ramit

I've run a bunch of tests on this with 100,000+ email users. In nearly every test, we found that varying the copy of the text link from "Click Here" to "Join Now" or "Get the Video" or "Buy Now" or a bunch of other copy...made almost no difference.

I haven't written all four yet, but I do have outlines of the ideas. I collect ideas/research/examples for a long time -- often years -- so when I go to write a post, I can sort through tons of stuff. That helps with writer's block.

This is the 1st of 4 posts I'll be doing for the New York Times (their Bucks blog) on the psychology of willpower, automation, and earning more. This one is about how people believe if they just "try harder," they can save more money...yet willpower fails repeatedly. I included research from social psychology and personal finance, and 3 tactics to overcome our failure of willpower. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Let's guess. I guess...92% digital, 8% print.

I know it's easy to think that everyone trying to show others how to monetize their skills is trying to make a quick buck, but that's really not the case. I've been writing for 6 years and have 300k+ readers/month.

Give it another look. If you still think my stuff is scammy, well, you're entitled to your own opinion.

But don't let your heuristic of "talking about money = scam!" get in the way.

There is some extremely valuable stuff in my blog and courses, and 99% of it is free.

This is a complicated question.

I know of a direct-response guy who had horribly ugly sales pages that literally included misspellings. He tells this story about how all kinds of marketing consultants and designers would come in and say, "Your sales page is so ugly! You need a redesign." He would laugh and say, "Everyone says that. But I have data from the last 5 years, and this is the single best-performing page of all." He made $25m last year.

Sophisticated direct marketers are not to be trifled with.

However, if you're building a company that depends on other non-direct factors like brand, you can't really A/B test that. You just have to make a decision.

A few years back, I met a guy whose girlfriend worked on the optimization team at Amazon. Now THEY are sophisticated. They knew how A/B tweaks would affect users several months later. But even still, Amazon often makes strategic decisions that can't always be justified with data.

Bottom line: It's important to know the advantages and disadvantages of various types of marketing, including direct/brand/etc. But you will have to make some tough choices.

Personally, on my sites, I've seen lots of interesting results with testing designs...but I finally told my staff to stop micro-testing since we'd optimized the hell out of some of our stuff and were only getting incremental gains (e.g., going from 35% opt-in rate to 39% is prohibitively difficult). The biggest results I've gotten have been from strategic changes like changing the offer, adding a new product, pricing changes, back-end offers, deeper customer research, etc.

There is actually a specific STS specialization in CS if you're more technically inclined.

Very interesting. This describes my coursework at Stanford almost exactly.

My major was STS (Science, Technology, and Society) with a minor in psychology. Then I studied sociology in grad school.

What I focused on was social influence, persuasion, and behavioral change. I took courses on negotiation, deception, cults, magic, minority influence, organizational development, group dynamics, arbitration, personality/social psychology, persuasive technology, and a ton more. I was a researcher in the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab for years.

And I mixed it with practical applications of negotiations in the field.

The coursework has helped me dramatically in understanding the motivations, attitudes, and behaviors of others.

I still remember one of my Comm professors talking about how other technical disciplines tend to look down on areas like psych/comm. She said something I'll never forget: "The value isn't in the difficulty of the material, but the usefulness."

I use my social psychology background in my work with people on iwillteachyoutoberich every day.

Not for a while : )

I'm focusing on helping people earn more via my Earn1k freelancing course right now, so it's basically an IWTYTBR business course. We teach a lot of techniques that can apply to freelancing or even product-based companies.

Btw, thanks for the kind words!