The Newsletter Hack That Skyrocketed Lead Generation with Dylan Bridger

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is the list building lifestyle. The podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my bestselling book, the list building lifestyle confessions of an email millionaire at www.igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus a $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle

00:52

Welcome back to the list building lifestyle. I’m your host Igor Kheifets, and today I’m hosting Dylan Bridger. Dylan Bridger is a chemical engineer turned email marketer who helps coaches and course creators express their unique personalities and make more sales from their email lists. Here are just a few things that we would consider Dylan’s achievements, so he helped seven figure clients scale their email-based revenues by 300%, bumping up their gross sales by sustained 20-30% for two years and counting. He was invited by the Toronto Region Board of Trade, one of the largest and most influential Chambers of Commerce in North America to speak on email marketing and conversion rate optimization on multiple occasions. He helped a high-ticket coach book 130 sales calls with $140,200 in revenue in 90 days by sending one broadcast email a week. He’s attracted by. He attracted a small but mighty audience of 20 992 Twitter followers, and about 1000 email subscribers who regularly buy his own info products and service baits-based offers. Before starting his own business, he was a full-time growth marketing manager for an E-commerce startup. In that leadership role, he developed the company’s paid acquisition and email marketing strategies, helping the startup profitably scale to unprecedented heights within the year. And today, Dylan lives a simple life writing emails for his clients, and teaching others how to get better results from their email marketing. In his spare time, you can find Dylan playing drums or writing songs while chilling with his wife. So, Dylan, welcome to the Lisbon lifestyle.

02:31

Thanks, Igor. It’s nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. It’s been a long time coming. I dropped the ball a couple of times and kept pushing it back. But I’m happy we’re finally doing this plus, you know, fellow Canadians, as well. So that’s always a nice cherry on the top. I originally came across your work by seeing an ad in the newsletter and like a content rich newsletter, which made me kind of wonder, like, how often do you advertise in newsletters? And whether it’s a consistent part of your lead generation strategy?

03:04

Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve been really focusing on newsletter classified ads a lot in the past, like, probably three to four months. So, it’s still somewhat early for me. And I, the reason I do that, and the reason I decided to do that is because the people that I’m going after in terms of clients are really people that are entrenched in things like reading emails, consuming newsletter content, sort of knowing what’s going on among creators. And, you know, I saw that there were some creators that we’re listing, you know, classified ads for what I thought was an undervalued price. So, I did one, I did it one time as an experiment, I just pointed people to a free lead magnet, which is like a case study of mine. And then I have a welcome sequence on the back end of that, that primarily promotes a high-ticket coaching program. And on the first run, it was profitable. So, I was like, okay, that that’s interesting. So, I reran the exact same ad. And that same newsletter, I think, like a few weeks later, and again, similar results. So, I was like, okay, this is good. So right now, what I’m doing is I’m testing out a number of different newsletters, basically, rinse and repeat that strategy and into Q4, that’s, that’s gonna be more or less my, my core traffic focus for driving new leads. And I have like, I think I’ve done two this month, and I got four that I’m planning for next month. And so yeah, I’m kind of doubling down on it, because I feel like it’s a good opportunity right now versus some of the other ad platforms. You know, it’s funny because I’ve been looking at this stuff for a while, I’ve even connected with Scott old Ford, who’s kind of like a dominant force in that space where he’s trying to bring newsletter advertising into the lead gen space. I’m actually really rooting for the guy who didn’t have a chance to connect with him deeper. But you know, I really believe that in the near future, we’re going to see more and more opportunities for list builders to build their list through newsletters.

05:00

And I think that’s great, because, you know, the whole idea that you start off your list building, by attracting people who are already subscribing to other people’s lists and reading them. And in the habit of opening and reading emails, I think that’s amazing. That’s, that’s the whole premise on which I’ve built my entire presence online where I got going, I’ve tried different lead gen techniques. And you know, I’ve really just kept hitting one wall after another. And then finally, when I’ve discovered email drops, where I could get in front of people who are already subscribing to lists, although those were not like content newsletters, necessarily, those could just be very much, you know, just mailing lists, where they get pitched with offers all the time.

