Month: June 2019

Is The Muscle “kitschy”?

conorkel1 Comment

“Would you jump into a pool without water?  No.  The splash is what keeps you alive.  Splash is life.”

– Gina Linetti, Brooklyn 99

Here’s the story:

When I first hung up my shingle as an email specialist, I was doing some cold calls to drum up clients.  One real estate agent in my area had mailed out a booklet with coupons to some of the neighborhood businesses, which I thought was a great idea.

So I called him up.

I said, “You seem like a guy who’s open to some new ideas about marketing…”

I asked him if he used email, and he did.  But he was more or less doing what every real estate agent does which is to send yawningly dry market updates or only email when they have a new listing.

I suggested we try something different to help him stand out.

Even add some (gasp!) entertainment to spice things up.

His reply?

“I don’t know…that can be kitschy.”

Based on the reaction of my mastermind group when I told this story (it sent them rushing to the Googletionary to look up “kitschy”) I should probably help you out:

Kitschy adj considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality.

“Cheesy” might be a good synonym.

Now…

By no means am I proposing you become the email equivalent of a monkey that plays the accordion.

And you do not need to bowl folks over with your charisma as The Muscle is wont to do (you try keeping a lid on all this animal magnetism).  However, adding “splashes” of personality is one of the key ways we attract interest.

A lot of business owners are scared to death of looking “unprofessional”.  That’s not what we’re talking about here.  Just be a person.  That’s the essence of personality.  Don’t be plain icing.  Add sprinkles of “you” on top.

Retail Marketing Institute recently wrote that 70.9% of customers would STOP doing business with someone and go somewhere else if it was more FUN.

You see, people will say they want to be informed but the truth is they’d rather be entertained.  There’s no amount of information that will make a video go viral.  That’s why your best case scenario is to “infotain” your list with a smattering of both info and fun.

(This is also how you “get away with” emailing more often and “selling” in every email, btw.)

And what of our real estate agent who so wantonly spurned my muscular ways?

I guarantee he’s costing himself sales (and probably a lot of notoriety too).

In the words of advertising legend and original “mad man” David Ogilvy (who the character of Don Draper in Mad Men was based on):

Tell the truth but make truth fascinating.  You know, you can’t bore people into buying your product.  You can only interest them in buying it.

Splash is life.

To add a little sumthin’-sumthin’ to your email campaigns, request your Free Brainstorm Call and dive in here:

http://calendly.com/conorkel/emailincome

Alright, that’s enough pounding the pulpit for one day.

Let’s put an end to this before it gets too “garish”.

Happy Entertaining,

Conor Kelly

a.k.a. The Muscle @ Marketing Muscle

P.S. People sometimes worry I’ll make them sound like “muscle-lite”.  Not so.  It’s about (a) knowing your market and (b) sharing your personality.  And I use a proven system for both.  Here’s a recent comment from a client:

“I am INCREDIBLY impressed with your content…it’s in MY voice, and ACCURATE!!!”

— Stephen Bach, The Digital Docs, thedigitaldocs.com

3 email types that sell better than Captain Picard skull caps at a Star Trek convention

conorkelLeave a comment

Here’s the deal:

One of my big goals this year is list-building.

With that in mind, I’m going to make you a very simple offer today.  If you’re enjoying all the content on this site, I invite you to join my email list here:

https://emailmarketingmuscle.com/optin

And, to “ethically bribe” you to do this right now, if you forward me your confirmation email to conor@conorkelly.com, before tomorrow June 22nd at 11:59PM EST, I will send you a brand new video breakdown I just created…

“Three emails that converted BIG and why”

In the video I’ll break down three of my most successful emails…pull back the curtain to reveal the inner psychology that made them so effective…and explain how you can model them to make more sales today.  You’ll get very specific, very detailed secrets I use to create high-converting emails – pretty much “on command”.

If you haven’t seen one of my video breakdowns, you’re in for a treat.

