AnswersWanted Inc

Ponderings About The Creative Industry

Daniel Deyette — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:37:48 +0000

Does Anyone Need Writers Anymore?

If your hiring or looking to hire a creative writer, email strategist, article writer or videographer these days, you’re likely asking yourself the same questions that plague today’s creative world. Things like “are they just going to use AI for a large part of the work?” or… “If they don’t use AI enough, are they old fashioned or inefficient?”.

Some people are now even asking themselves whether they need to hire anyone at all.

Can’t these tools do all the work, like experts claim they can?

First, to put this in the proper context, we must acknowledge that most artificial intelligence tools today are built from scraped data. They openly admit that some of their sources were paid for their works, while others were used for training under the loose concept of ‘free use’. There’s a genuine ethics debate worth having around HOW a person uses the tools, like having a company policy of NOT asking the tool “write this in the style of *celebrity name* but with my topic”.

As a creative director, I have an ethical obligation to ensure I don’t hand off someone else’s works as my own. That means that relying on a tool that is basically just a more complex version of auto-correct, predicting what words it thinks might come next based on a prompt, can lead to unintentional idea theft. The tools can be helpful for proof reading, idea generation and a whole host of other purposes, but using tools exclusively for writing isn’t wise.

Hire A Writer, or Just Use AI?

We human beings are pretty good at detecting fluff.

Funny enough, fluff is useful when it comes to a generic email reply, or when you don’t need something hard hitting or earth shattering. However, it doesn’t really connect or inspire. There’s no consistent personality behind the voice. Even simulated feelings aren’t able to understand industry context, how something might sound to another person, or why you might not want to use words that might trigger people (especially those that wouldn’t have triggered someone in 2018).

The short answer is – human writers are still valuable.

These tools all rely on pattern recognition. Disruptive content that gets eyeballs MUST do exactly the opposite! We have to break the mould and stand out. You’re trying to establish new patterns and create genuinely NEW works. Unleash new ideas into the world. It’s hard to do that with an echo chamber that’s basically learned all it knows off of older content (even yesterday’s content is old in the world of journalism).

Most creatives today are expected to use AI tools.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s great to have them summarize a meeting or a two hour talk you don’t have time to watch on YouTube. I suppose the big thing is, there’s a difference between those who use AI to do their work, and those that use it to make the work easier. One Creative Director I read the other day said “quite often, we use these tools to sift out the crappy ideas, because if ChatGPT or an AI tool can come up with it, it’s probably already been done.”

That’s pretty profound!

The Future of GREAT Content

I’m seeing so many people on Facebook complaining about the auto-generated (and unasked for) AI prompts in FB Groups. There’s also an uproar in the video game industry with people upset that dialogs of game characters were clearly AI generated, and not original works. With all the fake news and trust issues the world has with whatever they read online… and frankly, with whatever they see in images or videos, human originality and trust are in big demand.

At some point we may even see some kind of trust factor, or 3rd party authentication services crop up that verify there really are humans writing your content and filming the videos. In 1994, Bob Burg famously said “People like to do business with those they know, like and trust” and that line has been repeated by every consultant, sales professional, business coach and school professor ever since. It’s still just as relevant today as it was then. That’s why Gary Vaynerchuk doesn’t just post online about marketing. He talks about his Dad, his sports cards and garage sale adventures. People get to know him, and come to like him. You really can’t replicate that human to human experience (thank god!).

The real power of the tools of today is their ability to make our jobs easier, but not do the entire job.

There’s a lot of hype right now about mass job losses and people being replaced, and some of it is true. In large organizations there were certainly some jobs that would be fairly easy to automate. But, some of that is actually just marketing spin… and some companies are winding up hiring back people they didn’t realize they couldn’t replicate. If you want mediocre content that just re-spins what’s already been said, the newest chat bot may be all you need… but authentic, organic Non-GMO, pasture raised human content is going to require a real human!

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Are You Being Forced To Use AI Tools?

Daniel Deyette — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 20:21:34 +0000

We help people market and sell healing foods, supplements and herbs online, and our market tends to love tradition. We love the age old way of doing things. We believe the ancients weren’t dumb and that nature has something to offer us. We’re well aware that too much chemical, machinery or modern involvement in our health isn’t always helpful. Don’t get me wrong, our tribe isn’t anti-technology… and most of us will use some types of modern medicine when absolutely necessary.

The point is… most of us would rather avoid the use of AI.

