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The Confidential Internet Intelligence Manuscript

by Mark Joyner, CEO, Aesop.com, Copyright 2001 Aesop.com, 50 pages

Personal copy of PDF in Evernote in Simpleology notebook

• Scientifically derived info on how your business can really prosper on the internet
• revelations about internet marketing

• the dream we all want to believe: “Through the Internet, anyone with a computer, an Internet connection, and the willingness to sweat can set up an operation in their garage that competes with major corporations.”
• Mark Joyner began a business as a shoestring company.
• internet gives ability to advertise without hard capital
• Mark “began to apply military metaphors (ala Sun Tzu et. al.) to my business.”
  • “small groups of men, applying the proper tactics, can cause great damage and make armies of far greater size stand up and take notice.”
• Book reference:
  • “Guerilla Marketing” - Conrad Levinson
  • Guerrilla's dont fight the same as a great army, guerillas ignore those rules, and make their own
• Do this right, and a business can be built to multi-millions without a dime of venture capital
• roots: sales-driven, cash-flow-dependent
  • other companies waste millions on advertising that may or may not work
  • tactics must deliver results.
    • throwing daisies at an approaching army is not likely to work
• dangers
  • cult of personality and accepting dangerous advice as truth
  • remember it is just accumulated observed data
    • be skeptical of what is not seen for oneself
    • science never renders gospel truth
    • look for observations that painstakingly isolate every possible effect on results, proper samplee sizes, confidence intervals, and scientific controls.
    • do your own testing

• Sections
  • Lessons learned - examples of data conducted from tests
  • Survey results - demographic data about viewership
    • 1) audience can affect results
    • 2) look for insight into mind of internet consumer

• Simplest concenpts can “have the most profound effect on your bottom line.”
  • Noticing a particular day of the week works better can be make a huge profit difference
  • simple change in an order form can increase salees by 32%

• Things in this document can increase earnings in 1 day

• “Do not fall for the myth that all testing is valid.
• Testing is dangerous is the data is insufficient or derived in arbitrary ways
• beware of sweeping conclusions
  • solid understanding of statistical concepts and methodology is critical

pg. 11

• A/B test on two letters with innumerable differences leaves more questions than answers
• better to isolate individual variables, example: test a singlee change to a headline in an ad
• cumulative effect of many small changes can create dramatic improvements over time

• Example email subject line: “NAME, this is barely legal…”
  • Outclicked other headlines, but undersold other headlines. Readers mind wasnt in the right frame for the offer that followed
• intuitive hunches - followed by testing

• definition of the scientific method

• Two kinds of testing at Aesop:
  • Isolated variable testing - isolate individual elements and test independently
  • gestalt testing - combination of elements working in integrated manner, and test against another integrated group of elements
• both can be conducted currently

tiny eelements that can be changed:

• a headline
• adding an element to an order pages
• single graphic

marketing processs has many distinct elements. Gestalt tries to select a winning combination of individual changes from many possible permutations.

a combination might be a particular TV commercial with a particular website. The website may perform better with a different commercial.

Look for isolated variable tests that give a positive result independent of gestalt.

Example: Dissonance elements - explained in Lessons Learned

• testing finds it to consistently get more clicks and sales
• 3 components:
  • “Quantified success results”
  • “The impression that the reader can do it, too”
  • “It is easy to do”
• In this case, the combination is cummulative

Page 15 example from Killer Tactic's Journal of an affiliate programming earning an average guy $17K

Pg. 15

Be true to the scientific process, liated as:

• 1. Observe some phenomenon or aspect of the universe.
• 2. Develop a hypothesis that explains the phenomenon.
• 3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
• 4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
• 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrep

Warning: Don't let intuition outweigh critical analysis.

Pg. 18

When following advice, use principles that someone applies themselves.

Hard to grasp lessons may need to be personally applied to make them understandable.

Possibly world's most powerful and economical form of markeeting

“The Internet is the only place on earth where you can truly market everyday with no money – or very little money – if you know how.”

List of most important discoveries about email marketing

Pg. 19

When is as important as the what.

Testing shows Wednessday is not the best day.

For details, see: private_the_confidential_internet_intelligence_manuscript

Possible to make 89% more on an offer just by changing when it is sent out.

First rule of Email marketing - Get your email opened!

job number 1 - grab recipients attention

devices that can backfire - “hype, capital letters, exclamation marks, and other devices that are equivalent to “screaming” on the Internet.”

• These get the emails classed as spam, leave them unread, and can increase the unsubscribe rate

Exercise: in email box look at the emails that rivet your attention and are most likely to get clicked and opened.

• Emails coming from friends
• not ones that look commercial in nature

write subject with same kind of tone as emails from your friends

Dont do the selling right in the email. Instead, encourage a clickthrough to a website.

Risk is not clicking - and many times you don't click. So what is common about the times you do click?