A martini-sized glass of advice for digital agency owners

Came a question: “Ben, I hope you are doing well. Is copywriting agency something you would make if you are beginner?” My answer: A couple years ago I was interviewed by a digital agency owner talking about email and using it with agencies, and how agency owners can use email, benefit from email, profit from email, get clients from email, and all that jazz. And during the call I kept hearing a lot of ignorance. By that I mean not in skill or marketing, but ignorance of their own industry (agencies). And eventually I asked: “Haven’t you guys studied Ogilvy, Burnett, Foote/Cone/Belding, Thompson, Norman, Barton, or any of the old school agency guys who literally build the modern marketing world as we know it?" “…” Yeesh. If anything qualifies as what Email Players subscriber and the man universally known as the World’s Greatest Living Copywriter Gary Bencivenga describes as “Marketing Malpractice” that does. It reminds me of this professor I had in college. 401-level class in radio/tv major. Last day of the semester, and all of us graduating, and someone asked what the difference between AM and FM was! The professor — who was no mere professor, he owned several radio and TV stations, I always respected him — asked: “How can you people accept a diploma from this university and not know the difference between am and fm?” A good question. And I would ask today’s digital agency guys the same thing: How do they expect to make any real money, grow any kind of immortal brand, make any kind of real impact in their industry without studying the old school ad men (and Mad Men) whose names are STILL on the buildings of the companies they founded nearly 100 years ago? It’s all rather amazing to me. But, lucky for them, I have a gift to straighten ‘em out. That is, for those who are Email Players subscribers. Because one thing I am including with the triple+ sized milestone 150th Email Players issue next month is: “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. So my advice to agency guys: Study your superiors who paved the way (literally nothing is different “online” — medias have always come and gone, what worked then still works now). And if you want the above Email Players Annual #2 which is all about how some of the best ones worked, thought, and made money then make sure you are subscribed to Email Players in time for the January issue. After that? It’s out of my hands… To subscribe in time go here: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle P.S. Nobody on the planet yet (except for the cover designer Email Players subscriber Kia Arian) has read this Email Players Annual #2 I am sending along with the January issue. But, if you want an idea of how it might take up space in your life, here’s what Email Players subscriber Sean Corbett said about the FIRST annual I gifted to Email Players subscribers a couple years ago and that now is an upsell for some of my offers. Hit it, Sean: == This massive coffee table mega-mag-booklet-thingy is so important I needed to buy an actual coffee table so I had someplace to throw it where it would always sit in my view. Actually that's a bit of an exaggeration -- my girl had already been looking for a table and recently thrifted one as a surprise, but hey now the Annual has a proper home. Non Email Players have no idea what they are missing. Thanks again, brother. === And on that note, here is the link one more time: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( 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