Like medicine and other materials that heal, we prefer the age old time honored ways. That means that human written language (when done well) is just packed with flavour, experience and the richness of emotion! However, the way a capitalist society operates, we also have to take advantage of streamlined manufacturing sometimes. In the same note, the new web tools can be handy too. Just like the bottling and packaging machines though, we have to check the output and avoid putting a product (or content) out there that doesn’t meet the standards.

AI has some powerful uses, like combing through content and finding answers. It’s great at pouring over research, or simplifying complex topics. It can even help generate ideas or help you language something when you’re facing writer’s block. It just doesn’t have the experiences, knowledge and feeling you might want to portray.

Do we need to use the tools?

The tools can’t really be ignored anymore. That said, they have to be used carefully. We’re at the point now where it’s really not wise to avoid using them. They can really speed up certain tasks. We also have to be careful to not lean too hard on them and use the tool (or a group of them) as your sole source of ideas, information or content output. They’re inherently flawed in a number of ways.

Just recently, a discovery was made where the AI had created a new (fake) scientific term, and that term showed up in 22 different research articles!

AI systems can “feed off themselves” when they are trained on their own generated content, creating what tech people call a recursive feedback loop. That’s not the only issue, there are plenty of examples where the user asks for something and the resulting content created isn’t exactly what they asked for… but what if the user doesn’t know the difference?

I could write a list of all the examples of recent issues when trying to get fresh ideas, mashing two types of content together, or simplifying complex studies on functional nutrition where the output wasn’t really usable for publishing. The thing is, I knew the results were unusable.

How do you wisely use the tool?

As a content strategist, if I need a short writeup on the benefits of Vitamin C, an AI generated paragraph can be handy. I can have it write that to a 6th grade reading level, or in the voice of a news broadcaster, or as a fairytale! Those short snippets make getting through the boring tasks so much easier. However, if you ask it to create a content strategy, it’s going to give you textbook answers!

What’s wrong with that?

I remember when I worked for a company that was one of the first online marketing companies in existence. At the top of their game they were making over $60m per year selling nothing but ‘how to make money on the internet’ kind of content. However, being young guys they felt they should get some formal training in the art, so they sent one of their executives to school. In one class session, a professor laid out how a marketing plan for an online business should work. Meanwhile, the untrained successful marketer squirmed in his chair before shouting “that doesn’t work, we tried it!”, he said.

The professor said “Well, if you know so much, come show us how you’d do it” and so, he did. He grabbed the dry erase marker and drew out a full scale marketing plan complete with all the steps for finding the audience with paid ads, the webpage, the opt-in offer, the back end follow-up marketing and affiliate partner plan.

The typical, textbook way of doing things pales in comparison to experience.

There’s still plenty of proprietary industry knowledge you won’t find online or in a book. It’s the stuff that comes from actually doing something for a living. The raw mistakes made in the field of study that sometimes crop up in bits and pieces on a forum chat, a reddit thread or facebook group of industry professionals. A language model isn’t necessarily going to easily be able to decipher who’s blowing smoke, and who’s talking from lived experience though.

Let’s also not forget that the internet is riddled with ‘highlight reel’ and not the hard luck experiences. Most people don’t like to share when they screw up, only when they succeed, so the balance of content leans toward the good results. One of the most powerful chunks of data you won’t find in the raw material online are things like which ads worked, which page converted, which content resonated (not in views, but in conversions). It’s heavily protected data that, when you have those case studies, makes a world of difference.

Work with people that use the tools, but don’t rely on them.

It’s not worth hiring or working with anyone who’s head is in the sand and won’t use modern technology… but those who ONLY use AI generated output for all their work are already cropping up everywhere. You can smell it a mile away and it’s really frustrating. Machines are meant to enhance our lives, not replace us. We’re about to see various firms attempt to lean on machines on a massive scale in an attempt to save a dollar, but we’re not really replaceable as they’ll soon find out.

A content strategist (like us) can craft engaging emails, articles and social posts as part of an overall strategy designed to reach a specific set of needs while providing real tangible value to customers with emotional impact. We guide the tools, but we don’t use their unedited output and declare it as our work. That’s not only unethical, it’s ineffective.

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The intelligent use of AI in your content strategy

Daniel Deyette — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 04:56:40 +0000

Content creation is hard.

Coming up with a fresh, unique and well researched article that’s going to have people hanging off your every word isn’t easy. Even expert writers churn out duds and junk content. While it’s incredibly tempting to jump over to the AI and ask it to churn out an article, email, video script or sales page… there’s a few reasons why we’re not there yet.