05:48

It kind of changed the game for me. And you know, later on, I figured the reason it was a game changer for me is because relatively to what you would pay to get a subscriber from a different media, you’re paying way less. But in addition, you’re getting a much higher quality subscriber, because you run the same ads on Facebook, for example, there’s no guarantee that these people are going to open your emails like I’ve actually done this, I’ve run several different types of traffic to the same funnel, you know, Facebook ads, Google ads, email drops, and a bunch of others, like Pay Per View traffic and stuff like that, you know, Facebook was one of the lowest, it was like at the very bottom of the totem pole, as far as getting a follow up email open. You know, the email open rate on the follow up for those prospects was absolutely atrocious. Yep. Yeah, I’ve heard similar things with Facebook ads. And I’ve kind of seen similarly as well, I initially started growing my list with like Google ads with paid search ads, but you know, it’s a good quality lead, but it’s just, it’s, it’s a lot more expensive versus

06:49

It’s really expensive. Yeah, I mean, I like if someone can afford it, I highly recommend they do it. But it is really, really, really expensive. Absolutely. It is. And what I find with a lot of the like with promoting classified ads, and other people’s newsletter is like, there’s the there’s the hard metrics that you get, but sort of, like you said, with the quality of the subscriber, like, I find that you end up borrowing a lot of the trust from whoever’s referring you, whoever’s while, click, like, which, I mean, there’s two sides of that, like, on the one hand, there’s probably people who perhaps don’t even know it’s an ad. So, there’s that factor. 

07:30

But even for the folks that do know that it’s very clearly an ad, you know, there’s an element of Oh, you are mentioned in this publication, you must be at least somewhat legit, you know, yeah, that’s a good point, like people underestimate the transfer credibility that occurs when somebody with a relationship to that audience of some sort doesn’t have to be a super duper relationship, just the relationship, just familiarity, as a, as a principle, just, you know, transfer that least a portion of that over to you. I mean, this is what the whole concept of affiliate marketing is based on, like when a trusted authority is recommending a product or a service, their conversions oftentimes are much higher than a random cold visitor to the same landing page. And a lot of that has to do with a preexisting relationship, or trust or some kind of familiarity with that particular, you know, affiliate or whoever’s, like, recommending, that’s, that’s a crazy powerful concept. Yeah, so preexisting basically, it’s a, if you haven’t yet, it’s a good idea to just like test out, even just running a small ad, you kind of need to like track down, you might need to, like poke around on people’s websites and see where you can advertise, which is, I guess, the downside of this method versus just launching a Facebook ad or something like that. But if you’re willing to put in that little bit of work on the front end, there could be some opportunity there, I think, yeah, absolutely. You know, your bio said that you now focus on just living a simple life writing emails for your clients, but also a little bit more about that. 

08:56

So, did you basically, that’s what you do for a living these days, you just take over someone’s list, and you start and you manage it? Yeah, that’s pretty much it. So, it could be like a copywriting engagement, where someone just needs sequences, written or ongoing. Emails produced ongoing campaigns week to week.

09:14

And sometimes it’s one off projects, sometimes recurring, but basically, you know, I thought about my, my business and like to me, you know, for better or worse, I want to have a pretty, you know, simple life, like I like I value having lifestyle benefits of, you know, being my own boss, and, you know, the freedom and flexibility to travel when I want, where I want and stuff like that.

09:40

And then, you know, in terms of a more scalable offering. What I’m doing is just gradually at my own rate, building my personal brand, building my own list to release more scalable offers such as mini courses and some coaching programs and things like that. But yeah, the vast majority of my revenue today comes from Um, list management and copywriting services for clients. Okay, cool. That’s, that’s actually a pretty solid gig.

10:08

I know, I know some people who make as much as I mean, some months, like close to 20 grand just managing a list just sending out daily emails. Yeah, yeah. And it’s, and it’s especially good if you can find, like, what I’ve done is like, some of my clients, I’ll work with them for a period of time, sort of prove my worth, prove I can deliver results. And then I’ve managed to negotiate a couple of deals where it’ll be like a mix of a base plus, plus a bonus if I, if I deliver certain tiers of, of revenue, and they’re happy to pay it, because obviously, you’re more scalable offering bringing in more money and your incentives are aligned. So, it can be a really a more scalable offering and a good opportunity for you to, you know, ask a copywriter to do pretty well. Yeah, absolutely. And the other part I love about this as a gig, it really is, you get to, you know, you get to test a lot. Basically, you just get to play around with ideas, and then run different things, different offers, different angles, different positioning plays, and you get to learn what’s working, what’s not working, what sort of campaign structure works better in this and that up. So maybe, I mean, you’re pretty good at conceptualizing what you learn, you’re pretty good at summing it up in, in resources that you share with your list. Perhaps you could share a few, you know, big findings, some So, big things you’ve discovered as a result of kind of diving deep into So, email marketing. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like so, I think a lot of my methodology fundamentally is based on you know, some of the earlier Oh, geez of email, like Ben settle Matt fury, and a lot of these kinds of folks that paved the way for a lot of us. And recently, what I’ve, what I’ve found is like, adding a few twists to that methodology, at the format level, I think it’s, it’s, I’ve noticed some cool things like, for one, it’s like I’ll do like from my own list. And also, for some clients lists, I found good results from really breaking up and pattern interrupting the format. So instead of Oh, yeah, yeah. So, I think one time you replied to one of my emails that did this.

