Tuesday, 2:32 PM

Dear Friend,

Here’s something you can use right away to bring in a quick cash flow surge.

Click here to download a PDF of the mailing piece featured in the video.

All the best,

Thursday, 9:55 PM

Dear Friend,

Some very enlightening facts about the power of direct mail.

Friday, 9:25 PM

Dear Friend,

Here’s how to mine your mailbox for gold and find out what’s working right now in direct mail.

Wednesday, 11:05 PM

Dear Friend,

There’s been some weird stuff going on with YouTube tonight.

It looks like they’ve been doing some upgrades and making changes but it wasn’t allowing you to upload videos for a while.

It looks like it’s fixed now… so heeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr’es the next video from my YouTube 30-Day Challenge.

Monday, 8:12 PM

Dear Friend,

I didn’t really feel like teaching tonight.

I just wanted to have a little “fireside chat” with you (or in this case, poolside chat) and be like your adopted uncle DD, sharing life lessons with you.

I’d much prefer to have this conversation in person… but I guess this will have to do until we have that opportunity.

Enjoy!

Friday, 7:31 PM

Dear Friend,

I’m still having fun and learning a lot with my YouTube 30-Day Challenge.

Today I finally figured out how to use a program called ScreenFlow. I’ve used it before but I only knew about 10% of its functions.

This thing is a POWERHOUSE for creating videos… especially if you need to demonstrate things on the computer.

And if a Luddite like me can figure out how to use it… ANYBODY can.

Enjoy the video!

All the best,

Sunday, 4:18 PM

Dear Friend,

According to Google, there were 673,000 searches last month using the keywords “direct mail.”

Also, according to Google, 25% of all their searches are now YouTube searches.

So that means approximately 168,250 searches are done each month on YouTube looking for stuff related to direct mail.

I’m hoping a few of those people will find me.

That’s why I posted this video on YouTube.

This is an edited version of something I presented on this blog last year… so it may not be anything new to you if you’ve been a subscriber for a while. But I’m hoping it will be new to a lot of folks on YouTube.

And I hope they like it enough to check out my blog and possibly subscribe.

I guess we’ll see.

All the best,

P.S. I’m learning something new every day during my YouTube 30-Day Challenge. Today I learned you can’t always trust iMovie to properly upload your videos directly to YouTube.

It worked fine for the first video, but not at all today.  I had to export the video from iMovie and then upload it directly using YouTube’s upload process.

I’m glad iMovie didn’t work. In the process of finding an alternate solution I discovered I can upload much higher quality videos this way, including HD quality video.

I didn’t upload the HD quality video on this one (obviously) but I’ll try doing it on another video later this week.

Tuesday, 6:33 AM

Dear Friend,

Last week I sent a message endorsing Ben Settle’s new hard copy newsletter.

Since I know that negative news always gets more viewership than positive news, I split-tested two “negative” headlines on one of my subscriber lists.

They were…

1. Ben Settle SUCKS (By the way, it was Ben who suggested this.)

    

    

2. Why I HATE Ben Settle

Here’s a screen shot from my Aweber account with the results:

Notice that the headline “Why I HATE Ben Settle” got a 37.2% open rate and a 18.8% click-through rate.

The headline “Ben Settle SUCKS” got a higher open rate, 44.6%… but a lower click-through rate, 12.8%.

I have no idea how many sales it brought in because the link in the e-mail was not an affiliate link. It just linked directly to Ben’s newsletter site. (I believe so strongly in Ben’s new newsletter I endorsed it without any compensation.)

Looking back, we SHOULD have used a tracking link from Ben’s 1shoppingcart account so we could see how many new subscribers he got from this endorsement.

Oh well.

Anyhoo… would you like to know why one headline got a higher open rate but the other got a higher click-through rate?

So would I.

The truth is… I have no earthly idea.

We can guess why we THINK it got these results, pontificating for hours… but the truth is, we don’t really know why. The only thing we know for sure is the results.

And why do we know the results?

Because I TESTED it.

You can theorize for days and try to rationalize why you think this or that headline is better… but in the end, you’re just guessing.

The only way to know for sure is to run that puppy up the flagpole and see how many people salute it.

And it’s so easy to test this stuff online nowadays there’s no excuse for not doing it.

All the best,

P.S. If I were sending a direct mail pitch and had access to a list of customers or subscribers like this… this is EXACTLY what I would do to figure out the best headline for my direct mail piece.

If I didn’t have access to a list I would do a headline split test on Google Adwords.

It’s a lot cheaper and faster to split test your headlines this way than in direct mail.

“Gentlemen, this is a football.”

– Vince Lombardi

Dear Friend,

I know a little bit about weight training.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do much since breaking my L-5 vertebra in my lower back last year and rupturing three disks.

But I do know how to gain muscle and lose fat. (I would hope so. I’ve been working in the musclehead niche for 15 years!)

It’s a weird niche.

The truth is, building muscle and strength isn’t all that complicated.

