I’ve seen young people do a lot of things to try to gain some level of clout on social media.

Doing trendy TikTok dances, life-threatening challenges, pranks that are pretty much considered harassment.

But until a few days ago, I’ve never seen anyone do this:

Faking a medical disorder for social media clout.

Specifically, one special individual who pretended to have Tourette syndrome.

Yes you read that right.

I never thought I’d see the day where faking disorders would become a social media trend, but it is what it is.

Seeing that makes me glad I don’t spend much time on social media anymore.

I deleted my Instagram and Twitter account.

Never bothered to try TikTok.

I still have Facebook and LinkedIn, but I no longer have their mobile apps installed on my phone making it inconvenient for me to use the platforms. As a result, I only spend a maximum of five minutes a week, sometimes every two weeks on them.

Nowadays, email is pretty much my version of “social media,” which is conveniently on-brand for me (Being an email copywriter).

But going back to social media trends:

I truly believe those who piggyback on trends to gain clout aren’t going to get what they want. Time has shown again and again that whatever trends emerge will disappear just as quickly. And when these people build a following through trends, they’re building a fanbase on a flimsy foundation. Unless they capitalize on the momentum, it’ll only be a matter of time before they’re forgotten.

And yes, it is possible to build a fanbase, or customer base if you want to speak business terms, through email. I’ve seen other people do it, and I’ve seen the progress for myself too (Slowly but surely).

If you want to learn more about that, check out my email copywriting book.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

-Ellisen

Not necessarily for the pleasure of rewatching the movie, but for different reasons.

Regardless, I still enjoyed rewatching it.

And there is no doubt that Forrest Gump is one of the most beloved fictional characters in America.

The man may have an IQ of 75, but he has a lot of other characteristics that make up for it.

He’s one of the fastest runners anyone has ever seen. He outran his bullies, even when they chased him with a car. And nobody was able to pin him down in football games.

The man is brave. When he was in the military, he rescued a fellow soldier and friend, Bubba, minutes before an airstrike.

He’s a gazillionaire from his successful shrimp business and his investment in “some kind of fruit company,” which turned out to be Apple. Then he donated a lot of his money to his church, a hospital, and Bubba’s mom.

But one thing I especially admire about him is that he’s really good at intensely focusing on one thing.

Which is probably the one thing that contributed to all his successes, especially ping-pong. The man never kept his eye off the ball like a cat hunting its dinner.

And since his IQ wasn’t the highest, even the most boring tasks were stimulating for him, which I’m guessing helped him a lot with his intense focus.

Which leads to a valuable lesson.

When you focus on one thing, or one skill, for a good amount of time, you’ll improve and find success in it relatively quickly.

Which is one of the many reasons why I fully support writing and sending emails everyday.

And if you want to learn more about that, go to the link below.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

If your copy is boring, your readers will have a hard time paying attention. And when they stop paying attention, the chances of them doing what you want them to do drops to zero.

And there could be many reasons why they get bored. Maybe what they read isn’t relevant or the copy sounds too textbook-y.

But I’ve never heard someone ask what boredom actually is. And while I can just copy and paste the dictionary definition of it and call it a day, that just won’t be fun.

I watched a video where a Polish professor, Mariusz Finkelsztein, was being interviewed about the feeling of boredom.

But then one question was raised:

Is there any value in boredom?

Actually, there is, and that’s when he said this:

“Boredom is a valuable signal that something should be changed, that we should reflect over our lives, our experiences, our involvement in the current situation and change something.”

I heard from some copywriters that when they would write sales letters, they would ask a target potential customer to read it and let him or her know when they start feeling bored, then adjust from there.

One of the most popular YouTube content creators, MrBeast, would do something similar.

Before he would publish a new video, he would show it to a handful of people. And those people would let him know which parts of the video felt boring, then those parts would get removed.

These two examples show that boredom can serve as a feedback mechanism, which can show you the parts of your copy that needs to be tweaked in order for it to improve.

So to do one final add-on to what boredom is, it’s not necessarily a negative feeling. Like everything in life, for every negative thing, there’s an opposite, positive side to it.

But speaking of copy, if you want to learn email copywriting, go to the link below.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

Baskets were useful, but they were limited to people’s strengths. Meaning, before shopping carts, people would typically end their grocery shopping trip once they felt their basket was starting to get a bit too heavy to carry. And Sylvan Goldman, inventor of the shopping cart, noticed that when he was watching customers in his grocery stores.