12:13

But basically, I like I did this one email one time where, you know, the first paragraph, instead of being like a, like a traditional paragraph, it basically went all the way down the left side of the screen. So, the first sentence kind of ran down, and then it gradually sort of veered into what was so good. I mean, talk about standing out, thanks, man. A lot of people don’t get that, like people it doesn’t matter if they email or not, they just don’t understand the whole idea that we have, we have a brain that works a certain way. And it really helps like when you’re marketing to study the brain, or at least the way the brain makes decisions in day to day, and one of the things that the brain does quite a bit and very quickly to when you get into an environment of any kind, it starts looking for patterns, and it starts looking for things to ignore.

13:00

So, if you’re browsing the web, where you’re reading your inbox, and everything looks kind of like every other email looks a certain way, you’ll quickly learn to just ignore them. Right? In fact, a lot of people, again, don’t realize this, but the way people check their email these days is not looking for what am I going to read? First, they’re going to scan the inbox and be like, okay, checkbox, checkbox, checkbox, checkbox, delete all these four emails, because I know for a fact, I’m not going to read these, don’t need to read these emails right now. So, if people only understood that, it would make them much better email marketers in the long run, I mean, you obviously get that. And that email was absolutely. I immediately forwarded it to my guy, and I was like, we have to do this. We absolutely have to do this. This is one of the most brilliant things I’ve seen in a while. Awesome, man. Well, that I’m flattered. Thank you for that. And honestly, that email, compared to historical results of mine, that one pulled up very well, it drove a lot of sales. And it also drove a lot of people replying, such as yourself being like, Yo, this is the sickest email ever. So that’s kind of cool. So, like, that could be something you can experiment with. And I think the principle there is like, not only do you want to stand out from everyone else that you’re like competing with, or those whose attention you’re kind of competing with, but you also kind of want to stand out from yourself. Because over time, you know, there’s like banner blindness occurs. And I actually use this email to kind of teach this concept, but you know, if someone constantly knows that your email is a shirt and takes a certain shape that can get boring, so I recommend switching it up. And a really easy variable to test across is it’s just format so short, long, format it like this formatted like that. So that’s kind of one thing I would say. Another big kind of learning. I’ve been discovering a lot lately, especially if you’re selling high ticket programs. And like when I say high ticket that could really be anything above like $1,000, I know that some people charge massive amounts of money, some people less but let’s say anything above say $1,000

15:00

It’s a bit more of a considered purchase than buying like a $99 course. I found that if you have the bandwidth internally to support it, you can get great results by asking people to reply back with one word, and then sort of chase up those deals somewhat manually and in a personalized way, versus just sending people to a sales page or something like that. Now, mind you, like I did, I’m sure there’s probably people who have dialed in and could do that with webinars and stuff. But if you’re struggling to get people to raise their hands for any high-ticket services, or like coaching programs, getting people to reply has been extremely, extremely effective for me. Yeah, yeah. Plus, it’s a few gets you points for deliverability, too, meaning that if people are replying to your emails, after you mass, email them, I mean, even if it’s an opt in list, you’ll still sort of like blasting through a certain type of IP and service, which obviously Gmail understands. Getting replies to emails is a good sign of list health, and therefore you get rewarded for inbox and more, you know, if there’s like a scale from zero to 100 100, being you will inbox every time and zero, you will never inbox never even get to the spam, then, you know, you obviously get a few more points every time somebody replies back through emails, and actually, my buddy, Jonathan Montoya was telling me about how he’s got several assistants, specifically there for that, where he would email his list of like, 80,000 people, and he would be like, deliberately asking them to respond, so then he can actually reply back.

16:48

So, his team would go in and reply back to keep the conversation going to further develop that deliverability. And then he’s getting crazy, high open rates. I mean, he shared that I think he’s been getting like 40 plus percent on an ad 1000. I mean, something just ridiculous out of this world. Ridiculous, you know, very cool. Yeah, definitely, definitely has that benefit. And like people, some people just like having a conversation before they buy, right. And even if it’s just over email, and like, it also gives you as the seller, the advantage of if someone replies, and they have, say, like a, like a corporate domain, or their business domain listed, then you can, you can kind of make your So, subsequent touchpoints a bit more personalized to them, because you can check out the website and whatnot. 