AI tools today are fantastic support tools

When I saw what the tools could do, it hit me like a gut punch. For years I’ve pounded the keys on my Microsoft Natural split keyboard expressing raw emotion. I used to say I typed 80WPM, and faster when I’m angry! (Joking of course)

eCommerce store owners can go straight to these tools and ask for an email in the style of some writer they love… and it spits out a piece of content at lightning speed. What purpose would guys like me who’ve spent the last 18 years studying psychology, sales, market shifts, persuasion and demand generation have to offer? Why hire a human at all?

Large Language Models (LLMs) aren’t perfect.

Here’s some drawbacks:

These tools do not have lived experiences
AI can’t really understand complex emotions
Most hallucinate and need to be fact-checked
They cannot anticipate the reception of a message by their audience

The last one is critically important

An experienced writer, content strategist or marketing person who’s been in the game a long time has seen the reactions from hundreds of content pieces. Guys like myself have sent over 1000 broadcast emails to thousands of people and written over 100 blog posts. We remember what hit, and what didn’t. We know the objections the audience is likely to have. Like a minds eye, we can read a draft the way customers are going to experience it and how they’ll feel about it.

That’s something that technology can’t really do

It misses cultural, community and general audience concerns. In fact, even business owners who are too close to their product and their industry can’t really tell the difference between good content or bad. What they can sense, is whether THEY like it or not. There’s nothing wrong with wanting content you like, but what matters most is if our customers enjoy it.

Ever heard an engineer play the piano?

Sure, they hit every note at the right timing points, but it sounds robotic. It lacks a certain finesse or artistry that comes from the artsy, flowy and creative expression that great piano players develop. Content made by human beings is a lot like that. Even if I give an LLM my exact formula for an incredible, edge of your seat, fascinating message that grips your eyeballs… it’s just going to sound like it did what I asked, without the feeling!

The tools speed up research.

They can help you come up with ideas or analyze topics. They can even help stall writer’s block, but they can’t fully replace the need for a human.

If you really want an audience to feel connected to you, your brand and product you really can’t avoid hiring someone with years of experience. They’ll rally your tribe, make them feel connected to a bigger vision and have them looking forward to your next email.

That’s what I enjoy most. Finding things that create enjoyable experiences for the readers, and drive sales too!

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Four Reasons Why Your Email Doesn’t Reach Inboxes

Daniel Deyette — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 21:54:23 +0000

Are your emails getting delivered? Does it seem like your message aren’t being read?

It’s frustrating to think about all the time you spend crafting the perfect message, just to get poor results. The worst part is, you may not even know how many are truly being delivered. That’s because today’s email platforms constantly issue false opens & clicks, preventing you from seeing the real results. Wondering what might be getting in the way?

Here are four reasons why your email might not get through:

Bad Reputation

Is your server to blame? Your server might get flagged and have a poor reputation score that prevents your message from hitting the inbox. This happens whenever you’re not actively montioring your spam, complaint rate and reviewing the data from Google’s dashboard. While Gmail accounts for 60-70% of email addresses on most lists, other email platforms and software have their own rules for managing reputation as well.

You can build reputation over time with emails that generate high clicks, opens and deliveries with low bounce, unsubscribe and complaint rates. Reputation is also affected by the age and engagement of the contacts of on your list.

Bad Ratio

Are your emails too image heavy? Your text to image ratio matters, you don’t want to be sending photo albums. While humans are visual creatures, they also need a balance of words for context.

Don’t take “show, don’t tell” so far that you never say much of anything. You’re going to want a healthy mix.

Bad Words

There are certain words and phrases that you could use that might trigger spam filters, sending you to the junk folder or promotions tab. You might not even be aware you’re doing it! An example might be words that highlight huge sums of money, pharmaceutical words or controversial topics.

Inboxes have smart features that help screen out offers from Nigerian princes, scammers and deals that sound too good. You don’t want to get painted with that brush because of vocabulary choices.

They Just Aren’t That Into You

If you’re emailing folks who haven’t opened or clicked in 180 days, you could be setting off red flags with their email provider. This is why list maintenance is so important. You don’t want to come off like a stalker. You want email providers to know that you only email people who want to hear from you.

That’s partly why we also stress high quality content that people enjoy reading.

Avoid the spam filter by attending to these areas and more with a thorough audit of your email marketing campaigns. With a systematic review, we can show you if bad reputation, bad ratios, bad words or emailing folks who just aren’t that into you are standing between you and client inboxes.

Stop asking “Can you hear me now?” and start asking “How can I help you now?”

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If You Don’t Send These Emails, You’re Losing Money From Your Ecommerce Store

Daniel Deyette — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 20:14:24 +0000

Your email list could be making you more money… if you use the right automations.

These days it’s not enough only to have a good list. You need to use your list to your advantage. Leverage as many sales as you can and build relationships with your customers, in a way that demonstrates “who you are as a company.”