So he asked one of his employees to create a makeshift shopping cart. He was hoping that if the weight of items weren’t an issue, people would shop longer.

But no one was interested at first. They stuck with what they were already familiar with, grocery shopping with a basket.

So he did two things:

1. He hired decoy shoppers to use the shopping carts to demonstrate how convenient it is to the actual customers.

2. He had an employee greet and offer shopping carts to every customer that walked into his grocery store.

Pretty soon, shopping carts caught on and became a normal part of the grocery shopping experience.

But this goes to show that you don’t always need to use persuasion tactics to get people to do certain things. Sometimes doing one demonstration is enough to push people over the edge.

That’s why food sampling and product demonstration sessions work.

There are a number of ways you can demonstrate your own products and services through email as well.

Some of which you may already know.

Testimonials

Results

Videos

Even demonstrating your own knowledge can be helpful as well.

But regardless of which one you choose, you still need to present it in an interesting and engaging way, which How to Become an Email Titan can show you how to do.

To get a copy, go to the link below.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

What is copywriting?

According to American Writers & Artist Institute (AWAI), “Copywriting is the process of writing persuasive marketing and promotional materials that motivate people to take some form of action, such as make a purchase, click on a link, donate to a cause, or schedule a consultation.”

It’s an accurate definition, but I believe it can be taken to a higher level.

So, two things I want to mention:

Back in November, the month I started the full-time position I’m working in right now, I was in a one-on-one copywriting training session that was led by the Head of Marketing.

And if I remember correctly, some of the things we discussed was the persuasion aspect of copywriting, including Robert Cialdini’s Influence book, the B2B Elements of Value Pyramid, and the emotional power of words.

I’ll come back to this later, but here’s the second thing.

I was listening to an interview with the #2 most viral YouTube content creator of 2020 in the world, who goes by MrBeast, where he shared his thought process on maintaining his virality on the platform. And he mentioned these main points:

1. Understand that at its core, YouTube wants their users to click on a video, watch it, and click on more videos to watch.

2. How to properly meet and exceed your viewers’ expectations.

3. How to eliminate every single dull moment in your videos

But there was one golden sentence that he said, which was, “When you’re studying the YouTube algorithm, you’re essentially studying human psychology.”

There are a lot of guides on how to “hack” or “beat” the YouTube algorithm and most of them don’t talk about what MrBeast talked about in his interview.

Similarly, when it comes to email marketing, people always want to figure out how to increase their open rates, click thru rates, etc. But I find it interesting the way people talk about it, as if it’s zeros and ones. If you think about it, it almost sounds as if people think they’re playing a game of logic and forget that there are actual human beings opening the emails.

“If you use this word in your subject line, you’ll increase open rates.”

“Here are 53 subject lines that are proven to boost open rates.”

“Add social sharing buttons to increase your click thru rates.”

Instead, why not ask, “What subject line would get my subscribers to stop everything that they were currently doing and open my email?”

Notice how that question makes you think about your audience. Likewise, going back to the copywriting training session, the discussions about Robert Cialdini’s work, the B2B Elements of Value Pyramid, and the emotional power of words all boil down to one thing.

And that’s when I brought up to the Head of Marketing that I believe the definition of copywriting is essentially the study of people.

Hopefully, this’ll help you see some new perspectives when it comes to your own marketing.

And if you want to learn more about email copywriting, click the link below.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

1. I was in a job interview where the interviewer pulled up my website during the call.

2. She looked at my opt-in page and gave unsolicited textbook copywriting advice to improve it.

3. She gave advice without asking questions to get to know the full situation.

And I’m bringing this up again because there’s something that I wanted to mention, but forgot to include.

So here goes:

One of the things I’m starting to realize more and more as I’m going through my freelance copywriting journey is that you can write however you want.

I’ve been observing a handful of personal brand businesses for a while now, and I’m not talking about businesses that teach how to build your personal brand, but businesses where the owner is the face of the brands.

One thing I noticed is that everyone has their own style of writing when it comes to their website, emails, sales letters, and products. Their styles are so distinct that I can read something and have enough confidence to say, “Oh, this is written by so-and-so.”

But there’s a catch.