17:20

So, yeah, that’s something that I’ve done. That has been a bit of a breakthrough. And I would recommend, especially if you have a smaller list, I find that’s a really good way to, to shake some big numbers out of it. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So, what industries or niches did you work in? Like in this capacity so far? Yeah. So, it’s, it’s funny, I sort of like to position myself.

17:45

I think because of like, what I’m maybe interested in and like, with, like, coaches, and course creators, so basically, anyone that’s like a personal brand expert, and who needs to, like, you know, needs to generate trust, through like storytelling-based emails to sell either a course or a, or a coaching program. So that’s kind of what I’ve done. But to be honest, like, my clients are the ones that actually hired me to like, fully, like manage their lists and stuff like that a lot of them are. Well, one of them, for example, is like, in the industrial, they sell, like industrial chemicals. So, they’re more of like an ecom, or an econ that plays business to business.

18:28

So that’s been an interesting, that’s been an interesting client. And then you know, I also work with like, there’s like an executive coaching partnership is another one of them. But what I’ve found is a lot of a lot of kinds of individuals, solopreneurs, who, you know, maybe don’t have massive lists, maybe don’t have massive budgets just yet. For them, what I’ve done is like, I do more coaching, so I sort of teach them how to fish and help them figure it out. But then I am able to save time, and thus give a bit of a price break by, by not actually, like custom writing all the copy. So, the majority of my life coaching clients that I help fit in this sort of like, coaches or solopreneur bucket, whereas those who actually hire me outright, it can be everywhere from software EUCOM and, and also that same profile, interesting. What’s it like to write emails for a chemical company? It’s kind of funny because like, my background in chemical engineering, so like, I went to school for that. So, it’s kind of funny that I ended up like, they were actually one of my first clients that I sort of landed in this capacity. So, it’s kind of funny how that worked out just sort of randomly, but it’s, it’s pretty good. Like, we take honestly the same principles that that I’m sending when I’m sending my So, own list emails every you know, pretty much every day now, which is just like, you know, personality, bit of like infotainment, like you said and then and then you know, pitch for the product. It helps with that particular industry, frankly, because it’s pretty much a lot of these buyers, they just do it to like repeat buyers, there’s a big high repeat buyer rate.

20:00

So, I think and that’s like maybe a tip, if anyone in your audience is listening and they and they’re considering, you know going and like offering a service like mine is that if you can, if you can align yourself to a client that will do pretty well with or without you, that’s a really good bonus for yourself. Because you know, it’s much easier to come in and sort of pour fuel on a fire than it is to rub two sticks together to try to start a fire. No, that’s absolutely true. Anytime I work with anyone who, who we actually do have a program, where we teach people how to do this for a living and you know, one of the criteria, they have to be making at least six figures a year. Otherwise, it’s going to be very hard for them to justify keeping you no matter how well you do. No matter how well the emails you write, no matter how great of a sequence you’re going to build, no matter if you’re gonna fix their email deliverability, they have to be making decent money for them to be able to say something like, hey, I’ll pay you 234 grand a month to manage my email list. Because I know how important that is for my company. And just because it makes a lot of sense. Because of all the free time you’re free now, because of all the extra money you’re going to be bringing in. Plus, if they’re making six figures, or multiple, six figures, preferably one good campaign will cover your cost as a freelancer, write to that company, and then some. So, keeping you will not be a no brainer.

21:27

Like they’ll they won’t have to keep convincing themselves that you know, that they should be keeping you for one more month or, or something like that. Yeah, absolutely makes things a lot easier when, when it’s a solid business, a solid offer, you know, it just makes things a million times easier. Yeah. So, writing emails for other people. And then also, obviously, I can tell you’re, you’re gearing up to do your own thing as well. It’s quite clear that you seem to be enjoying the coaching side of it, too. Yeah, I am. I like that. So, what do you enjoy more? writing emails, or coaching about writing emails? Yeah. Like, if, to be honest, I think if I’m being really honest with myself, I think I prefer working with people and helping them learn how to do some or all this stuff themselves, or helping them you know, get unstuck in one capacity, which I know for a fact from my own journey will just make their whole, you know, the rest of their career in this field a lot easier.