You need to lift heavy weights and eat a lot of the right foods.

It’s pretty simple.

I didn’t say easy… just simple.

But you can’t sell a bodybuilding system that says “lift heavy weights regularly and eat a lot of food.”

People don’t want to hear that. They want to hear there’s some kind of sexy new secret, shortcut, magic pill, etc.

Releasing my first Doberman Dan product last week has been a learning experience. I really didn’t expect to run into the same mindset as the bodybuilding market… but it’s there.

I discovered that the Internet Marketing, direct response marketing, copywriting, and “how to make money” niches have a lot in common with bodybuilding.

In both markets what REALLY works is tried and true principles. But apparently the market doesn’t want to hear the truth.

That’s why all these Internet Marketing gurus have to INVENT new techniques with sexy names in order to sell more and more products.

Another Gary Halbert Story…

One of Gary Halbert’s other protégés told me this story. (It was either Caleb O’Dowd or Scott Haines… I can’t remember.)

Halbert went to a seminar a couple years back with a bunch of different break out sessions. There was everything from beginning mail order sessions to the ultra-complicated direct mail regression analysis.

Guess which one Halbert went to?

The beginning mail order class.

Now Halbert had been writing copy for almost 40 years at that point. He had penned some of the biggest winners in the entire history of mail order.

Why would he go to a beginners mail order class?

Gary said that if he was forgetting something, there was a 99% chance it was in the basics.

The Great Vince Lombardi

The great football coach Vince Lombardi began every new season with a lecture to both the veterans and the rookies on the basics of football.

He literally held up a football and said, “This is a football.”

He talked about its size and shape, how it can be kicked, carried, or passed.

He would then take the team out onto the field and say, “This is a football field.”

He took them around the field, describing the dimensions, the shape, the rules, and how the game is played.

Apparently he did that every year… even after the Green Bay Packers became NFL champs and won the first two Super Bowls ever played.

Can you imagine how “basic” and boring that must have sounded to his veteran players?

Apparently Lombardi believed that no matter how advanced his veteran players were, they still needed to be coached in the basics.

Maybe that explains why Vince Lombardi was one of the most successful coaches in the history of football.

Do you really KNOW it?

You see, there are a lot of “experts” on the web sharing their “knowledge”.

Their “knowledge” consists of parroting stuff they’ve heard other people say… or stuff they’ve read in a book.

Or worse, parroting what they’ve read online from another person parroting stuff they’ve heard other people say.

Everything I share with you on this site is stuff I’ve LIVED. I’ve got the battle scars to prove it.

Sure, I originally discovered the principles and concepts from books, seminars or other people. But I didn’t start really learning it until I started DOING it.

Whenever I hear somebody say they already know what I’m teaching… that almost always means they may have heard it or read it before… but they’ve never actually DONE it.

And if you haven’t done it… you don’t know it.

A lot of people in this niche think they know the basics so they go off chasing the next latest and greatest “secret”.

And there’s no shortage of people willing to sell them their “marketing fantasy” for big bucks.

Unfortunately these poor souls are off chasing fantasies that are never going to work.

If Gary Halbert spent his career focusing on the basics, what makes you think you don’t have to?

The 3 Ways To Make Money

Like I said in my Master Success Formula, there are really only 3 ways to make money and build your business.

97% of business owners only focus on one out of the three. The few that “get it” and focus equally on all three experience quantum leap increases in income.

But let me be totally transparent with you…

The Master Success Formula is not sexy. It’s not a “magic pill”.

It’s based on decades of tried and true principles that flat out WORK.

The bad news is… it requires work. (Gasp!)

Yup, you gotta implement the Master Success Formula (or any basic marketing principle, for that matter) if you want the results.

If you just read it or study it, then you don’t really know it.

I’ve noticed a lot of the younger guys and newbies in this niche (especially the ones that are IM guru disciples) don’t really know the direct response basics.

They’re always off chasing fantasies looking for the newest “secrets”.

The truth is, there are very, very few new discoveries and secrets in direct response marketing.

In fact, you can learn the basics of direct response in a weekend.

And it will only take you a lifetime to master it.

So stop chasing fantasies and buying into the “magic pill” myth.

Focus on the direct response basics. They’ll take you where you want to go.

If it’s good enough for Gary Halbert, it’s good enough for the rest of us.

All the best,

Wednesday, 11:19 PM

Dear Friend,

I’ve discovered a simple way for online business owners to double their sales lickety split.

I had the opportunity to share it at a seminar in Orlando, Florida called the “Supplement Millions” seminar.

I had a great time there (as you’ll see on the video), met some great people, and learned a lot, too.

I’m not sure if the DVDs are still available for sale… but if you’re interested in being in the online nutritional supplement business, you should really try to get your hands on them.

Buck and Brock, the organizers of the seminar, were kind enough to let me post my presentation on the site for you.

I reveal quite a few of my jealously guarded marketing secrets for making boatloads of fungolas.

Enjoy!

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