Explode Your Sales By 100% to 200% with Review Pages! But is it ethical?

Is there such a thing as a "white lie" ? where do most marketers get their review info from to give a credible honest review ? arent these either made up or ripped off from other sites ? I believe if you have a quality product that delivers on its promises and does the job then its fair game.

I think that is more ethical than overhyping said product and leaving much to be desired by the consumer.

That's pretty funny. I never even thought of that. Shows you I'm a linear thinker for good or bad.

TomG.

I would say that it depends on your point of view.

People are always going to promote the product that gives them the best overall profit as #1 on a review site. If that product is theirs then of course it'll be first.

But since they are comparing their product against two others, they are also promoting someone else's product, which is good for the other product creators.

Now, if the review site in question is reviewing three competing products by the same author, and the reviewer is also the products creator, then I'd say that is unusual, but possibly not unethical depending on how the products are compared.

But how many people who create these "review" sites actually buy every product they are reviewing? Very few. Most of them that I've seen get their reviews directly from the product's sales page. That in itself, could be considered by some people as unethical.

So in effect, these review sites aren't really doing anything more than pre-qualifying the prospect before sending them on to be closed. The prospect is almost always going to click on the link they believe is best for them, regardless of whether or not it's #1.

I don't know if it's totally unethical or not... It's another gray area of marketing. It all depends on how it's done.

This reminds me of a saying we used to use is primary school.

FIGJAM (F#$! I'm Good, Just Ask Me)

It isn't really any dodgier than a lot of other practices. If their product really is good then I say power to them. If their product sucks and their review sites rate it well then they'll just build a bad name for themselves eventually anyway.

I think the only fair way to do an honest review on a product is to actually purchase it and review it yourself, or to contact the author and ask for a review copy.

Another way is to find people who have actually used the system and see what they have to say about it.

Now here is another black hat tactic I add to this

Set up 150 clickbank accounts and cloak the links from the
review site so it rotates a different affiliate for each account.
(So you are an affiliate for your own product but through 150
different accounts)

What does it do??? Make only 150 sales and enjoy the benefit of
having 150 gravity on Clickbank.....LOL

A great sage once said, "An honest businessman is ranked on the level of prophets" presumably because it is so hard to make any real money without using at least a few sly tactics here and there. I don't know if what you described is ethical or unethical. But is it ethical to convince people to write testimonials for one's product by giving them an incentive to do so? It's hard to tell. It's really hard to come up with a universal "ethics" when it comes to business, because everyone has their own idea on what is ethical and unethical. I know some people who refuse to sell anything that they haven't directly experienced, and I know others who just want to make their family comfortable and will sell various products in various niches to earn money. Is either group "right" in their methodology?

There was a recent thread on this forum about a marketer paying Indians $2 an hour ghostwriting his product or something, and the question was "is this ethical?" Some Warriors responded with an emphatic "no", while others took into account the context of how their economy works over there and how $2 dollars goes a long way, and someone even mentioned that it was slavery! I really don't know if we can come up with a universal motto that has a stamp of "ethical" approval or "unethical" condemnation.

Personally I reckon this method has its place & if done right (ie. if the marketer can give a reasonably honest, factual review of their own product) it's no different from any of the other so called 'review sites' out there .

When you think about it, how many of the millions of 'review sites' out there are actually giving a truly honest review of the product. Not too many, as most are simply affiliate sites designed to make money.

Honestly, I'm tempted to give this method a try on one of my own products. I don't run an affiliate program on any of my products, so I don't have heaps of people out there doing their best to promote it any way they can.

This means I don't have people creating fake 'review sites' for my product, but some of my competitors do. I'm getting rather sick of reading all the c&*p some of them are spinning about how good some of my competitors products are (I've done my research & I know they're not).

The best way to level the playing field from my point of view might be to employ some of those tactics you mentioned .

Cheers

Rachel

I see this as being an fine tactic as long as you honestly believe your product is better than the others... and why would you want to waste your time making a product that you don't even think is better anyway?

Personally, I think it is more ethical than people promoting their friends' products to their list and talking about how great it is simply b/c it is their friend.

I won't divulge the name of the affiliate program, but I bet most of you've heard of it, but when I signed up, that was their #1 advice on how to sell this product, through setting up your own review sites, ranking their product #1, and buying adwords on google for your review site. They even supplied the template. I chose not to market that product.