22:33

You know, so what I, what I really need to do is, and I need to keep building that out to make it you know, like sustainable for me for the kind of life I want to lead. And, you know, the other part of it is like, it’s, it’s a pretty good gig, if you can get like a small roster of good clients that, you know, keep you on retainer for a while, and that can really sustain that. But I think long term, I would like to, to be in a position where I at least have the option to phase out or even more reduced down the amount of done for you work I’m doing and focus all in on my on my own business, whether that’s specifically you know, like teaching email marketing, or whether it’s something a little bit different. But yeah, I just find it really rewarding, like working one on one with people or not even one on one, but helping people figure this out, because you see the light bulbs go off. And it’s really cool. Yeah, I can relate to that. Over time, I did kind of move away, though, from the idea of working one on one.

23:32

Because if I just, I mean, if you think about time and productivity, your impact is much more limited on a one-on-one basis. Although there’s some you know, there’s some professions where I would only do one on one work, if I’m honest with you, like if I were to be like a therapist or something, right, I’d only do one on one work, because trying to conceptualize and generalize things for people in that department is never going to be effective. Plus, most people have so many, you know, spider webs between their ears, that they themselves cannot navigate it unless someone’s in the room with them, you know, helping them through it. And I know because I’m pretty good at this kind of stuff. As far as figuring out my own bullshit and my own biases and things like that. And even though I’m pretty good at this stuff, and done years and years of all kinds of self-development work, I still wasn’t able to fully free myself from a lot of my deepest you know, most deep-rooted BS until I got like a really good

24:40

I don’t even know what to call them. They’re not really a therapist, but they’re like a person who I worked with one on one and they could really guide me through it. They could call me out on my bullshit, you know, they could really control the frame so to speak. So that’s deep-rooted and really powerful. But with you know, teaching people how to write emails, doing that kind of stuff I what we steer to

25:00

Boards group because, you know, we just end up impacting way more lives in a group environment. But that is neither here nor there. I actually want to shift gears and talk to you about storytelling. So obviously, that sounds like your specialty, which is really weird for a chemical engineer doesn’t sound like a very creative type of profession. Storytelling is obviously extremely powerful. You don’t need to tell people that everybody understands it. We’ve been passing information in story form, since the dawn of time, since the cave people tell us maybe a few things that you found to be effective in storytelling, maybe how you learned it, how you became proficient at it, and maybe how somebody who’s a beginner who’s only starting to write their emails can deep-rooted improve their skill set in that department? Yeah, absolutely. So, I think like with storytelling, one thing I’ll say is that like, when I started taking, you know copywriting more seriously and stuff and really sort of dove headfirst into this field of persuasion, copywriting.

26:12

I had a tendency to look up like, all these like storytelling frameworks, and all this stuff, like how to tell good stories. And so, I’m not dismissing that at all. But what I’ll say as a word of caution is that it can sometimes be more complicated than just telling a story, as you’ve always known to tell it. So that’s kind of one, I guess, tip I would say is that there’s you could definitely go down the rabbit hole of like, all these different frameworks, and a lot of them are proven, a lot of them definitely work. But in my experience, what I’ve found to be the most sustainable, the most enjoyable, and frankly, generated the most revenue results for myself, and some of my clients’ lists is real time storytelling. So, like, for example, I do something like something I’ll do in both email and Twitter, or x, I guess it’s called now is like, just did this thing. So, like something within the past 24 hours, and you’re just kind of reporting on it. So, it’s like, I just did this. This is how I did it. This is what I learned. These are almost like these little mini So, like vignettes that are like short stories, right? That I feel like if you are kind of, if you approach storytelling from like, what happened today, sort of a perspective, people can sort of feel the news factor of it, which is perhaps a bit more strategic than it is tactical. But I guess if I had to, like, break that down into a tip, it would be like, what did you learn, and it can be something in your business, it doesn’t need to be this big, epic, you know, emotional journey necessarily. That happened today.

27:47

That’s something that’s helped me a lot and allowed me to get some momentum with it. Another thing is just to kind of be aware of how you naturally like to persuade how you naturally tell stories. And this is something I learned from I sort of took away and it was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me when I’m Perry Marshall. He talks about how different people persuade in different ways. So, some people are more logical, some people are more emotional. And how if you kind of play into your natural DNA, I feel like you had something to say, there you go.

28:23

I actually do but I want to let you finish your thought. Okay. Sure. Yeah. So long story short, if you lean into your natural way of communicating, expressing and persuading people, you’ll tend to have better results than if you don’t, or at least that’s kind of how I interpreted it. So, yeah, okay. Yeah. So, yeah. So, with that being said, like, like you said, like storytelling, a chemical engineer. The truth is, it’s like, I’m a little bit analytical, I’m very analytical. I’m very logic minded. So, when I’m telling stories every single day in my emails to my list, I just let that shine. I don’t try to muscle that. I don’t try to be something I’m not for, for better or worse. And I find that when I do that, I get the best results. And I’m the most motivated to continue.

