With diversity like that you KNOW they mean bid’niz!

An Email Players subscriber (who wishes to remain anonymous) reports: === A new account manager just took over my client’s Klaviyo account and asked me to hop on a call to talk about our “email activity”. Straight away, I knew that I was about to be grilled for our email frequency and terrible ‘email metrics’. On the call, the woman looked at my client’s metrics compared to other companies using Klaviyo. She said our ‘click rates’ were poor and told me that it would kill our deliverability. But after looking at our deliverability, she noticed that we are actually marked as ‘excellent’ for all of their deliverability metrics. She was baffled. On top of that, my client’s email revenue is FIVE times higher than everyone else using Klaviyo in our industry. The new account manager said: “I know your revenue and deliverability are excellent, but we need to get your click rate up.” I almost laughed but had to hold it in. I had to educate her about us focusing on the relationship and not metrics - as you teach so finely - but she wasn’t buying it. She told me to study Klaviyo’s Academy to better understand all of their features. When I think about it, it’s probably a good thing that most of our competitors are listening to Klaviyo - sending very few emails and trying to game the system. Email Players all the way! === I will say this for Klaviyo: If you go to their site and look up their “DEI” page (about their commitment diversity, equity and inclusiveness), you will see that nobody, but nobody, not even George Soros himself... has the minority’s back like that company does. The picture of the crowd of all white people standing around a couple of minority’s sitting at a table proves it. With all those smiling white faces you know they mean bid’niz… Fun aside: I don’t know anything about that company. For all I know they have a great platform and do great work. But, I will say this: The advice their support gave is the exact opposite of what I teach. Forget the nonsensical nature of it that makes zero sense to any direct marketer. It is obviously not given by people who actually use commercial email to mail their own offers, have not built their own lists, and do not pay the rent and buy their daily bread off the results of that email. What’s more important is this: The lack of understanding how to build a relationship with a list. Relationships are not built on clicks. And they’re sure as hades not built on “opens.” They are built upon engagement. And people not only reading and engaging, but buying from you. I go on a whole bit about this inside the January Email Players issue. Since it is the 150th milestone issue, I not only made it triple+ sized (64 pages) to fit everything in I wanted to teach, but I talk at great length about relationships, and how I approach doing it to have grown what is arguably one of the most responsive lists in my niche. It did not happen overnight. But I have many, many testimonials backing me up on this. Specifically from A-players I’ve done JVs with. Like, for example, the great Brian Kurtz who told me: “…calling Ben’s list simply a ‘list’ does it a disservice. Ben promoted my ‘Titans of Direct Response’ package…and outsold every other affiliate I used for this program, almost all of which had larger lists than his…but clearly not as responsive. He even outsold others with lists 10 times the size of his.” And A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos who told me: (this was mailing for a fundraiser, I think just one email) “…thanks again for mailing for me. We’ve got like 67 donations from your peeps already. Getting close to our target goal and I haven’t even officially launched the sucker yet. I don’t know how big your list is, but I’m guessing you have a ridiculously high open rate and click-through.” And A-list copywriter Kim Krause Schwalm who said: “Ben is more successful at selling high-dollar products than anyone I know of. Ben has cultivated a list that is amazingly responsive and loyal to his leadership and recommendations!” And the Cold email king Jon Buchan who said: “The JV that Charm Offensive did with with Ben Settle was our biggest by many orders of magnitude – and we’ve pitched our stuff to some sizable audiences…we’ve never seen a response like the one from Ben’s list. He has built something remarkable and impressive.” And Michael Senoff (old school online marketer if ever there was one) who said: Partnering with Ben Settle over the last 17 years has been both a privilege and goldmine for my business. The buyer response from his subscriber list is unbelievable. And, each year we partner, the sales from his subscribers go higher and higher.” And the list goes on. I remember Ryan Levesque being blown away the first time I mailed for one of his offers some 10 years ago, as if he wasn’t used to seeing such a response, beating out marketers with much bigger names & lists than my own. Danny Iny has told me the response from my list is super high for his offer as well. And so on, and so forth. You can ask these guys yourself if you don’t believe me. Point is this: It’s not my “writing” that does this, it’s the relationship. And that is why I wanted to spend a lot of time inside the January issue to talk about this, especially in contrast to the lack of relationship those relying on things like AI have or will have when it ever becomes worth using (I hear a lot of talk, but see very little actual AI being used to do anything noteworthy — all I see is ratchet jaw, ratchet jaw about it…) Something else: I also am sending with the January issue a free copy of my newest creation: “Email Players Annual #2: Mad Men Copywriting Secrets” This oversized (literally — in both size and page count) Annual issue I am including with January’s issue exists outside the normal continuity of the newsletter. And I wrote it to both commemorate the newsletter’s 150th issue, and also to teach some cool stuff I’ve learned studying the old masters that have practically be all but forgotten about today. (NOTE: it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the TV show “Mad Men”, which I found extremely boring and overrated — it’s about advertising methods used by the actual Mad Men of the 60’s.) Some of the secrets found inside include: * The