Living The Red Life - Consistent $$$ Without Ads using The Bullet Method w/Todd Brown

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Todd Brown. A highly respected marketing expert and one of the most sought-after authorities on marketing funnels and direct response strategies. In todays episode he dives deep into "The Bullet Method" for email marketing—a strategy designed to generate consistent revenue and keep audiences engaged without overwhelming them. He highlights the importance of frequent, value-driven emails, debunking the common fear of "over-emailing" subscribers. Instead, he emphasizes that consistent communication keeps audiences engaged and leads to sustained sales, even if some subscribers eventually unsubscribe. Todd shares how repurposing old offers and running them through the Bullet Method can help businesses extend their reach, make the most of each promotion, and avoid the pitfall of letting an email list go dormant.The conversation also explores how the crowded marketplace demands more than just emotional appeals in marketing copy; there needs to be a compelling, evidence-backed argument that clearly communicates the product's superiority and benefits. Reflecting on personal successes and challenges, Todd underscores the importance of providing proof to support claims in marketing and the evolution required to keep up with more advanced markets. The episode wraps up with stories of successful campaigns, emphasizing the power of authentic storytelling and consistent engagement to build trust and drive conversions.CHAPTER TITLES02:00 - Introduction to the Bullet Method for Email Marketing04:12 - The Power of Small, Consistent Sales through Email05:45 - Overcoming the Fear of Over-Selling to Your List08:12 - Avoiding List Fatigue and Re-Engaging Subscribers10:47 - Maximizing Offer Lifetime with the Bullet Email Strategy13:32 - Why Letting Your Email List Sit is a Missed Opportunity14:45 - Success with High-Ticket Offers Despite Unsubscribes15:36 - Email Frequency: Mail More, Not Less17:22 - Why Evidence-Based Copy is Essential in Marketing20:00 - Biggest Wins and Lessons Learned in BusinessConnect with Todd Brown:Todd BrownIG - @toddbrownhttps://toddbrown.me/Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

I've never seen somebody mail too much. I've only seen them not mail enough, especially today when people are inundated. We send an email and we think everybody's opening it. Everybody's reading it. Everybody's making a decision. And it's just not the case. Don't be afraid to mail your your peeps more often. Be more afraid of not mailing them enough, them disengaging with you

and them finding a solution elsewhere because you're not reaching out enough. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. What's up guys, welcome back to another episode

of Living the Red Life. We have more marketing legends on the show today. Todd is here. You probably know who he is, a very famous marketer I've known of him for many, many years. And we, you know, float in these same circles. And whenever we're talking about high level markets, high level tactics, buddy, your name comes up every time. Welcome to the show. Super excited to be with you, man. I'm super excited to be, to be chatting and was so hoping that I was going to get to see you decked out in all of your red. And so like all your red gear, man.

I was so looking forward to that, man. And so love it, but I'm super excited to be here, man. Good, good. Well, you know, I know you have a massive background for many years and in all areas of marks and, but today we wanted to talk about something that I know you're really excited for how you're really making the most of your email list, keeping it healthy, keeping it fresh and maximizing that and your exact strategy to do that. And I was, we were talking offline.

So many of my members, followers, clients, they, you know, they grow a list. And then I'm like, how many times you mail and they're like, oh, maybe once a week, I don't really do much with it. And, you know, you're always like, oh gosh. So, so let's talk within what, what is this email strategy that's been working so well for you? Yeah. So we call it a, a bullet campaign.

The name came about because, um, look, you know, we, my, my business partner and I, we, we sat down and we had this conversation that was like, look, we've paid for this asset. We paid for the email list, right? We've already paid through our, our, our media buying for the acquisition of these leads and we have the opportunity to give them value and monetize them seven days a week. And so we want something that we can fire off every week that gives them the opportunity to get more value and gives us the opportunity to further monetize. And so a bullet campaign is very simple.

One of the things that was really important to me was I wanted to maximize the monetization of our email list as much as possible, but I also didn't want to burn out the list. I wanted to keep the list responsive, right? So I was very sensitive to that. And so we ended up coming up with this very, very simple, but cool system that again we call a bullet campaign.

A bullet campaign really consists of three different components. The first two components are two separate email sequences that are used together. Let me walk you through this. So the first email sequence runs for three days. We call it an interest sequence and basically it is two emails a day, one email in the morning, one email at night, and it runs for three days. Now the whole entire purpose of that interest sequence is to get the people that are interested in learning more about the topic that we have a product for to raise their hand and identify

themselves. We consider raising their hand and identifying themselves a click on the email, a click to get more information. So that click sequence or that interest sequence, which runs for three days, which is two emails a day, is really telling them that, is giving them information about a particular topic. And then the call to action is ultimately for us, usually it is go watch the video for more details about this. And I imagine that subject headline is pretty neutral because you're trying to self-assess from people clicking it. So does it kind of explain what the area of topic is or is it still more? Yeah, so that's a great point, man.

