Please stop reading my emails

Before we get into today’s email, I have a request to make.

If, in the course of reading my emails, you apply some of the knowledge I teach, and your clients are flooded with clicks and conversions, such that they begin to wonder if you’re cheating …

Or worse …

… They accuse you of hiring out a click farm because of how well your copy is performing …

Then please stop reading my emails altogether.

Cool? Cool.

Let’s get into it then.

This morning, in a mindless, dopamine-low state, I sat down at my desk in my office and fired up TikTok.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I hate myself for downloading this app.

After successfully evading the use of ALL social media for the last 18 months, I caved to the delicious, snackable memes tucked deep inside the walls of TikTok.

I’m now helpless to the effects of the constant dopamine drip doled about by this app … and every time I open it, I can feel my brain rotting away.

But.

This morning, when I opened the app to get my dopamine fix, I came across a fascinating post.

It’s a video from Alex Hormozi, an entrepreneur with a lot of interesting insights into sales strategies.

Now, I don’t like all of his stuff. He says some wacky things.

But this specific video that I saw was VERY interesting.

In it, he’s talking about those Viagra ads that sometimes run on TV. Specifically, the ones that say something along the lines of:

“If you experience an erection lasting more than 4 hours, please seek medical help.”

Alex, in his video, talks about how this isn’t actually a medical warning — it’s a strategy used by Viagra to sell more pills.

Why?

Because a man with erectile dysfunction will hear this warning, and instead of thinking “there’s no way this will work for me,” they think “wow, this is absolutely going to work … no matter what … and I may need to get medical attention because of how effective it is.”

Brilliant!

It immediately deflects the obvious objection a man with ED may have: “does this work?”

Like, you wouldn’t even think of it.

And it cunningly “proves” the effectiveness of Viagra without having to argue the proof in any conspicuous way.

It’s also exactly the idea I employed in the subject line and intro of this very email, too, for the purpose of getting you to open and read the email.

To me, it’s like a form of “covert proof.”

I think it can be summed up formulaically, like this:

“If you [USE PRODUCT], and you experience [EXTREME CASE OF PRODUCT WORKING, BUT WITH A NEGATIVE CONNOTATION], then [STOP USING PRODUCT.]

And it’s something I’ll be testing out in markets that are historically burnt out on effectiveness claims moving forward.

You can see the video here.

For more, sign up to get my daily emails.

David Patrick