TCC Podcast #43: Email Copywriting with Big Jason Henderson

Former professional basketball player and current email copywriter, Big Jason Henderson, joins Rob and Kira for the 43rd episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Jason shares how he went from Australian basketball star to highly paid email copywriter and in the process talks about: •  the too-easy-to-believe advice for writing great emails •  how he keeps his emails personal by writing to “one” person •  the recommended number of links that should go in every email (jk) • the tools he uses to track clicks and revenue •  his go-to writing formula for emails •  what it means to sell the click vs. sell the product •  which is the better motivator—the carrot or the stick •  why there’s no such thing as an email expert, and •  how he manages stress and overwork (when he doesn’t sleep for two days) Another eye-opening episode packed with lots of lessons, tactics and strategies you can use in your own copywriting business. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Sponsor: AirStory MECLabs Marketing Sherpa Email Summit Gary Halbert Caleb O Dowd Scott Haines Revolution Golf Clicky Email Response Warrior Course Clayton Makepeace Dr. Flint McGlaughlin Tepsii Arman Morin Seminar GKIC (Dan Kennedy’s events) Ryan Deiss Russel Brunson Tony Flores John Carlton’s Simple Writing System Samuel Markowitz Amit Suneja UFC Parris Lampropolous David Deutsch Shortcutcopywritingsecrets.com Tim Ferris Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club. Rob: What if you can hang out with seriously talented copy writers and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work, that’s what Kira and I do every week and The Copywriter Club Podcast. Kira: You’re invited to join the club for episode 43 as we chat with email copywriter big Jason Henderson about what he has learned about sending more than a billion emails, creating high performance email funnels, the things you should do with email that the experts tell you not to do, and why your value proposition is the most important element for increasing conversation. Rob: Hi Kira. Hi Jason. Jason: Hi, good to be here. Kira: Great to have you Jason. Jason: Thanks for having me. Rob: Jason, I think we really want to start with your story, but before we get into that, I got to know how big are you? Jason: I’m only about 6'11". Rob: Okay, so not that big then. Kira: Not that big. That’s nothing. Rob: Yeah, why don’t we start with your story. You’re famous for email, tell us how you got started as an email copywriter? Jason: In 1996, I was playing professional basketball in Australia, and it was really laid back so I had plenty of free time and the local universities let me go into their computer labs, so I was just going around and I started with Acl and local businesses, and I started doing email and e-commerce back then. Little did I know, that e-commerce was going to be huge, I should have stuck with it. Yeah, I just started with that and I became ... Have you heard of the about.com brand? Rob: Yes. Jason: So back then, they were the mining company and I was the exercise guy. So they basically worked with us to drive as much traffic as possible, so they were teaching us about building email lists, writing articles, attracting free traffic, and for email all they said was, “You know it’s like having a one on one conversation, so if you can do that, then you can write an email.” And that’s basically all I knew. I was like, “Yeah, I can do that.” I think that’s an advantage for me starting way back then in 1996 because all I had was that one simple statement, it’s like having a one on one conversation, versus a lot of people today, they’re met with a lot of BS and like don’t do this, you can’t do that, and this doesn’t work when basically people are projecting their failures and what they can’t do on everybody else. Like, if I can’t do it, no one can. But I didn’t have that, so I was using personal images, and writing very personal conversational emails. And then in 2006, I came upon MECLABS and MarketingSherpa and that was huge because I’d heard a lot of IM crowd talking about them but when I went and visited MECLABS and MarketingSherpa, I found they weren’t really practicing what they preached. So this last April, was my 12th year going to the MECLABS MarketingSherpa email summit in Las Vegas. I’ve spoken there twice, I’ve taken their email messaging value proposition development, landing page optimization, and online testing certifications probably about eight times each. So that’s where I’ve gotten a lot of my email knowledge, email ideas, and just ability to come into scenarios where companies have done the same promo over and over again for years and it’s stagnating. It’s kind of like an old control that’s getting a little stale, it’s not doing like it used to, and I’ve been able to come in and with different lenses be able to see what other email marketers can’t see. Kira: Okay. So let’s start with the question, some of the copywriters are probably wondering what are most of us doing wrong when it comes to writing an email? Jason: You’re focusing more on the words. You’re focusing on being an email copywriter and not a salesman in print, I would say. Gary Halbert used to say all the time that it’s about what you say, not how you say it. I look at some of my old emails where people are just besides themselves about the results and just the personal conversational tone, and I look back and I’m just, wow that’s ... And as far as like a prose and like “writer” it’s not very good. I was just interviewing [inaudible 00:04:15] one of Gary Halbert’s best protégés and he was remarking about Scott Haines who Gary Halbert called his best student, and he’s like, “Man, I look at Scott’s letters and they’re not impressive, it’s not pretty. But he would go for the jugular, very simple plain english, fourth grade level.” So I think that’s the biggest key right there. Rob: I think a lot of people will say about Gary’s writing too because a lot of the letters that he wrote, they’re not real pretty, they’re very basic and very plain, but well-thought out. Scott, one of the things that you mentioned is that people don’t understand that you’re trying to be a salesman in print in your emails. And then you also said that it’s a one on one conversation. And I think a lot of people might be thinking, how do I square those. We don’t often think of sales as that kind of an intimate conversation especially when you’re pitching to large group. What do you think about that? Jason: What I do is I just project them on mine, there is someone across from me depending on the niche. Sometimes it’s this guy with a beard and he is a redneck, and he’s got a beer in his hand. Other times it’s the guy with the really nice custom made silk suit, and we’re at a boardroom. And other times I’m in the kitchen, I’m sitting on a bar stool with my elbows on a counter and there is a middle aged woman talking to me as she is cooking lunch. Kira: So Jason, to back up, before you have these images, what does your process look like before you can even envision these people that you’re writing to? Before you even start the writing portion, what does that really research stage look like for you? Jason: It’s similar to long period sales letters, you’re interviewing the product expert with the owner. I have find that if there’s partners, that it’s the silent partner that usually has the best info. The lower level employees have really good info sometimes. And one of the first things I always ask is, I want to know if someone replies to an email, where does it go, and I want to see them. If they say, “Okay, we can get you the last week’s.” I’m like, “No, I want to see everything.” Yeah, it’s either a help desk or it’s a regular email with the inbox. I always want to see it, I find that’s some of the best gold right there. And depending on the niche and the products personal blogs, depending on if it’s health related, or something where there is a lot of pain and suffering. Like, I was doing some work for how to protégé and anxiety, and I found some amazing personal blogs where it’s just wailing and gnashing their teeth and talking about their issues. Typically, those types of blogs tend to gravitate towards other people with the same problems. So you got not only the blog writer writing about some amazing language and just writing emails for you, but then you got people replying and commenting they have the same problem. So it’s just amazing to get a lot of fear, pain, anxiety, and issues that you can use for your emails. And then also I find depending on the niche is professional articles because a lot of the time you have these professional writers for either offline publications that are online, or just strictly online publications. And they’ve done a ton of research, they’ve written some amazing articles ... Like I was writing for Survival and this writer basically went out and interviewed this survival proper fundamentalist and he was saying all kinds of crazy stuff like, you know it’s a fact that after seven days both women and children will turn to prostitution. Rob: What? I can’t wait to find a link for that in the show. Jason: So it’s just like gold like stuff like that and really good language even if you’re not familiar with the market. Revolution golf, like I’ve never golfed before and I’ve never taken a lesson,