You can’t rely on social media alone. You need to grow and focus on your list. Focus on the opportunities you have to land in the email inboxes of your customers (and prospective customers). If you aren’t sending these email sequences, you are leaving money on the table.

Opt-in / Nurture / First Emails Campaigns

This is your welcome series. It is like a first date… the getting to know you phase. It is to show the customer how you are providing value, and putting your best foot forward, so that they know what to expect. This series is training a potential customer to open your emails by being visible in their inbox – while the connection is fresh.

As an added bonus, you can use these to get your customers to follow you on social media. This will provide more opportunities to present offers.

90 Day No Opens

These are the sequences that have subject lines like:

– Was it something we said?

– We’re sorry to see you go…

This series is about re-engaging dormant subscribers, and getting your offers back in front of them. These emails are like rumble strips on the side of the road that wake your customers up before they get off course (without the fabulous thing that you want to sell them.)

It helps keep your list fresh, and selling great!

30 Day No Purchase (AKA Winback Campaigns)

These sequences re-engage people who have already invested in what you have to offer. They remind them why they need to invest again. Winback puts your friendly face in front of your customers, reminding them of their need, and what a great experience they already had with you.

Winback sequences get you back on your customers’ radar.

VIP email series

Everybody loves appreciation. Relationships build when we recognize things like loyalty. Your VIP email series lets you share the love and helps your customer feel special. It lets you position targeted offers based on a customer’s level of engagement and it builds goodwill.

This is laying out the red carpet for your most valuable customers, letting them know you see them.

Browse Abandon (Waffles)

Have you got some fence sitters on your list? They came, they saw, they left. What do you do now? How do you get them back on your site? Re-engage with a browse abandon sequence full of customer reviews and bring that wow factor to close the deal.

Save waffles for breakfast! Make yourself some customers who are eager to come to the table.

Cart Abandon Emails

Did somebody wander off and leave a cart full of goodies? It’s hard to watch that happen, especially when you know that these are things that they need. In that case you are going to want some simple reminders, maybe 24 hours later, and offer an incentive to get them to hit the buy button.

Don’t let cart abandonment happen to your customers, help them remember what they forgot to get from the store. Remind them there’s important stuff sitting there, just waiting to be shipped.

After Purchase Follow Up

Sending product specific follow up after a purchase is so valuable. You can position related offers (refills for consumable accessories), you can gather feedback about their satisfaction with the product and you also get to keep providing value even after you’ve closed the sale. That active interest in client service is going to stick with them when they make their next purchase and it’s key to building a positive relationship with your customers.

If you want to experience e-commerce success, make sure your customers and would be customers are getting these important sequences. They help you build your relationship, move more product and keep providing the value that you want your brand to be known for.

These sequences will help you show up on in your ideal customers’ inboxes and on their credit card statements, exactly where you want to be.

Don’t leave money on the table, clean up by hitting send today!

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What fraudsters know that brands need to learn

Daniel Deyette — Thu, 13 May 2021 19:17:21 +0000

How to increase sales dramatically without destroying your brand or losing your soul in the process.

Over the years I’ve had the luxury of working with some of the biggest brands in the world. I’ve also had the pleasure of doing business with three man painting firms, and even sadly, some frauds. (unhappy face). What I learned, however could change your life forever.

The key difference between the brands and the frauds won’t shock you. Frauds build trust way faster, and get sales faster. Heck, a professional fraud can have literally no product, no establishment, no paperwork and even no business card and easily make sales all day long. What they truly lack, and what in fact makes them a fraud, is usually a product problem.

Usually the product they have doesn’t actually *do* what they say it does, or they don’t have a product to offer at all. You see, products in reality only prevent refunds and lawsuits. It’s a crude view, but stick with me. The fact is, you don’t have to have a product to make sales! Granted, it helps the honest salesman sell it when they can believe in it.

Heck, many big companies have been built on products that look amazing, demonstrate well but don’t actually do what they say they’re going to do. Classics like the solar powered car ventilation, The classic historic Veg-o-matic, and others.

What if the fraudster had a GREAT product?

Say the fraudster in our story above happens to actually FIND a cure for psoriasis, balding, cancer etc. Technically, they’re no longer a fraudster anymore… Now they’re simply someone with unbelievable passion, enthusiasm and outrageous claims, followed by a product that actually does what they say it does. Sounds like a match made in heaven, doesn’t it?

The best fraudster knows something that 90% of businesses don’t know. Without this knowledge, brands and businesses can still do ok, but they cannot rake in millions in sales in a short period of time.