I do these for clients all the time – often to rave reviews.

Which makes me think I should do more of this type of thing for you.

Note to self.

Anyway, if you currently do anything with email this could be some of the most valuable marketing training you get all year.  Even if you don’t, you’ll still learn a lot.

And the price is right.

Once more:

  1. Get your friend (a legit business owner) to sign up for my list here:

https://emailmarketingmuscle.com/optin

2. Your friend sends me their confirmation with your email in it by Monday June 24th at 11:59PM EST.

3. You get a very rare, kickass email marketing training that you can’t find anywhere else and can use as soon as today to make more sales.

But don’t dilly-dally.

I won’t be making this offer again.

Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Happy Profiting,

Conor Kelly

a.k.a.  The Muscle @ Marketing Muscle

Mirror selfies and the end of civilization

conorkelLeave a comment

Meet Lazar Angelov.

He’s Facebook’s premier Bulgarian fitness model/personal trainer.  I’ve never met him, but coincidentally he trains at the same gym I sometimes frequent when I’m in Sofia.

In “Fakebook” terms, his following is HUGE.

His marketing basically consists of posting wax ‘n tan shirtless pics of himself in various locales.   This daily ab-check garners hundreds of thousands of likes, and thousands of comments.

(Isn’t that one of the signs of the apocalypse?)

Besides foreshadowing our impending doom as a species, it’s a pretty good racket.   He’s got a great physique and a photogenic look which seems to be enough for him to build a fan base he can besiege with his online personal training programs.

So one day I thought, “I can do that,” and figured I’d try the whole ab-domination routine.

‘Twas a mere two mirror-selfies later that I elected to scrap the idea.

Why?

It just ain’t me.

The Muscle don’t play that.

Heck, I never even wear tank-tops in public.

So instead I recommitted to doing it like Sinatra, my way, by flexing my digits against the keyboard of my laptop.  And aren’t you glad I do…

(Newsflash: no one really wants to see gym change room selfies anyway – unless you’re 1. a Jersey Shore reject, 2. a major creeper, or 3. Mark Zuckerberg…see #2).

Not hashing Lazar’s gig.  It works for him.  And the audience he appeals to would rather watch his body talk than read his emails – which I can vouch for having read his emails.

Here’s the point:

Prize poodle though he be on social media’s hierarchy of “hotness”, he still needs to pull people off Facebook (and get their email addy) to sell to them.  And he does.  His posts often include a link to his free report with a call to action.

Unless I miss my guess, based on the size of his following he’s doing a pretty penny selling e-books with badly written emails.  Now if he had good copy…

Here’s point #2:

If you’ve got any kind of consistent traffic, whether it’s a social media following or a physical location that gets foot traffic, it’s quick and easy to build an email list you can nurture to create more loyal customers and a near instant surge in cash flow.  A list that can’t be de-platformed, de-ranked, banished or otherwise taken away from you.

For help with the above, sail the cyber seas to request your Free Brainstorm Call here:

http://calendly.com/conorkel/emailincome

I have but one rule…

No mirror-selfies allowed.

Happy Ab-Checking-In-Private,

Conor Kelly

a.k.a  The Muscle @ Marketing Muscle

What the NBA Finals prove about marketing

conorkelLeave a comment

We can say it now.

Toronto Raptors, NBA Champions.

Yes, Toronto is where The Muscle’s secret lair is to be found.  And yes, this victory pleases me [rubs hands together in a sinister way].  And no, despite the utter bedlam outside my balcony until the wee hours this morning, this will not be about our homegrown (and inspirational) Dinos.

This is about something that concerns you.

Something of BIG significance to ANY business.

Here it be:

Tickets for last night’s Game 6 started at $935.  That’s a cool g-note to sit in the bleachers.  And if you wanted to sit courtside to witness the Raps historic win?  $16K.  And let me ask you…if you were watching…did you notice any empty seats in that arena?