sneaky headline trick old school copywriters used to pre-test ads without spending a single dime. * Cunning advice (straight from a private, internal memo at the Leo Burnett agency back in the day) about how to trick egotistical clients (for their own good, of course) into running your sales copy “as-is.” (Old school screenwriters basically did the same thing to get scripts approved, today it’s practically a forgotten trick of the writing trade.) * A powerful Mad Men secret to making your business mysteriously attractive that can be like “catnip” to high-paying clients and others you wish to sell to or influence. * The World-Building technique all the Mad Men agency owners (the ones whose names are still on their companies today long after their deaths) used to position themselves as “the” agency to hire — with certain clients practically magnetically attracted to them, and probably even only them, and likely wanting nothing to do with anyone else. * How to exploit a dangling piece of psychological “wiring” in every human being’s brain to help make your emails and other marketing extremely hard to ignore and a whole lot more engaging. * A sneaky way to adapt Ogilvy’s enormously successful “Man In The Hathaway Shirt” ad from the 1950s into a high converting opt-in pages for your business today. * How the late Mad Man Leo Burnett would address a room of stuck up and snobby vice presidents of giant corporations to keep their egos in check and “prep” them for what he expected of them as clients. * How an old school phone salesman and high school dropout was able to ethically & legally out-negotiate & out-maneuver a room full of high-falutin’, and super educated and wealthy lawyers hired by a bank to get what he wanted. (Nothing directly to do with Mad Men — but what this phone salesman did is something that was quite common for people in the know to do back in the day to get what they wanted in contracts and deals.) * A clever way that certain bashful Mad Men copywriters used their shyness to help create far more powerful advertising. * A (admittedly bizarre sounding to most marketers today) advertising sales trick that David Ogilvy learned from a furniture salesman for turning a product’s flaws into reasons to buy. (Including tips for exactly how to turn high fees, bad reviews, and even slow service into reasons to buy.) * How David Ogilvy used good, old fashioned trolling (he was a world-class troll) to help get compliance and engagement from everyone from heads of corporations during high-pressure negotiations to his own wife in the kitchen. * A ridiculously effective door-to-door salesman technique (that, believe it or not, works even better on Facebook today, I have found) that can help you create headlines, offers, emails, and other marketing that can just seep right into the psychology and souls of your leads and customers, giving them almost no choice but to want to buy what you’re selling! (Does that sound almost like hype? Maybe so. But realize this: it was not uncommon for this technique to works so well it’d sometimes set record for product recalls for weak products.) * Just how brutal and soul-crushing old school Man Men were in their advertising campaign critiques. (One of the most respected copywriters of the day and creator of the famous Pillsbury Doughboy — Rudy Perz — said they’d make him feel like a “martyr”, and the creative director and original Marlboro Man model — Andy Armstrong — once literally suffered a nervous breakdown over one of these brutal critiques, if that tells you something.) * The little-known way the Leo Burnett Agency created such memorable and influential cartoon characters that helped sell truckloads of the products they promoted * The 7-word advertising principle that helped build one of the biggest and most respected ad agencies in human history. (And that is still around today almost 100 years later, while most have long-since floundered.) * Why fire-breathing atheist David Ogilvy was such a big fan of the Catholic Church. (Nothing really to do with copywriting or marketing, but his reasoning could be useful to anyone who runs teams or has lots of employees.) * The Mad Men attitude (almost non-existent today) that can help freelancers, coaches, consultants, and other businesses go from begging to business to having so many new leads practically begging to hire you you might even need a waiting list. (Best part: you don’t even have to be that great at what you do or, for that matter, “do” anything different — this is just a make a simple mindset shift in the way you approach your business.) * David Ogilvy’s bizarre email list-building secret (created back in the 1950’s — long before the invention of commercial email) that can also make your business stand out in an overcrowded marketplace and increase your sales. * A shrewd insurance selling method (that smart radio and magazine advertisers forced their customers to do since it worked so well) that can help drive your email response through the roof. * How an “honorary” Mad Man copywriter (who was a NYC public employee and not an ad man at all) used ANTI-direct response slogans to help create some of the most profitable and memorable advertising every penned by the hand of mortal man. (And yes, what he did can be used to write all kinds of profitable headlines, subject lines, bullets, and any other kind of direct response sales copy.) * A one-on-one interview with a “for real” Mad Man! In fact, the TV show producers even consulted this guy due to him being in the thick of the agency business back then, and who was involved with campaigns like The Marlboro Man, Fly the Friendly Skies, & industry-famous campaigns for Gallo Winery, Proctor & Gamble, Colgate, Vicks, Chanel, Max Factor, Philip Morris, and the list goes on. This interview is a rare look into the psychology behind how these guys worked. How they thought. And, yes, how they made lots of money for their clients and themselves. Yes, I know, I’m not gonna make it because I don’t use fapGPT. But while I am still here and in business, and still plugging away… you can get your hands on all the above by subscribing before the deadline while you still can. Simply use this link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 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