What’s a brand, and why do I need one?

Many marketers have hurt small businesses by telling them they do NOT need a brand. They simply tell them that coca-cola marketing is a waste of time, and that spending money on ‘branding’ related activities is unprofitable. They’re only half correct. You SHOULD spend some time considering how you are perceived by the marketplace. What colors you use, what feelings your products/services evoke and all that. It’s actually a good idea to really craft that…

Fact is, you cannot sell something to a farmer wearing a 3 piece suit and tie. You can’t sell something to a lawyer while wearing stained overalls. Your company’s look and feel must match something that your ideal customer would actually feel comfortable with. Just imagine walking into a bank setup inside an old 1900’s, poorly taken care of barn. You just couldn’t imagine putting a $100k into investments there.

Where brands go wrong

In business you can do a lot wrong and still get results. It might cost you more, take you MORE precious time or take a ton more energy, but you’ll get results. Sometimes with big companies, or smaller high margin companies, they spend so much time on their look, their presentation, their emotional story and how they’re perceived, they almost avoid anything that looks like sales like the plague!

There is a nexus point, a crossing.. a zone in the middle where you can have an incredible presentation, high quality look and feel and yet still have an effective sales engine!

Here’s what fraudsters know:

#1. Their customer’s biggest pain. Granted, the promise to solve it. Some fraudsters have a gut instinct and can read the crowd or the person in front of them. They can listen to people as they gripe about various issues, then promise with conviction to solve them. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting anyone LIE and say they can solve someone’s pains… but as brands, thought leaders and heck even businesses in general we SHOULD be leading the charge on the pains we DO confidently solve. We should know and listen to our customer well enough that we can easily write a message that would appeal to them.

#2. The fear of staying in this spot. They know customers do NOT want to stay in this pain, frustration etc. Granted, you do not want to go around preaching that the sky is falling.. but sometimes through pictures, video shorts and other ways we can show the realities of not solving a problem without using fear directly.

#3. How to create a sense of urgency. Urgency and scarcity are just SOME of the biggest triggers known to man to help create desire. It’s what makes Apple product launches hot. It’s what separates the Ferarri from the Toyota sales. The pre-order for a Ferrari is a minimum 2-3 year wait, and so the urgency to not wait longer (for fear it might take even LONGER to get what you want, the rare status symbol) is very real.

If there is truly no limit to the product (IE: Apple could easily wait until they’ve manufactured 4 million devices, in fact sometimes they do..) you can create one by not shipping all the product at once and releasing it in batches. When a fraudster sells something, they always play on the deal being offered going away, the product or the opportunity is going away… and why not?

Real companies, getting QUICK and powerful results…

Here’s the big takeaway. Here’s what brands DONT do that keeps them from getting windfalls of sales.
(besides the obvious of knowing your ideal customer’s pain, and proving you can solve it)

#1. Making people feel uncomfortable. Here’s a weird fact about humanity. If we’re comfortable, we stay where we are. It’s only when we’re uncomfortable that we choose to take action and change things. Brands are usually afraid of reminding people of their pain. Sure, they’re usually ok with doing it in a playful way in a commercial on TV with cute things, but rarely do they ever want to actually make someone feel like the old way is painful.

#2. Cause-based marketing. Movement and cause based marketing work so well! They propel us to take up our protest sign and join legions of buyers and customers in the march against something. It could be anything from the old way of doing things, to the big picture vision of what the world would be like with the solution or just simply attaching themselves to a completely unrelated cause like world hunger.

#3. Being human and raw. Most CEO’s, people and companies in general don’t really want to talk about why they made a product. Not the REAL story. They don’t usually want to talk about the struggle, the mistakes, the frustrations and lost investor dollars. Yet these very authentic things are what build trust, and create incredible stories people tell and never forget. Since the dawn of time, humans have loved stories, especially one where there’s conflict, a build up of more conflict and a resolution of some kind. In fact, there are only 7 basic story types in the whole world and they all fall into these categories!

If you do NOT know what your customer’s biggest pain actually is, and you NEED to figure that out, so that all your products can demonstrate the transformation they create in solving customer pains… You may be interested in our COMPLETE market analysis, which provides exactly that and so much more.

Knowing their pains makes writing copy like pushing a hot knife through butter. If you DONT have a budget to hire a team or agency to create this kind of intellectual report, and want to spend the hours to learn to do it yourself, signup here to be notified when the course is completed.

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The headline writing article you will regret not reading.

Daniel Deyette — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 05:27:13 +0000

**Headlines are both deadly and powerful part of your marketing arsenal.**

There are ways that an improper headline can destroy your credibility and your brand. There are also ways a killer headline can drive enormous amounts of traffic and have your marketing piece go viral.