In order to have that amount of freedom to write the way you want, you still have to learn, retain, and master the fundamentals, which is a commonality that every personal brand businesses share. They understand the principles of writing good copy.

To put it into another perspective:

Jordan Peterson, love him or hate him, is a pretty intelligent and articulate man.

He once said, and I quote:

“Before you can develop any true freedom, you must submit yourself to some intense disciplinary process for some period of time. But the consequence of submitting yourself to the discipline is that you become disciplined; and once you become disciplined, you can emerge from the disciplinary structure as someone who is free.”

To expand on that, when you’re in that intense disciplinary process, you’re still a beginner so there are going to be moments where you’re going to have a hard time understanding certain concepts, have mental blocks, make a lot of mistakes, and so it’s going to be boring and extremely frustrating, which is why a lot of people would much rather learn the fun, advanced stuff than study the fundamentals. But once you get past that phase, that’s when the fun really begins.

And I’ll leave it at that for today.

If you want to learn the fundamentals of email copywriting, go to the link below to get a copy of How to Become an Email Titan.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

This is something a lot of people fail to do because, admittedly, it’s boring.

People would much rather learn the cool, ninja, advanced tactics and hacks than relearn the basics.

This is especially true in the marketing and copywriting space.

If you don’t believe me, read some of the one or two star reviews of some marketing and copywriting books on Amazon. You’ll see common reviews like (And these are copy-and-pasted),

“Nothing new here.”

“Pretty basic information.”

“If you’ve been online and following the marketing methods, funnels … then this would not be new info for you.”

“How are there so many positive reviews of this book? It’s simply a poor rehash of some very basic marketing principals. Absolutely zero value provided. Don’t waste your time.”

“This is a book that provides a marketing game plan outline that anyone can follow. It was a short and interesting read, but it is for marketing amateurs and not professionals.”

The last copy-and-pasted review was particularly interesting to me. The person basically implied that if you’re an experienced professional, you don’t need to relearn the basic information.

That is an absolutely terrible way of thinking.

Do you think musicians would be able to perform songs if their sheet music reading skill wasn’t sharp?

Do you think engineers would be able to do calculus if they sometimes forget how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide?

Do you think authors would be able to crank out entire novels if they weren’t good at structuring a simple sentence?

No, no, and no.

The truth is, maintaining the basics is what’s going to help you progress further in mastering a skill than anything else. If you have a solid foundation, then you can build upon it very easily with the advanced stuff.

I have a saying that goes like this:

“The blandest tasting food is often healthy for you, and it’s the good tasting food that’s usually unhealthy for you.”

Likewise, it’s usually the most boring information that’s the most important for you to learn and retain.

To learn about my boring email copywriting methods, click the link below.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

To which I counter-argued, “You’re only saying Santa isn’t real because he never visited you.”

But they just wouldn’t budge, and I was determined to prove them wrong.

So last night, I stayed up and waited for him.

I even left him a cup of almond milk (It was the only type of milk I had in my fridge) and some leftover Oreos on my kitchen table.

I sat on my living room couch waiting. I glanced at my microwave’s digital clock. Half past two. I was about to call it in until I heard my back door creak open. I jumped up and ran to the door, thinking it was Santa.

But when I went there, it wasn’t Santa I saw.

He was about 3 1/2 feet tall, wore green clothing and a silly-looking hat, had pointy ears, and was carrying a small brown sack.

This has to be one of Santa’s elves.

“Um…hi,” I said, “Why are you here, and not Santa?”

“What, am I not good enough for ya kid?” The elf fired back in a snarky tone.

My face couldn’t help but form a disgusted look. “So that’s what an elf sounds like…” I thought.

“Anyways,” I continued, “What can I help you with? You want some cookies and milk?”

“No thanks, I’ve had too many of those tonight.” The elf put his hand on his stomach. “Ugh, I think I’m going to be sick…Anyways I’m here to drop off a gift. Here, this is for your brother.”

He took a small gift box out of his sack and tossed it to me.

“Alright, that’s all. Enjoy your Christmas kid, I’ll see ya next year maybe.”

Right when he picked up his sack, I stopped him. “Wait. Before you go, I have a question.”

After an annoyed sigh, he said, “Better make this quick because I think I’m gonna-”

Before he could finish his sentence, the elf slapped his mouth shut, ran out the door and threw up into the nearest garbage can he saw.

