The mystery behind one of the most successful self defense ads ever written

Let me tell you a story about how I swiped my way into writing one of the single most successful ads ever written in the self defense niche. Here is what happened: At the time (2008) everyone in the self defense niche was in love with and obsessed over the ads — many truly great, some of the best ever written — inside Blackbelt Magazine. Reading that publication was practically a requirement to sell in that niche at at all. And chances are, if you wrote for that niche, you were told to read everything in Black Belt because that’s where lots of great copywriting was found. That’s where you’d see all the great John Carlton ads, for example. Not to mention other really, really high level copywriting. I have many saved in my own swipe file to this day. And some are like masterpieces of copy. It was the playground where many copywriters loved playing. And so in my first dip into that market (writing ads for one of my former sifus in Jeet Kune Do way back in 2005), that was what I was studying and was influenced by, too. And those ads I wrote from studying “what’s working now” in Black Belt did okay. They certainly weren’t business changing. Nor were they especially outstanding. But they got the job done, and those samples helped nab me many more copywriting gigs later on. But then fast forward a few years to 2008: I got a call out of the blue from Captain Chris Pizzo. At that time he was, far as I know, hands down the biggest publisher in that niche. I don’t know what the exact numbers were. But it dwarfed most or all of the other self-defense info publishers from what he told me at the time. And you know what? This time I ignored all the Black Belt ads written by much better writers than myself. And instead, I did the exact opposite. Including the opposite of the ones that were killing it in sales in Black Belt. The reason? A lot of the people who read Black Belt Magazine are hardcore into martial arts, and even in to specific styles of martial arts. Many were probably already married to a specific kind of style or fighting system or whatever. Many were also likely going to be a martial arts purist. When I train in Wing Chun Kung Fu, I can tell you I’m a purist in that sense, too. I’m in it for the art as well as the self-defense. And that is perfectly okay. You can make a lot of sales selling to purists when the market’s big enough. But Captain Chris figured out a secret about that market: Being not just a great copywriter but also a great marketer… he was wise enough to have 10,000 of his best customers (not leads — paying customers) analyzed by the Nielsen company. If you don’t know what that is, they do the TV ratings. They are the ones that figure out what TV shows are pulling the most viewers, and then publish that, and advertisers and TV stations base their ad rates on that data. They’re very, very good at crunching numbers and data for marketers. And they created this thing for Captain Chris called a Claritas Report. I don’t know how much money he ponied up to run 10,000 of his best clients through this thing. But I do know he got this thick document — like a book — back with everything he would ever want to know about his paying customers. And Captain Chris got on the phone with me and we went through it page-by-page, and point-by-point. And you know what he discovered? Caring about “what’s working now” was getting him killed in lost sales. For example: He found out his 10,000 best customers were NOT reading Black Belt Magazine at all. They were not “in” to martial arts. And outside of watching a Bruce Lee movie or something on “Samurai Sunday” programs when they were teenagers… they wouldn’t have known the difference between kung fu and kung pao chicken. They didn’t know anything about anything when it came to martial arts outside of watching The Karate Kid or Ultimate Fighting. It simply wasn’t their world. These guys are high level, six figure and above earning weekend warrior types. Like doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and executives. Guys (almost all guys) over 35, many in their 50’s or 60’s, who make a lot of money, value their time, and have no desire to go to a storefront martial arts school and bow and follow tradition and wear a Karate Gi, or buy — much less use — a practice dummy. They sure as hell ain’t going to roll around on a mat with other guys in their 20’s with something to prove. In fact, if they ever did set foot in a class at some point, it very likely bored them to tears and they found all the stretching pointless and tedious (and probably very painful…), wanting to just be able to kick some ass. Their whole existence is totally different than someone who is hardcore into martial arts. They are also very politically right-wing. Loved to listen to right-wing talk radio. And were your typical weekend warrior — maybe playing basketball or golf with their buddies on the weekends, but not especially athletic or into anything extreme (unless watching it on TV). In fact, I was working on a bunch of ads in the golf market simultaneously, and they’re very similar and often probably the exact same customers: Lots of overlap. Same age range, demographics, etc. And so, what these guys really were driven by was just wanting to be bad asses. They wanted to be able to beat the hell out of someone but not endure the years of hard work. In a lot of cases they simply had what some called “military penis envy” and they looked at this offer as a way to be more than they could be, so to speak. In a lot of instances, they were more interested in looking like a bad ass walking past their secretaries than learning how to kill a man with his own pinkie finger. Anyway, here is the point: The ad I wrote beat all of Captain Chris’s other already-mega successful ads. It was not even close, from what I remember. And I believe he tested me against 3 of them. But, I ask you: Do you think the above research changed my approach to the market? To which kinds of ads I studied? And any approach to “swiping” or adapting/modeling? Of course it did. And there is a lot more to this story as far as that goes, for how I went about writing one of the most profitable ads probably ever run in that niche going by what I know of his tests at the time. No AI could have prompted that sales letter or the other ads I wrote after that. No swipe file I assembled would have done much good — and in fact, probably would have been a net negative on sales and response. And I go deep into this and how I did it inside my offer: “Swipeocalypse” The deadline to get it is tonight. And this giant-sized Email Players issue (in both page count and literal size) exists outside the normal continuity of the newsletter. Usually, it is only for sale as a 1-click upsell for some of my pricier offers. But this weekend I am selling it directly to the public as a one-off purchase for those who buy it by tonight, Sunday 11/10 at midnight EST. Get it by that deadline and you will also get: “The Email Players Swipe File: Volume 1” This is an 88-page swipe file of sales letters and ad inserts that were included in Email Players over its first 100+ issues. These are mostly short, “impulse” ads selling high-priced offers that have collectively helped pull quite a bit of dough, and that can be used as frameworks (not copy & paste) for your own emails, sales letters, and offers. Swipeocalypse is physically shipped to you. But this bonus is sent via email immediately upon buying. (Check your spam/junk folder if you don’t see it within an hour of buying) A lil’ something to “tide” over while waiting for Swipeocalypse. Time grows short though to buy it in time. Here’s the link for more information: [( 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