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Sales letter of the Day Award goes to....

by MilesT
13 replies
Nothing new here, just funny.

Got an email about a product launch today. The email stated that they were selling 23 copies every 60 seconds! So I went to the site, and as I exited the sales page (which I did on purpose just to see this) the "scarcity" page came up that stated that there were 57, no 43, no 27, no 8 copies left at that price!

So, based on the math, if there are doing 23 sales every 60 seconds then they would have sold out in about 3 minutes, not to mention they would have run out of those 8 before I could even read the page. And yes, I went back and tried it all again and nothing had changed. :rolleyes:

I don't buy products like this but it still bothers me. I mean, at least do your math.
#award #day #letter #sales
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Hancox
    Crazy, isn't it?

    To me, that ain't scarcity that's FALSITY.

    Scarcity works. Falsity fails. (Well, OK... it works some of the time, but it's going to produce a lot of skeptical subscribers in the future!)

    That's enough aphorisms for the day.
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    Not scarcity just idiocy.

    Still, I wonder if these blatant lies still work and I'd like to see their conversion rate. I suspect it works, at least somewhat.

    But it's no way to go about your business.
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    • Profile picture of the author DogScout
      Originally Posted by redicelander View Post

      Not scarcity just idiocy.

      Still, I wonder if these blatant lies still work and I'd like to see their conversion rate. I suspect it works, at least somewhat.

      But it's no way to go about your business.
      Of course it works. Think about it. By definition, 50% of the population has a below average intelligence. Compared with this forum, which has an average intelligence of (guessing) 20-30 I.Q. points higher than the general population. WE ARE NOT THE CLIENT. That is why much of the BS works even though we fail to understand how it possibly could. (We are too damn smart for our own good, sometimes. The up-side is a greater level of morality usually coincides with a higher I.Q.)
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Hancox
        Originally Posted by DogScout View Post

        Of course it works. Think about it. By definition, 50% of the population has a below average intelligence. Compared with this forum, which has an average intelligence of (guessing) 20-30 I.Q. points higher than the general population. WE ARE NOT THE CLIENT. That is why much of the BS works even though we fail to understand how it possibly could. (We are too damn smart for our own good, sometimes. The up-side is a greater level of morality usually coincides with a higher I.Q.)
        I agree we are not the client, so I take your general point.

        However, one thing to keep in mind is the specific audience in question, and how savvy THEY are. Who cares how intelligent the general population are, if they're not your target market?

        If the product in question was aimed, for example, at IM beginners, then yes it would work. More savvy IM'ers have probably seen "false" scarcity a number of times, however, so it's less effective on them.

        Personally, if they're going to use "false" scarcity, I don't understand why they don't at least give it a more genuine appearance... i.e. a simple script which at least makes the number decrease over time. How hard is that?
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    Just one more example of a marketer who'll use ANY tactic to make more sales. Maybe it works for him. I'll never know if it would work for me. For all I know, it's a horrible "mistake" not to lie to prospects. Just think - I might increase conversions by 10% if I would only stop being a prude and stoop to telling outright lies to push more emotional buttons.

    What a lousy marketer I am.
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    • Profile picture of the author bretski
      My favorite lately was for this huge launch where they showed their clickbank earnings. There were two weeks where their refunds exceeded their earnings...??? Mind you, it was a huge launch with big names but it didn't add up for me.
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      • Profile picture of the author dremora
        bretski: They probably forgot to photoshop their clickbank screenshots. Or they are not aware of the little javascript trick that allows them to doctor the numbers in the videos!
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        • Profile picture of the author bretski
          Originally Posted by dremora View Post

          bretski: They probably forgot to photoshop their clickbank screenshots. Or they are not aware of the little javascript trick that allows them to doctor the numbers in the videos!
          The weekly sales numbers were pretty good. That was all they showed. I mean, not insane good....like 1-2K etc...but you couldn't see where the sales were coming from or anything like that. And then when I saw the refund amounts and the carryover from the previous week was a negative number! I mean, if my refund count is more than a single digit I'm freaking out! I find the product that is getting the refunds and remove it from the products that I promote!
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      • Profile picture of the author Kamran
        Originally Posted by bretski View Post

        My favorite lately was for this huge launch where they showed their clickbank earnings. There were two weeks where their refunds exceeded their earnings...??? Mind you, it was a huge launch with big names but it didn't add up for me.
        i noticed that too

        now clickbank shows debits in brackets, instead of having a negative sign like before and thats why i think many people missed it
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  • Profile picture of the author dremora
    That false scarcity is so 2004. I remember seeing those things years ago. The new tactic nowadays is to slash the price off by 10 bucks at each exit popup until it drops from $77 to $7.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Faber
    It's all about sacrificing long term customer relationships for short term gain, What a great business model....
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  • Profile picture of the author mike134
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Vogin
      Originally Posted by mike134 View Post

      exit popups with scarcity sometimes double your income - im all for it =D
      Sure, no matter if we use dishonesty and asshole tricks, our income is doubled...Not really, no.

      This one is particularly absurd, it's only a matter of time before we see more of these, because the regular "scarce" stuff won't work anymore.

      I used scarcity too, but the real one. People really fail to see that honest approach gives much better results...
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        I went to school with a guy who lived by the motto 'you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, and make a damn good living doing it.'

        Last I heard of him, though, is that you could only see him for a couple of hours on Thursdays, unless he was a bad boy and landed in solitary again...
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