29:13

Maybe this copywriting one on one but no, it’s So, a very interesting angle. I’ve never heard the phrase different people persuade in different ways. And I certainly cringed a little when you said that some people are more analytical on the convincing side or persuasion side and some are more emotional. I understand what you mean.

29:38

I want to offer my perspective on this. So, my background is also engineering. I graduated from the Israeli Air Force Academy as a junior engineer and electronics. So, obviously it’s also the army where you’re not really encouraged to think creatively in any way.

29:56

So naturally, I was very analytical, getting into it as well. And I think the only analytical part of my previous life that helped me out in copywriting was the fact that I learned to establish templates and patterns. Meaning that I started seeing copies of very mechanical things, headline, sub headline opener, bullet points guarantee rights, all of a sudden, they see these building blocks, and I can put them together into a salesman. Same thing with email, there’s an opener, there’s something else something else there’s the ADA formula, right? attention, interest, desire, action. So those made a lot of sense to me. But for many years, I really was not great at appealing to people’s emotions. And I was very much a logical thinker and kind of writing in a very logical way. And it served me to an extent, my business really started booming and my conversions really skyrocketed when I started focusing on the emotional appeal of things. And when I’ve learned this one concept that really changed everything, like the whole game, I believe it was when Mark Manson wrote the subtle art, the subtle art of not giving a fuck, but actually read that book is basically a bunch of his articles in the book, as but I was reading Mark Manson before the book, and there’s one article where he spoke about how every decision that we make everything, literally everything, even the food we eat, is an emotional decision, and how we’re really good at covering that decision with logic to justify it with logic, if you will.

31:36

And so, when I realized that and they really hit me, when I was reading Mark Manson’s material, I started paying attention to the underlying emotional drive of why suddenly, people do what people do, especially when they do something stupid.

31:56

And I started studying the side of persuasion that did not revolve around logic, but rather revolved around emotion. However, later, I also balanced it out with understanding that for every emotional decision, you also have to create a logical environment where that decision where they can act on the decision, you know, and there’s been many books written about the different drivers for so, people’s actions. For example, there’s one book called Who am I, and it explains 16 different things. It says that we do things because we want power, number one, power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving on their idealism, social contact, family, vengeance, romance, eating, physical activity, tranquility, then there’s another book that that basically calls out, don’t remember that the books name, I just have it down in my notes here, that calls out four big categories, self-preservation, romance, money, and recognition, where self-preservation focuses on health, security, protection of yourself and your family, keeping what’s yours, and living forever. Romance deals with sexual desire and attraction, the future promise, romance of any kind, like adventure, things like that. Money deals with desire to have money, desire to not lose money, and specifically all of it very quickly, and recognition is all about, you know, us doing things to get noticed, to be loved by other people. And usually, that involves parents and, you know, people we’re trying to impress the boss, whatever. So, if you understand these as a core driver that drives everything, and then we layer on top of these, the logical arguments, then it clicked for me, then it may allow me to become a much better copywriter, and much more subtle copywriter, too. Because, you know, sometimes I would just especially in the very beginning, like, I would get a ton of these swipe files. I don’t know if you ever do this, but I collect a ton of swipe files, right. So, if I can find anything, even if it’s from like, 1897, I’ll still keep it.

34:26

I would go and I would just swipe it word for word. Right? And I would be very direct, because the less the market is evolved, the more direct you can be about making those claims, right. But the more the market evolves, the less direct you can be about the claims. And then you have to find these subtle ways to get people into action. It’s really hard to come up with very specific examples at this point. I’m just saying that.

34:53

I don’t think you can get by with just logic when it comes to persuasion. Because what happens is even if you only use logic, the logical things you’ll say, will trigger emotion in your readers. And they’ll be driven to act because of the emotions they experience. And I was just talking about this on the coaching call later today, earlier today with my group, and somebody asked me these great questions like something along the lines of like, do I like to use negative talk in my copy to motivate people or positive talk?

