An open rebuke to LARPing marketers who hate seeing advertising embedded in paid content

Behold an “anti-testimonial.” i.e., someone quite unhappy with my Email Players newsletter. Here it is: (re: this most recent December issue) “The latest newsletter did not provide any useful information for me and was just a big pitch for your new product. The payment going out today was a very nasty surprise and I can no longer travel home as the money I needed for fuel has suddenly disappeared. Please cancel the transaction.” Can’t find anything useful in the ready-to-go business plan handed to him. Yet is so broke he can’t even afford gas. I wonder what his bottleneck is, I mean, what could it possibly be... As far as it being a big pitch for my new book maybe he has a point? It's possible maybe I did go overboard on that. So let's do the math and see: 1. The December issue had a total of 9,642 words — that’s the 20-page main issue including the included 8-page insert. And 7 of those 8 pages was word-for-word content copied & pasted right out of my new Markauteur book (i.e., those 7 pages were pure content). 2. Out of those 9,642 words a mere 372 words were “sales pitch.” 3. That means less than 4% of the December issue was advertising. I bring this up for two reasons: One, for context. i.e., If you are in the business of marketing in any way, shape, or form and get heartburn over seeing — oh noes! — marketing that comes with paid content, especially if it comes out to less than 4% of the package, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe this marketing thing just ain’t your bag, Spanky. I’ll say this too: People who complain about this sort of thing are almost certainly bombarded with far more advertising embedded in nearly everything else they buy — from paid TV (cable or satellite) commercials, to commercial push notifications on their phones, to even movie tickets. (The average time of movie previews is between 15-25 minutes — assuming a two hour movie, that’s around 15% ads, and it’s a lot easier to simply not read ads in a newsletter than having to time going to a theater to miss trailers and still get a good seat, etc.) And two, I bring this up as a warning. The January issue will also have advertising. I am not going to say what the offer is simply because I don’t want a bunch of non-qualified muppets who have no business buying anything from me subscribing just to take advantage of it, which I know for a fact will happen if I said what it is, especially going by what I’ve seen whenever I’ve sold this particular offer inside Email Players. But here’s the good news for the LARPing marketers who're allergic to marketing: * The January issue total word count (issue plus one page insert) is 9,634 words. * The one page insert (pure advertising) is merely 150 words promoting the above offer. * There are also 39 more words devoted to the same offer in the main issue. * So a total of 189 words of “advertising” out of 9,634 words total. Unless my math is off (and maybe it is, you can easily calculate it yourself) that means less than 2% of the content between the main issue and the ride-along offer is advertising. And, in fact, the 150-word offer fits on one side of a sheet of paper that I am including in this King-Sized 28-page issue. That’s probably less than the ads you see on that coveted Netflix or Amazon Prime subscription. Full disclosure, though, for the especially anal retentive boys & ghouls: Three of those pages are comicbook-style advertising. So technically it’s 25-pages of content vs the usual 17-pages of content for a typical issue. Okay, my conscience is now clear. Hopefully my math is accurate as well. But you never know. I could be off by a word or two.. All right, enough muppet mocking. If you still want to subscribe, the deadline to get the January issue is today. Once I send the printer that’s it, the game is over. If you want in, here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2022 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