“Oh, there are all the cookies again,” he muttered weakly. “Ugh, I’m never eating that many again,” he said as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “So what’s your question?”

“Um…” I blanked, still trying to process what just happened. Then I snapped back to reality. “Oh yeah. So I have an email list of business owners who want to learn more and improve their copywriting. What do you think Santa would recommend?”

“Hmm…”

After a few moments of silence, the elf pulled out a napkin and a quill out of nowhere, scribbled a list and handed it to me.

We said our goodbyes and he left the house.

Indeed, it was an interesting experience. I didn’t meet Santa, but it’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to seeing him, so I’ll take it.

As for the list, I’m about to share what the elf wrote. So here are some resources to help you improve your copywriting, recommended by the elf himself.

1. How to Write Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards

In my opinion, this is a great book to go to if you want to learn how to write a profitable sales letter.

https://amzn.to/3hjrTR5 (Yes, it’s an affiliate link, which means if you get the book through my link, I get a laughably small commission from Amazon.)

2. The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman

Learn every single aspect of copywriting from one of the greatest copywriters of all time. Everything he used to teach in his seminars are compressed into this 300+ page book.

https://amzn.to/2WLAmmE (Ditto)

3. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

A great book to read if you want to learn, in-depth, about the different persuasion principles that you can quickly (And ethically) apply to your copywriting.

https://amzn.to/3mOgDND (Ditto again)

4. Eugene Schwartz Speech and Rare Ad Collection from Michael Senoff

All I can say about this is, there’s so much valuable information given away here. You get hours of audio training, over one hundred ads to study from, and several bonus reports.

https://www.hardtofindseminars.com/ES.html

5. How to Become an Email Titan brought to you by me.

OK, I admit, the elf didn’t recommend this one. I added it myself. But this is a great resource for you to learn how to write engaging sales email copy. To get my book, the link is here.

https://EllisenWang.com/email-titan-sample

Have a wonderful and safe Christmas.

First off, I don’t know anything about Texas. I haven’t even stepped foot into their land.

But from what I’ve read online, they had a serious littering problem back then. If it got to the point where they had to launch an entire public campaign about it, then I can only imagine how dirty the streets were. It was so bad that the state had to spend $20 million every year to clean up their roads. That’s equal to over $51 million today.

And most of the litter was caused by the younger people.

Meddling kids, as every Scooby-Doo villain would say.

So Texas’ Department of Transportation hired an ad agency, GSD&M, to develop an anti-littering campaign that targets the younger people, and the co-founder, Tim McClure, was tasked with creating the campaign.

At first, he thought about how he could create a new campaign while incorporating the word ‘litter,’ which he got stuck on.

Then while he was out on a walk, he thought back to the times when his mom would yell at him about how his room was always a mess.

He thought the word ‘mess’ would better describe garbage rather than ‘litter,’ which was more commonly used to describe cat litter.

That’s when his idea hit, and he went off and created the slogan, “Don’t Mess With Texas.”

When they pitched it to the Department of Transportation, they shot it down at first. But they eventually gave the OK in 1985 and launched it.

After running for a few years, the results?

Littering was reduced by 71% in four years.

But of course, it’s good to know why it worked.

From my brief research, I never found an analysis of why it worked. So I’m just going to briefly tell you why I think it worked.

When you see “Don’t Mess With Texas,” there’s a sense of comradery, a sense of belonging amongst the Texas residents. It’s as if they’re telling everyone,

“Yes, don’t mess with our land! Don’t mess with our state!”

Not to mention, a lot of celebrities jumped on the campaign bandwagon, which spread awareness even further.

And whatever celebrities do or get behind, it becomes a cool trend, which young people always love to follow.

But when it comes to learning the psychological factors, one of my favorite resources to turn to is Joseph Sugarman’s The Adweek Copywriting Handbook.

If you don’t know, Joseph Sugarman was one of the best copywriters in his time, and he put up live copywriting seminars that had four figure price tags on them.

Lucky for you and me, he condensed his seminar materials into this book at a very affordable and generous price.

And even though the focus of the book is on print ads, a lot of the principles can be applied to emails (And even sales letters) as well.

You can learn more about it using my affiliate link below.

https://EllisenWang.com/adweek