Famous copywriters have said since the 1940’s, spend 50% of your time on your headline, and the other 50% on the rest of your copy. Let’s tune into what John Caples wrote in his book “How to Make Your Advertising Make Money” …

Headline written by John Caples

“My interest in advertising headlines dates back to the time when I was a cub copywriter and was not allowed to write headlines. Ev Grady the copy chief, would hand me a layout with the headline already lettered in. Below the headline was a blank space. ‘write copy to fill the space’, he would say.

Evidently I was not considered good enough to write headlines. I don’t know how you can impress a young man more forcibly than to imply that there is a task to which he is not equal. From that time on, I was determined that someday I would write headlines”

Headline writing danger that lurks (the 1940’s advantage)

Seems pretty wild and silly to suggest that a poor headline could damage your brand, or even make you look stupid doesn’t it? Yet… today we have a brand new danger to headlines that didn’t exist in the 1940’s. In fact, one might say the early copywriters had a HUGE advantage over us! Hype wasn’t all that common back then.

We were only one or two generations away from the cultural “dead serious” culture that exists in the UK. (To this day, the UK is strongly against all hype).

Today, we have these websites called “Viral Mills” that churn out gut wrenching, gossipy stories with strange images that we call “Click Bait”. You’ll know you’ve clicked on clickbait when you hit a site loaded with ads and weird images and a super short story or video lifted from some other website. They’re extremely low value, and extremely high eye candy. If you’re bored you can find yourself reading this stuff all day!

Great places to find headlines…

Why I bothered to write this blog post…

Let me get right to it. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot of people doing headlines (and the attached content) correctly. It’s just not very common. I read a LOT of content. I could call myself a content junkie and my wife would even agree. However, I’m continually inspired by the writers of headlines at the Washington Post.

Before I dig into the why, let me provide some concrete examples of stuff that just blew my mind:

“Want to see a great U.S. city in one day? Two math majors show you how.”
“The startling thing that happens to black girls in preschool”
“The 9-year-old who setup a lemonade stand to help his parents fund his legal adoption”
“How Rachel Roy embodies the new trend in celebrity cheating scandals”
“The future of TV is arriving faster than anyone predicted”

These aren’t earth shattering headlines are they? But they’re interesting, they’re believable and they’re strange/fascinating enough to grab your attention. That’s the magic sauce in 2016. It’s having enough clout to back your headline, be interesting… be fascinating without going over the edge.

LOTS of their headlines are like this. If you’re at all questioning the power of these headlines, checkout the shares… most of these got HUNDREDS of shares and thousands of likes.

STOP! Before you write a DAMN word of a headline…

You have to consider WHO this content should appeal to. If you’re clients are the type that earn under 40k, never attended college or heck, barely finished high school and spend most of their time in front of the TV (bombarded by garbage)… Your headline research should start at the checkout stand… IE: Cosmopolitan, Weekly World News, People Magazine, National Enquirer etc.

If you’re ideal client is a highly intelligent scientist who might buy your special graphing calculator, then your headline research might start in the forums or groups of electronics majors. Perhaps it might start in Scientific American or Psychology Today…

You really should do some kind of ideal customer exercise to really get a 360 degree view of WHO they are before you start writing ANY kind of headline. The formula’s will NOT all work for everyone.

Some headline general types:

- The how to headline (EG: How to do X)
- The guarantee headline (Guaranteed to ____ within X days)
- The benefit headline (top benefit of the product)
- The promise headline (By the end of the article you will…)
- The testimonial headline (A personal revelation)
- The question headline “Are you tired of making your boss rich?”
- The anxiety headline “Does this make your skin crawl?”
- The news style headline “Scientists are now saying…”

My personal favourite headline swipes:

Who else wants _____

The secret to ____

Can you pass the ____ test?

The biggest ____ myth

The Toughest ____ Question To Answer

____ Isn’t as ridiculous as you might think…

A man invented _____ because doctors (experts) were tired of _____

Don’t call me a _____

Here’s what’s helping ____ to _____

____ Statistics / Trends you can’t ignore (IE: iTunes trends you can’t ignore)

[Do something] like [world-class example] (IE: Party like Paris Hilton, Speak Spanish like a diplomat)

Additional Headline Creator Tools:

Content Headline Idea Generator (my favorite btw – I use this EVERY time I get stuck)
Headline Wizard
Kickass Headline Generator (best for blog topics)
Hubspot blog topic generator
Upworthy Generator (somewhat spammy, but would work for some markets)
Clickbait headline generator (this is actually REALLY good for fresh ideas)

Headline Analysis Tools

Headline Emotion Analyzer – (tests which audience your headline’s for)
Text readability score – (check your headline for age level)
Headline word analysis – Really just another way of getting new ideas

Still reading down here, eh?