That's a great question. So one thing is that that interest sequence, those emails are not blind. They're not leveraging excessive curiosity or mystery. They're really kind of like, look, you know, it's almost like, look, you know, do you, you know, are your social posts lacking engagement or whatever, right? Like, blah, blah, blah. There's a new and different way to fix that.

Blah, blah, blah. And so the whole aim is that when they click, we know that they're not clicking out of sheer curiosity or mystery. They're clicking because it resonates with them and they want more information. Now, what happens is that that interest sequence will run for three days. If at the end of those three days, somebody does not click, in other words, somebody doesn't express interest, they are taken out of the bullet campaign, they're done. They'll never see the offer, they'll never see anything like that.

What happens when they click, obviously, is they're then immediately removed from that interest sequence. They're immediately taken over to a VSL. Our VSLs now, and this is a little nuance, but it's important, our video sales letters tend to be very education-based driven. They're education-based marketing. And so I'm a big believer in education-based marketing done with the intention of building

value around our solution. And so what happens is they come over to the video, they're able to get more information and ultimately an offer in the end on what it is that we talked about in the email. There is always a dynamic deadline on that VSL. A dynamic deadline meaning right that there's a three-day deadline no matter when they hit the page. So if somebody clicks on email, interest email number one, they go over to the video, there is a three-day countdown. If somebody clicks on the fourth email, which is the second email on day two of the interest sequence, and they go over to the video, they also have a three-day deadline.

So everybody's got the same deadline, no matter when they click on the interest email. So they click on one of the interest emails, they get taken out of that sequence, they go over to the video with um, with a dynamic three day deadline. And that dynamic deadline is what I consider to be the third component of the, um, bullet campaign. Um, and then they get put into a conversion sequence, which is really what I would consider the second component. So you've got an interest sequence, you've got a dynamic deadline

and you've got a conversion sequence. And then the conversion sequence, of course, is only triggered for those people on the house file, on the email list, that raised their hand that identified themselves as being interested by clicking on the link to go get more information. And that conversion sequence is now more about the offer, the benefits of the offer, the benefits of the solution.

And that also runs for three days, very similar to the interest sequence, except on day three of the conversion sequence, there are four emails. And day three of the conversion sequence is more about deadline, scarcity, urgency, that sort of thing. And that simple little system, we have those done, like in other words, so I believe we have about 12 of those done, right, with everything is already, already done. And what we do is we just cycle through them. And so one week we'll release bullet one, you know, week two, we fire off bullet two, three, four, all the way through.

And then when we get to the end, we go back to the beginning and we, then we fire off bullet one and it's amazing how it will continue to generate sales every week, not only from new leads on our house file, but old leads that have been on our house file for at this point for years. Yeah. I love it. So to you clarifying points that I have, and you know, for anyone listening, like how I'm visualizing this in my head is like a free stage, sort of, free stage

growth where stage one is in, you know, just getting them to raise their hand, show interest, so add some value with content. Stage two somewhere in the middle where you're starting to sell, but you're still having these educational VSOs and is targeted to the people that were interested and then stage three, as you more hard sell, you know, direct to offer, back click here to buy, blah, blah, blah, you know, hits a value stack, bonuses, fast actions, all those sort of things. And are they, are you mainly doing these for like, you know, 500,000, 2000 plus offers? Are you doing this for low ticket stuff too? How are you picking this?

So I would say that, yeah, you're a great question, man, and you summed it up perfectly, a lot simpler than I did. I would say that we have these bullet campaigns for the lowest is probably $199, all the way up to maybe $ and so like 1997. And so right in that sweet spot. And what we do is intentionally we mix up the price points. So we're never doing like 2000, 2000, we're doing 2000, 199, right? 997 we're mixing it up so that nobody ever feels like, man, everything I see is always out of my price range.

Yeah. Well, what's pretty interesting too is always out of my price range. Yeah. Well, what's pretty interesting too is over time, you know, say you have a hundred thousand on your list, if you have a, you know, a decent list, you, you, are you applying tags back to the CRM? So you can then, when you launch Facebook ad offers, you can upload like, Hey, 20,000 people that showed interest in social media stuff over the year of running this bullet sequence. Yeah, always. We actually do that. And anytime we share any piece of content, whether like a YouTube

video, whether it's our own YouTube video or somebody else's, or, or, you know, um, we apply a tag in what we call an interest tag so that we know who's expressing interest in what different topics, when, where, all that stuff. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And do you, do you find people on the list over time? And I kind of know the answer to this, but I want to ask it because I, my, my, my common complaint I get from people with emailing is they have this belief. And I guess I did 10 years ago that like people are so scared of spam and

like thinking, oh, they've already seen this offer. And it's like, I try and tell them like, Hey, they see about hundreds of emails a day. They don't see every email you send. So like, what would you say to people that are like in their head, like, Oh, repeating every 12 weeks, people are going to see it again in 12 weeks and get upset at me. Yeah, not even close. Our probably our biggest issue, honestly, our biggest issue is that we get people that buy the same product that they already bought.

