Why the Enemy of Your Customer is Your Best Friend and Means Money in the Bank

Perhaps no newspaper in the world is more synonymous with the world “tabloid” than the UK newspaper, The Daily Mail. In fact, I would go so far as to say that “the Mail” INVENTED the tabloid news industry or at least the 20th-century version of it.

If you’re not a devoted reader of the Mail, chances are that you stumbled across many, many of their viral stories that routinely get reposted on internet news aggregators and social media, racking up millions of likes, comments, and shares.

And I think the reason for the paper’s 125-year success was best summed up by one of its writers when she said:

“And despite sneers from the achingly trendy, we have never deviated from championing the underdog, the ordinary David being crushed by the State’s overweening Goliath.

“….News is what somebody, somewhere wants to suppress.”

That says it all right there.

Lesson: And the reason why the Mail is so successful in dominating the media landscape, despite the decline of print journalism, is because the journalists and editors there know what their readers will respond to and what kind of stories will bypass their rational mind to go right to the core of their emotions, both good and bad.

But what they are singularly the best at is identifying and slaying their market’s enemies because they have made their market’s enemies their enemies.

Here are some examples:

• “Christianity Under Attack!”
• “400 Sex Convicts Freed to Rape!”
• “Immigrants Bring More Crime!”
• “Fury at Police in Burkas”
• “Terror as Gigantic Muslim Spiders Bring Deadly Ebola to the UK”
• “How the Feminazi Lawyer Ogles Men Online”
• “Murderers. The Mail Accuses These Men of Killing. If We Are Wrong, Let Them Sue Us.”

These are strong, punchy, unflinching, and uncompromising headlines DEMAND to be read. And the style can teach you much about how to write sales copy for your own market, such as:

• Convincing your market that you know them and who they hate;
• Giving your market the emotional satisfaction of triumphing over your shared enemies;
• Presenting your market with a vision of triumphing over the enemies and their “haters.”

Bottom line: Knowing your market’s enemies will bring you much closer to them and will jack up your sales.

© 2021 David Lowenthal Enterprises Ltd.

David Lowenthal is an independent direct response fundraising serving libertarian and other freedom-loving nonprofits.

This chapter is part of his book 32 Jackpot Marketing Secrets from History’s Greatest and Craziest Persuaders! If you would like to discover more marketing secrets from some of history’s most successful entrepreneurs, copywriters, politicians, negotiators, lawyers, talk show hosts, actor/directors, political activists, and much more, you can download a copy of his FREE ebook, 32 Jackpot Marketing Secrets from History’s Greatest and Craziest Persuaders!, by signing up here.

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