Stuck and need help? Contact us for marketing coaching support.

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Email’s biggest unbeatable weapon

Daniel Deyette — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 03:49:43 +0000

Oh boy… Now to prove the title of this blog post is completely justified!

I hate hype

As too much of any good thing dilutes its value, email is facing some interesting challenges. New marketers are placing higher value on social and things like Periscope, Meerkat and Blab.im. Old (experienced) marketers don’t teach what REALLY works in email as much, because it’s just not sexy…

Can I let you in on some secrets?

Email is actually the single most powerful thing on the internet. What? I know, bold claim, but hear me out. Facebook fan pages see 5-7% exposure to their posts unless you boost posts, or get lucky and get tons of shares. Twitter’s like shouting in outer space. Pinterest and Instagram are like hashtag Russian roulette. Google search wants you pay by the click or be at the mercy of their ever-changing algorithms…

Email’s the only medium where you’ll happily get access to 30-50% of your tribe in one click (once you’ve collected them), and… You can easily back them up (download your email database) and move them to another email system. Something you can’t do with followers, fans and likes.

But, I’ve tried email without success… (warning below)

I’m sorry. I spent a pinch of text there above laying a foundation, but here comes the single biggest stupid yet simple secret to email. Nailing this will make everything work.

Be personal.

People are TIRED of getting automated (FirstName) emails. They’re tired of things feeling like yet another marketing story. It needs to sound like someone is talking directly to them. Their hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares, challenges, concerns the whole 9 yards.

Experts “in the know” call them Seinfeld emails.

Why? Because back when Seinfeld started their show, they pitched NBC on launching a sitcom about nothing. It wasn’t really about NOTHING though, it was actually about normal every day life and the things that happen in your day.

Reality TV and social media have single handedly proven people LOVE this stuff. This is no different in email.

Here’s the warning:

You can train your list though. From the very first email they get, you can train them to expect heartless, feelingless content. You can also train them to expect conversational, down to earth GENUINE emails written just to them. A fellow club member, tribe member, and contact that you love and want to share your genius with!

Join my list, you’ll see the kinds of stuff I write, and how I litterally make it a personal letter to my family of email and online marketers. You’d be surprised to hear my average open rate is 54% right now.

Some top experts that I know have a nick named “Bill and Susan” ideal target customer that they’ve written a complete 3D writeup about. They know their likes and dislikes, their enemies and fears.. They can write to these people and imagine their smiles, their frowns.

Bottom line? Be personal, write stories, share and make it feel like a letter directly to them.

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3 Ways To Revive a Dying Email List

Daniel Deyette — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 05:31:24 +0000

You’ve spent big money on ads, networked with people, collected business cards, poured your soul into blog posts and videos to collect a nicely sized email list.

Yet, for whatever reason, the list has gone stale.

Reasons a list can go stale:

You forget/don’t have time to mail them for a while
Affiliate promotions and customers get used to emails not containing value
You haven’t sent much relevant email lately
List fatigue from mailing too often

Whatever the reason, who likes to let a valuable asset go unused? You still long for the realistic (and achievable) goal of mailing something customers really DO want and to rake in the cash… Or hey, never mind the money. Maybe you’re just really looking forward to genuinely helping people with their hopes/dreams/needs. That’s awesome too.

Let me share a few ways you can revive a dead list, share some stories and some wisdom give you all the answers that you’d only ever find by interviewing experts, or paying huge consulting rates.

#1. The famous 9 word email

Many dollars are chased marketing after the wrong people. They inevitably

The subject should just be their first name, ie. “Bob”.

The body of the email should be these 9 words:

“Are you still looking at getting [insert] [your] [service]?”

Typically this is sent one at a time, but weirdly enough it works even if sent via mass blast to a list of unresponsive users.

#2. The “I’m sorry” email

It’s funny, this subject line has been in my back pocket for years. In the spirit of providing incredible content, I feel like I can share this with you. However, I had this one client who for years delivered nothing but affiliate offers to her list of mostly 40+ year old single women who clung to her as their fearless leader. She had kind of abused the relationship and it was a sizable list not worth losing.

In an effort to stop blasting flat content and start rebuilding a relationship, I suggested we apologize to the list. This wasn’t an easy thing for her, as she was a pretty confident person. Either way, out of the 30,000 which hadn’t had an open rate higher than 5% in months, the list responded with a whopping 25%!