They realize. And they're like, wow, I already own this. I didn't even realize. I totally forgot. And so now, man, people have a very short memory. I think that we're obviously so close to our own stuff that we think everybody remembers the email that we sent two so close to our own stuff that we think everybody remembers the email that we sent two weeks ago and nobody remembers, man. Nobody remembers.

I say it's like, you wish you were that, you know, someone's life suddenly went wrong. So true, man. So true. Spot on. And do you ever refresh the, the interest ones, like the first couple or the subject lines or you literally keep it identical every 12 week rotation? I would say that 90 plus percent, we just, we use it over and over and over. The only time that we'll kind of refresh, you know, or make some tweaks is if we weren't happy with the response that we got from the interest sequence. Other than that, 90% are just the

same. Done deal, boom, boom, boom. And I would say that we have had instances where we didn't get a great response to a bullet campaign. We refreshed the interest, we ran it again, we still didn't get a great response. And so we sunset it, we shelve it and then we try to replace it with a new one. And so, but that's rare. Do you find big variability like one whole sequence can flop and only do five grand, 10 grand and some will do 50, 100k or are they all sitting in this, you know, and you don't have to share it Zach because if you don't want, but are they all sitting within a range or are you getting these massive variants?

No, there are definitely some that are, you know, there are some that do a heck of a lot better, you know, I would say, you know, there are some that could do, you know, four X, you know, four times what others can. I think some of that is price point related. Yeah, off of. You know, some of that is a little bit how broad the appeal is versus how narrow it is. But, you know, look, you know, this is not,

it's important to understand, right, that ultimately what we're talking about is just not allowing your email list to sit. And so unless you've got something to do every week, unless you, right, if your choice week, unless you write, if your choice is, well, I'm going to have a gap week and the list is going to sit and see nothing, or I'm going to do this and I'm going to collect whatever the number may be for their business, I'm going to do it because not only is the cashflow important,

but more important is to keep the list engaged. Yeah. And as I always tell people, it's free money, right? And it's funny, I always add a private kind of event with Grant Cardone and it's always stuck with me with him. You know, whether you love or hate him. He said when he, they ran the analytics of their growth con event and most people that bought their 20 K VIP, which is an insane price for a live event, right?

20 K VIP tickets for a live event. Most of them had unsubscribed on his email lists. So, and ever since he told me that I always like to share it because people that fear, you know, too much emailing and unsubscribing, it doesn't always mean they end up unsubscribing and hating you either. They might just know that you're marked in a lot and want to take a break. So yeah, I think it's great how you've built this system. And I think so many people can use it

because they're always wondering what to do. And I think it's a great use of offers too, because we all make so many offers. And probably like a lot of us, we run them on ads for a bit or affiliates, then they kind of phase out and we launch new ones and they're doing better. But now you just can kind of get more lifetime out of those offers.

Yeah, well said. Let me end. Let me let me kind of wrap with this, you know, how this kind of came about, because I think, you know, look, it is a very, you know, it's a common fear that marketers, you know, have like, am I going to email the list too much? And, you know, two things that I would share. Number one, in all the years that I've consulted and coached with a variety of different marketers, from the biggest names to fairly new entrepreneurs, I've never seen somebody mail too much. I've only seen them not mail enough. And what really solidified the value of more frequent mailing,

especially today when people are inundated. We send an email and we think everybody's opening it, everybody's reading it, everybody's making a decision, and it's just not the case. So one of my clients that our mutual friend Rich actually first introduced me to, the Agoura companies, we were having a meeting one day and one of the guy, one of the, like the head Hancho dude shared with me that one of the biggest changes that they've seen in terms of the growth of sales from their email is what they would do is when they would get

their publishers. And so they send out like a daily newsletter every day. And so what he said was we decided that when somebody opted in for one newsletter, we were going to automatically put them on a second newsletter. Now, I don't know the legalities of that, and so don't hold me to the legalities of that. But he said, we put them on a second newsletter. And now they're mailing both of those newsletters separately every day to these people. He said, and we saw a bump. He said, and so we decided let's roll out a third. And he said, we're up to seven different newsletters that we sweep people onto. And it's amazing because they ignore one, they get another, they get another.

