88 Research™ is now on exclusive retainer with Patrick Bove’s FK7 agency that serves the Agora world. Unfortunately, I have no room for clients outside of this arrangement.
The 88 Method™
A new research process
The 88 Method™ is the new copywriting and research process behind the 88%-win rate we’ve achieved on our fin-pub offers (since we began using it).
It allows us to make a high-probability bet on where the mind of the fin-pub buyer might be 3-12 months into the future…
In short, by using the 88 Method™, one gets a good idea of:
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Themes the fin-pub buyer might be interested in…
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Investments they might think are hot…
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And perhaps most importantly, whether they'll be more responsive to fear or opportunity messaging…
This is how the teams I’ve worked with have consistently “skated to where the puck is going” and been among the first to launch offers in the hottest up-and-coming trends…
In short, while the rest of the industry is looking sideways at what each other is doing (you know how it goes!)…
The 88 Method™ will have you looking ahead to the horizon with eyes that see further than the competition…
Which means you’ll often beat other publishers to launching the hottest ideas while they still feel new, fresh and exciting in the fin-pub zeitgeist…
How the 88 Method™ helped us launch at the right time in the hottest up-and-coming themes
Case Studies:
We launched an AI energy FE in March 2022, just as the AI craze took off…
Thanks to the 88 Method™, we identified AI as an exciting front end theme very early on…
I wrote this to my team at Money & Markets on September 12, 2021…
“[Here’s] a topic we might explore:
Artificial Intelligence.
I think we’re recommending a chip-maker in the September front-end, right? So there’s some tie-in with our front end already (if that stock ends up doing well, we could use it in promo).
But let me tell you why I think AI could be a great jumping off point…
A huge and compelling “trail of proof” is often one of the hallmarks of a big idea. ESPECIALLY if that trail of proof hasn’t been fully explored/isn’t fully understood by the general populace.
And I feel like AI might sit in the sweet spot right now.
I feel like it’s similar in some ways to genomics: there are so many incredible (and scary) applications that people don’t understand (me included)… that it could be made to seem new, big, novel and extremely exciting.
If we thread the needle and do great research, I think we could generate an intense desire to invest in the industry.”
This is why in late 2021 we had our entire team at Money & Markets working on AI-related front ends…
It’s also why we ended up launching Infinite Energy, an AI-themed next-gen energy promo in March 2022, while AI was still mostly unexplored on the front end, and just as the topic was about to burst into popular consciousness…
It made ~25,000 orders on a relatively low allowable CPA before the Nasdaq bear market smashed tech-themed promos…
Across the examples above, we were consistently early to the right trend and launched some of the industry’s biggest winners…
And it’s all thanks to the 88 Method™
The 88 Method™ explained:
A unique way of researching that helps you come up with promo ideas that align with where the mind of the fin-pub buyer is likely to be three to twelve months into the future
It consists of three layers:
The first layer seeks to answer the question:
Should we be looking to write bull market or bear market promotions?
And further, is the fin-pub buyer more likely to respond to opportunity or fear messaging?
We attempt to glean the answer to these questions using a proprietary financial model I’ve developed over my time in fin-pub.
The model is the foundation of how the teams I’ve worked with have made high-probability bets on what kind of promotions we should be working on.
And thus, this first layer is the most important, because it can give you the insight to make the big decisions on steering your fin-pub business and deciding where to allocate resources...