What I call, "What's with the dead rabbit?" syndrome...

This is a mindset thing.

As some of you may know, I am a professional magician. In my business (as in any biz) there are things that every person in my biz knows about, but NO ONE else knows about. One of those things in the magic biz is this -- it is possible to hold a rabbit by the back of the neck (don't worry, it doesn't hurt the rabbit), turn the rabbit upside down (on its back), and the rabbit's entire body will go stiff as a board -- so its whole body will be parallel to the floor, perfectly rigid. Some magi's use this stunt, saying the rabbit is trained or is being hypnotized. Really it is a natural phenom called a catatonic state -- happens with parrots + some other animals too.

Now, some magi's use PHOTOS of them performing this stunt in their publicity materials -- which is kinda silly, because most laypeople are gonna take one look at the photo, and ask themselves, "WHAT'S WITH THE DEAD RABBIT?"

Here's how this relates to IMing...

What are you doing that may operate on assumptions about what your audience(s) knows? Are you assuming they know more than they really do? Many laypeople don't even know the difference between an email address + and a url.

I was just reading a report about how 2ble optin systems yield just 15% of what single optin systems yield. To which I say, OBVIOUSLY!

ALL magi's know what the stiff-bodied rabbit stunt is. But NO ONE ELSE outside of that tiny community has ANY idea of what that is.

ALL imers know how to optin + CONFIRM their optin to a list. But most laypeople have NO IDEA what that procedure is.

And that's just one example of assuming too much about what your audience knows about -- there are dozens more (potentially)!!

Just something to be aware of.

Cheers.

-- TW