And so the point is that don't be afraid to mail your, your peeps more often be more afraid of not mailing them enough, them disengaging with you and them finding a solution elsewhere because you're not reaching out enough. Yeah. No, I love that. Love that. So a couple of rapid fire questions as we wrap up the show today for you. Um, that's been a great session and I love how simple and, um, also successful

that system is and how easy it is, I think, to implement, um, but a couple of more broad markets in business questions. Um, I'll kick the first one off. I, it's probably one of my favorites. What's your most controversial belief around business marketing money that upsets people? So, okay. So great question, man.

So I'm going to stick to marketing. I'll stick to specifically copy. So my biggest belief, and I've believed this for many, many years and live and die by this, that I don't believe that marketing direct response, marketing direct response copy today is salesmanship in print. I believe that too many people rely so much on benefits, benefits, benefits, benefits, and their marketing message ends up being absent of a logical sound argument that proves that they've got a different and superior solution.

And so while everybody talks about marketing and sales is all about emotion, emotion, emotion, while it is an emotion is a key driver, what is absent is that again, that rock solid sound argument that proves with evidence support that you've got a different and superior solution compared to everybody else. I see that a lot. Cause when I, even with my own copy team, often when I review the funnels, I'm like, I'm always going to them like, what's the bridge, what's the magic pill that's going to get them from all this pain and failure and attempts to, you know, what's the bridge to with our solution that's going to change things.

I do feel people miss that too much. And you know, base psychology is I always say why wait watches work, did they want to buy into this magic pill? Right. And yeah, wait. Yeah. And I think to just add, add to that for one second, just this idea that like, look, just because you say it's great,

if you don't provide evidence and support, you say that like, this is great, it works quickly, it's easy, anybody can do it, and you're not giving any support for those claims, what the healthiest way to operate as a marketer is to recognize that people are gonna go, yeah, right. Of course you're saying that everybody says that. How do I give me the evidence, give me the support, give me something where I can

say, yeah, I understand why this is easy. I understand why it's quick. I understand why it's safe. I understand why it's better than those that makes total sense to me. I get it. That's what's missing. I think a big part of that too, is what I teach a lot now is marketplace advancement. 10 years ago, I don't think you needed that as much in most industries.

Whereas now you do because every pretty much every industry, biz off, fitness, weight loss, dating, they've all financed, they've all advanced now. And it's funny because I expanded into Columbia and Latam and South America and it's actually like it was eight, 10 years ago where all those things like we used to do work because they've not progressed as much as you know, on online with funnels and direct response. So it's definitely an advancement too. But yeah, last, last, well said, well said.

Last couple of questions for you. Uh, biggest win or stink you're proud of in your business career and biggest failure and lesson from that? So I'll give you the biggest win. It's not the biggest, it's not the thing that I'm most proud of. The thing that I'm most proud of, I would just say is the, is client stories, which I won't bore you with. The biggest win was probably when, and a lot of this is luck, so let me just say that, right, was when there was a time when a lot of the direct response marketers, they looked at the Agora companies as they were the 800-pound gorilla, everybody was

enamored with them, everybody wanted to know what they were doing, how they were writing copy, all this kind of crazy stuff. And it was right at the peak of that, that this one of my clients from the Agoura companies reached out to me and said, hey, we need some help getting copywriters. We have an idea. We want to take the recordings of our internal copywriting system, the training that we do for these people over like eight weeks. We want to take the live recordings and we want to sell them to the marketplace. And then out of the people that buy, we want to see if we can recruit some good copywriters. Hey, Todd, would you be interested in marketing and selling that for us? And I was like, oh my gosh

Oh, like I was ready to cry with joy because I knew that you know, the market was just the pent-up demand was insane and we did just a really a really cool and very different type of campaign where I flew out to Baltimore and we did like a behind the scenes tour for the day of what they do and how they train their copywriters. And then we delivered that in story format, like text, dialogue, images, some of the audio clips, all that. And the engagement was off the charts, the sales were off the charts, the know, the engagement was off the charts. The sales were off the charts. The buzz in the marketplace was off the charts.

We had them hand number thumb drives. Like it was just, the entire experience was, um, off the charts. And it was, you know, it was really unlike anything I had ever experienced. That's a great, that's a great story and a great, uh, great win. Yeah. I love when the wins on, you know, they're financial, they're like experiential like that. So, and that's really cool. So, all right, well, there you have it guys.

That's the bullet method for emails. So your emails never stop making you money. Todd, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show. Amazing value and I'm sure we'll have you back because there's a million other things we could geek out about. So thank you so much guys. As always, keep living the red light

and I'll see you guys soon.