Here’s the point:

THERE IS SO MUCH MONEY OUT THERE.

It’s not even funny.

It undulates like a huge flowing ocean of yachts, sports cars and Prada bags.

And if you’re not getting as much of it as you’d like…

You’re only limited by your imagination.

One of the best business books The Muscle ever done read is Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent. In it, he describes how savvy business people are extracting exorbitant sums of cash from the market, eee gee:

  • Sam’s Club, which sells a $48,000 wine tasting trip to New Zealand – online
  • He describes staying at Disney hotel for $1,800 a night – and notes only two suites were left
  • Dean & DeLuca which offers a three-pound Candy Cane Christmas Cake – $135
  • Love your doggy? Why not pick up a leather dog bed from PostModernPets.com for $1,450

These are just a few of literally dozens of examples in the book (and they get crazier).  Few things will do more for your abundance mindset than to read it (and its companion No B.S Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs).  I’ve read both several times.

Here it is:

Instead of trying to figure out how you can afford to charge less, brainstorm how you can charge MORE, and simply add value.  Money flows toward good offers.

That’s where I come in.

You already do great things for your customers.

My job as a copywriter is to tell that story so we build so much value in your product or service that it becomes a “no-brainer” for folks to do business with you…and to buy MORE, and buy MORE OFTEN.

I’m using more emphasis than usual.

That’s how you can tell I’m passionate about this.

If you’d like to sell a whole lot more of something, more often, or sell it at a higher price, then let’s hop on a no-hassle Free Brainstorm Call to find out if we’re a fit.  You could be a mere sales letter, email campaign, or website critique away from funneling a few swimming pools worth of that money ocean in your direction.

Pay for your New Zealand wine-tasting trip here:

http://calendly.com/conorkel/emailincome

Just book it today as I’m taking projects several weeks out already, and my schedule quickly fills up.

And check it: there is no scarcity.  Especially not when you put the right offer…in front of the right people…using the right words.

Believe in abundance, and abundance shows up.

Happy Wealth-Attracting,

Conor “Louis Vuitton” Kelly

a.ka. The Muscle @ Marketing Muscle

Never do this on your website’s pages

conorkelLeave a comment

Copywriting tip today.

One of the things I’ve been getting a lot of lately is sales page critiques.

In a recent consultation, it came out that one of the owners of the business had some pretty unique experience related to the product they were selling.  In fact, I’d go as far as to say he’s so uniquely qualified to do this sort of thing, that if you were in their market and you knew about him, you’d never consider going anywhere else.

Yet, these credentials were buried at the bottom of the page.

I didn’t even see them at first.

This comes back to what marketing genius and all-time copywriting great Gary Halbert taught about why you must “prepare people to believe”.

You see, we learn that selling is about benefits.

People “buy the hole, not the drill” and all that jazz.  So that’s what many business owners do…throw a bunch of benefits on the page with an order button.

And that can work to some extent.

But without context…your benefits won’t have anywhere near the same ability to tug at your prospect’s wallet.  Per Gary The Great…you’ve got to prepare people to believe your claims.  And until you have their belief, you won’t command their attention.  Your prospect could feel pretty “meh” regarding your offers at that point…a dire situation for any salesperson.

A caveat:

Overdo credibility and it can cost you sales.  There’s a delicate balance to be observed here that the best copywriters know how to push and pull on like a seductive dance.

All that’s to say if you’ve got a sales page you’d like my feedback on, go here to book your Free Brainstorm Call:

http://calendly.com/conorkel/emailincome

I’m currently booking projects three weeks out (so I won’t have time to work on a more detailed critique until at least then)…but if you reply today we can figure out if it’s a fit and get you in the queue.

Yarrrr, that’s all for today.

Powerful lesson she be.

Belief is like oxygen to your copy.

Start with why they should believe you…

And never leave a benefit stranded.

Happy Claiming,

Conor Kelly

a.k.a. The Muscle @ Marketing Muscle