1950 Marketing

In all the years I’ve been subject to Internet marketing and studying Internet marketing (because I DO Internet marketing and always want to do it better) I’ve seen trends change.  Of course, as the Web changes, we have to change with it or get left behind.

And as more and more people are trying to make money selling on the Web, the predominant thinking seems to dictate that whatever everyone else is doing, if you want to make more money, you have to do more of whatever it is they’re doing.

Or Do You?

Certainly, all the “gurus” of Internet marketing – who are selling their methods as the “holy grail” of quick riches – will tell us we need to use all their latest “tips and tricks” if we want to make piles of cash. But what I increasingly find at the core of most of their tips for success and sales is a method I refuse to use: dishonesty.

Most of the gurus of Internet marketing themselves use this tool to get us to buy their “systems” or “programs”. For example, they like to show us screen shots of their Clickbank accounts to prove to us how much THEY make using the exact methods they say they’re going to share with us, for a price. Anyone savvy about Clickbank can see that what they’re showing is total SALES, not total commissions. Their commissions are about half what they’re claiming they earned.

Then they tell us it’s easy, that we can match those earnings in an enticingly short period; I’ve seen some claim we can do it in a matter of hours or days, knowing nothing about building web pages, HTML, or writing content.

The Reality

You buy their course and find out you have to write articles to get traffic and submit them to sites like ezinearticles.com (I submitted an article on September 5 and as of September 16, the date of this writing, it had yet to be reviewed and published). And you have to register a domain name for each niche, get hosting and create and upload pages – LOTS of pages if you want Google to respect you.

Hours, indeed! We’re really talking MONTHS here for the novice who still has a regular job eight hours a day.

The Dirty Dishonest Tricks Exposed

Here’s a partial list of the tricks the marketers use and the gurus teach. If you’ve been the recipient of their marketing efforts, see if any of them look familiar:

• Use words in the title like “secret” or “never before revealed” to trick the reader into thinking if they buy the package they’ll be among the elite few who acquire this latest and greatest knowledge. The fact is, all they’ve done is put their spin on what someone taught them.
• Use a piece of java code to generate a date so the reader thinks the sales page was written 2-3 days ago, when it’s actually been online for months.
• When referring to a writer, always use “best-selling author” even if the person has never sold a copy of anything.
• Create urgency by saying this offer is only good for a few days (the old way) or the offer has been so successful, they’re going to have to take it offline (the new way). C’mon, if it’s successful, the LAST thing an intelligent, rational (honest?) person would do is stop selling it!
• List a vast assortment of bonuses, with fictitious “values” that sometimes range into the astronomical. The true definition of value: What someone is willing to pay for something. If it’s made with the intention of giving it away, it HAS no monetary value.

That last one has got to be the most insulting and ridiculous piece of dishonest marketing ever. Who in their right mind would believe that some Joe Blow (yes, some use made-up names) is going to give you $3,798 in FREE bonuses to get you to buy a $27 product?  Well, his competitor is bragging that HIS bonuses are “worth” $2,798 and he has to beat that claim!

And now, for the trick almost every online marketer is using in 2010: “You better run, not walk to this guy’s site and get in quick! He’s only going to open the door for 250 people, then he’s closing the doors forever on this offer!”

Go to the page in question and scroll to the bottom. I bet you’ll find a link for affiliates and if you click it, you’ll see he’s talking about all the money affiliates can make selling thousands of his “limited offer” package. Save the link to the high-pressure sales page you were told is only going to be up for a few days and go back to it a month later, Yep, still there.

And by the way, a few days after the doors supposedly closed on the offer, you can expect an email from the affiliate who first tried to entice you. He’ll be explaining that the demand for this product/course/whatever was so high, it crashed the server! Ah, but he’s talked the seller into re-opening for two days only, just for him. Yeah, right.

Honesty DOES Work In Online Marketing……

the gurus and their affiliates just don’t know it.

You can probably tell by now I don’t subscribe to any of these tricky, misleading or totally dishonest methods to make a buck. I like to be able to sleep at night and if I have to sacrifice my sense of right and wrong, my integrity, to sell anything, count me out.

I’ve been online selling REAL products of REAL value, to people and businesses since 2002. (See Just Saw Blades for an example) I do it the way the old Smith-Barney commercials of the 70’s used to say: “They make money the old-fashioned way: they EARN it.”

My favorite emails from my customers are very brief: “Thank you.”  Or “No one gives customer service like you do anymore.”

Honesty. Value. Integrity.

Tags: Internet Marketing, marketing tricks

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 2:21 am and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.