That might not sound like much but truthfully any business would jump at a 20% increase in sales. Surely the increased response and activity eventually did the same.

Note: People think the I’m sorry is going to include a gift or a special offer. WARNING. Not just any special offer, a REALLY good offer. Not anything anyone else can get.

You can apologize for not sending enough stories, for not sending often enough or whatever, but the idea is… you recognize you could do better.

#3. The “I’m sad to see you go” email

This one really gets lists. If you find “I’m sorry” didn’t work, this is by far the most powerful strategy. I’ll admit, it has pros and cons but it works.

I typically send an email saying we have run the newsletter since 199_ and started with just 10 subscribers. We’ve come along way but some people aren’t opening our emails…. We’ve decided to create a hot list, only those who open/click our emails will be on it. In a nutshell if you want to stay on the list… click here…

There’s more to this email than that, I have a few other emotional tricks I add. (which you can get if you take my template package free).

Note: You will get people emailing you upset. Some don’t read the whole thing. Some still want assurance they’re on your list, some will be glad to be removed, upset you’d dare remove someone without their permission.

Honestly, this passion to either stay on, or go away is well worth the renewed interest in your stuff. I’m just preparing you, if it’s a big list… instruct your support staff to expect these emails.

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Gmail: It’s similar to messages that were detected by our spam filters.

Daniel Deyette — Thu, 14 May 2020 04:51:10 +0000

Common Gmail Content Flags:

It’s similar to messages that were detected by our spam filters.
It contains content that’s typically used in spam messages.

If you have seen this message, it’s probably driven you mad! Is it my email authentication? Is my email domain banned?

What’s going on?

Why does it test OK? Mail-tester, Glock apps, the Postmark app, Isnotspam or whatever… said it was GOOD!

First, why did this happen?

This isn’t actually Gmail’s ‘kiss of death’ message. That’s different, and I’ll write another post about that sometime. This is strictly a content issue. The contents of your emails contain words that are instant spam triggers AND Gmail hasn’t seen enough of you.

See, Gmail’s algorithm favors engagement. I could write a whole post about what kinds of engagement, but for now, just imagine replies, clicks, and opens as the important ones. Until it has seen a significant amount of this from YOUR domain, (IP address is irrelevant these days – unless you’re a spammer) you’re probably going to have to be careful at first, and slowly build reputation.

That’s another thing, you have to be super careful NOT to keep mailing when the engagement drops. What I mean is, when you mail say, 2,000 people, and the first 1,000 sends are opening at 12-14%… If you start to see that drop, you’ll want to stop and not let it keep mailing. If you get to the point where you’re seeing 2-3% open rates or lower, you know you’ve triggered their abuse flags. You’ll also want to be careful about speed of sending… but that’s not your issue here, so I digress.

Want a proven test to see if it’s your content or not?

Grab a few paragraphs of the bacon ipsum, and test that by sending to a gmail account. If it inboxes, you’ve got go back and re-write your original email. If you’re not familiar with lorem ipsum, and wondering what the heck bacon ipsum is… Well, back in the day someone borrowed a 1400’s poem to use as text filler on websites they were building. Of course, the lorem ipsum is used so much now that even spam filters know it’s junk.

OK let’s stop here for a moment. You probably don’t realize the value of the gem I’m dropping here. Most new mailers and marketers don’t have a nice cache of copy or content they KNOW will inbox; something they can copy, paste, and know always inboxes. If this inboxes, you know it’s your email and not your system. Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

Why would my email be considered spam?

I could steal a bunch of content from all over the web and put it in this article but (obviously) I won’t do that.

Hubspot has good industry guidelines for common keywords that will automatically throw you to spam. They include words like free, discount, money, while you sleep, etc. They’re common things Google knows are spam. If you use a ton of these words you will not inbox. If you have a strong reputation you MIGHT be able to inbox a few hundred of these, but if your engagement score drops… well you get the idea.

So, relax. Go re-write your email and get that promo out the door!

Warning, this could cost you

Don’t get fooled by a false positive!

Have multiple Gmail accounts to test that email you’re sending on. Each of these ‘test’ Gmail accounts are known as “seed accounts” in the email industry. Don’t spoil your seeds by accidentally creating engagement. By removing them from the spam box, replying to them, or clicking on the links you may accidentally teach YOUR Gmail account that you want this content.

That’s great for you, but you’ll stop seeing what cold Gmail accounts see!

If you’re looking for email advice, you might consider a training session. I’m pretty busy, but you can schedule a call through Clarity if you want specific advice.

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