35:26

And I spoke about how I copy, I actually love two things. One, I love building curiosity. I think it’s such an underrated and so powerful of a driver. It’s crazy. And the other thing I love to do is make people angry. I love making people angry, obviously not as myself but rather together to be angry together at somebody else, preferably somebody who I can sell against, right. So, for example, for many, many years now, I’ve been selling against Facebook, meaning that I’ve been preaching building an email list of impeaching paid media, I’ve been preaching, not giving money to Facebook, not building a social media following, not wasting time and building your fan page. And so, Facebook becomes this big enemy. And now me and my audience can be angry at Facebook together, every time I’ll tell a story about you know, losing my ad accounts or being shadow banned or whatever, you know what I mean? Absolutely, I think it’s great, I think it’s a very effective way to sell. Well, it truly, truly is, what is your go to?

36:30

In storytelling or in anything really? Like? What is your style? For persuasion? Yeah, good. Good question. And I don’t, I don’t have a formal answer to that off the top of my head. But I like what you said about, like, curiosity, I think is, is a really good one. So, I like to, I like to just hook people in with something that’s going to be, you know, fascinating to them, but seems a bit weird. So, something is a little bit off. And then you kind of get them reading. And then basically you want to, I felt pretty good results. If I kind of deliver one little dose of like a useful tip or tidbit or insight or like takeaway from a short story. Like you said, ideally, something that there’s definitely some degree of emotionality. in it. Even if it’s just like a quick win I had or like, a quick win one of my clients had or something like that, something that might get people excited. And then using that as So, a little bait to be like, you know, if you like that thing, you know, click over here and you know, inside the product, specifically here, you know, you can you can get the full the full dose that you just started kind of consuming in the free angle.

37:45

So that, you know that that comes out, I guess like you said, the So, emotion, the emotion of curiosity. Honestly, I think, um, it also depends, like, if I’m running my own list for myself, it’s a different approach, then, then, of course, if I’m, if I’m running it for, for someone else, right. But like for myself, for my business,

38:09

I found it consistently showing up and just allowing my personality to really shine, even if that personality is like some nerdy analytical dude. And then, and then, you know, try and try to share things that allow people to take that that one next step, and then being like, you know, constantly saying, if you want to, if you want to go, you know, the full solution here, here’s how you get it, and pitching it. So hopefully that kind of answers your question. Maybe So, it didn’t you.

38:37

I, giving them a bit of a taste and then inviting them to So, to explore more definitely generates that curiosity. It’s not the sort of answer I was looking for in terms of the subtle persuasion technique.

38:51

And I can appreciate the fact that you just never had to sit down and conceptualize it for sure. Also, same for me, if I’m writing a copy for somebody else, or helping a friend with their webinar, it’s different, it’s almost like I don’t put brakes on it. Like with my own stuff, I noticed I will, I will be putting one foot on the gas, one foot So, on the brakes, we’ll be triple checking every claim really trying to not say anything, that would be way too out there. Not to push too much, right? I was building this webinar, where I was basically selling another coach, so to speak, dude, it’s like, it’s like someone just cut my brakes off completely.

39:37

And I felt so free and I and I were pitching like, you know, like, I’m like, I’m a used car salesman, and I say it like it might sound very bad. Like a used car salesman doesn’t really have a good image. What I mean by that is, I didn’t I didn’t like holding back on So, making a claim. I didn’t sound apologetic and so, sell off the back of my heels. I just went on for Long, you know, really with full confidence and it was so freeing as an experience. And I remember discussing this with an ex-agora copywriter, and who actually kind of like you made a transition. So, I know you didn’t give up clients altogether. But he was in that moment when he was transitioning from client work, to starting his own newsletter. And I asked him, “How is it for you? What’s more challenging, writing a copy for you, or writing a copy for a client?”

40:33

And he said that writing a copy for himself is by far the most challenging thing he’d ever done and writing a copy for a client is so much easier. What if What about you? Yeah, I could totally, totally agree and relate to that statement. Like, I think I might even mention this to you once in passing, when we were organizing this show, like impostor syndrome is, is definitely something that I struggle with. You know, and, and this sense that I can look at someone else’s offer, I can look at someone else’s personal brand, I can look at their credibility, you name it. And like you said, I have no problem highlighting all that stuff, I have no problem shamelessly promoting what you know, a good product to be promoted to a market that wants it. But when it comes to myself, I definitely have my own email list. I have one foot on the pedal, one foot on the brake, and it’s something I do need to break through. Because it’s, it’s definitely costing me you know, and it will continue to cost me. But it’s so true, right? Like, it’s so easy for me even just to look at people and give them advice. And then look at myself, and my wife sort of teases me about it, because I’ll be like, I’ll be like, I’m struggling with XY and Z. And then she’ll just say to me, what would you say to your clients? And then I’d be like, oh, I probably say, you have this problem. You know, you have an offer problem. And she’d be like, there you go, there’s your answer.

41:51

Or whatever it might be that day. So, it’s a classic. It’s a classic, what do they say? Do as I say, not as I do? You know what I mean? Yeah, but I’m slowly trying to force myself to build better habits, right? So, it’s like the past 30 days. Yeah, just over 30 days, I’ve started like, Finally, mailing my list pretty much every day. And sure enough, just like I’ve told past clients, the results, sales wise and so, responsiveness have validated that that was a good decision and a good thing to do. So, you know, really trying to dislike focus on what I can control and, and, you know, use these opportunities that I’m working with clients to continue getting better and better and better, you know, really take this craft seriously. You know, you just give me a lot to think about in terms of like, that emotion that is stacking that logical layer on top of the emotion. So, so thanks for that. And like, maybe that’s a blind spot in my own work right there. Right. So yeah, it’s a really advanced concept that took me years to understand so it’s not like it’s going to jump at you obviously. Yeah. I mean, I’m sure at one point or another, my copywriting mentors told me that it’s all about emotion. They just weren’t ready to hear the truth. 

43:08

But, you know, as what I love about the whole craft, of writing, emails writing copy in general, I’m very, I’m a big fan of writing copy, because I don’t understand what can be better than putting words on paper, whether it’s digital paper, or paper so, and you send it to people, and they send you money in return. It’s magic. I don’t know. Nothing’s better than that. It’s just amazing. So, for me, I’m fascinated with everything to do with copy. I’m fascinated with language patterns you can be using and fascinating with human psychology. I’m fascinated how can somebody take a glance at a page with 24 pages of copy, not read a single word, just take a glance at it, take a lens of the headline, and of the offer and just buy right away, you know, something for like 500 bucks. I’m fascinated with core drivers as to how people make buying decisions as well as the decisions to use what they buy, because, you know, oftentimes, the mere purchase of a product is very different from actually using it. For example, I remember Dan Kennedy giving this talk about a fitness company that was selling this device kind of like an elliptical or treadmill or something like that. And they had crazy high refund rates. And you know what they figured out they actually, they didn’t change their copy, they didn’t change anything at all. What they’ve done is they went to the manufacturer and they said, the handles currently the handles on the device are pointing down. Right so you kind of hold you can hold here or here. We want you to flip them. Now we want the handles to be pointing up.

44:44

Okay, okay. Now with that it immediately slashed their refund rate, like noticeably. Now you know why? You would never guess I don’t know. Because so, when the handles are pointing down. People would throw their clothes on the device and it’ll slide down on the floor.

45:06

A fitness device like $1,000, right? The difference between somebody returning it or not returning it is whether the shorts or the clothes in their bedroom will hang out or not. Isn’t that crazy? That’s so fascinating. And like, I’m not surprised, but I have at the same time. That’s crazy. That’s cool. Yeah, like when you hear the gears like, yeah, it makes perfect sense. But at the same time, when you sell it, though, you don’t think like that, right? Don’t think that you think oh, they’ll look at my device. And they’ll be like, oh, it’s made of carbon. Oh, it got this engine? Oh, it has 15 speeds and you know, 7.5-inch incline. You don’t think, oh, they’re going to be throwing their clothes at it?

45:49

You know? Yeah, it’s easy to have, like, What’s the expression like rosy colored glasses when it comes to how people are going to consume your products, especially courses and stuff. But also like, same applies to your copyright, you assume that people are reading your emails diligently, slowly, maybe from a desktop, but the truth is, is people are just so inundated and now more than ever, that it’s good to like sort of plan for the worst and, and it’s a pleasant surprise if someone’s really paying attention. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Hey, we’re getting we’re running out of time. So, if somebody’s listening to this, and they want to sign up on your newsletter, to learn from you about email, Mikey, especially their culture consultant, as well as if they wanted to hire you to manage their list or do any kind of one-off work, where can they go? Yeah, so the best bet would probably be going to dylanbridger.com. So that’s dylanbridger.com. Or if you’re on Twitter or x look me up there at Dillon underscore Bridger. And if you go to my bio link on Twitter, you’ll see a link to my opt-in page where you can get on my email list and on my website. There’s also an option as well. So that’s the best place to find me. All right, there you there you have it guys, the link will be in the show notes on listbuildinglifestyleshow.com website. So, Dylan, thank you so much for spending this hour with me. Appreciate it. And until next time, we’ll chat.

47:22

Thank you for listening to the list building lifestyle, get access to the previous episode’s transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, remember to claim your free copy of my bestselling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list building starting from scratch. Plus, I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com now to claim your free package