Sometimes, just sometimes, I Really Despair

The Internet Marketing world is in a steep decline. Many "gurus" and organizations are trimming down operations and income is getting less and less.

You would think now would be the time to examine our way of doing business and re-evaluate what we are doing, streamlining it to squeeze the maximum profits we can from a dwindling supply of eager young wannabes and entrepreneurs.

Instead, we seem to have hit a time in the Internet Marketing timespan that seems to have created a "Big Bang" of stupidness and arrogance. People so eager to reclaim lost income that they will resort to any and all measures to squeeze that extra buck out of the aforementioned dwindling market.

Today, I really did despair. Two emails landed in my inbox. Both from very highly regarded individuals, both who have been around for years and have built up respect and admiration.

This respect and admiration was lost as one writer had chosen to use a very misleading subject in his email, in order to get me to open it. Time and time again in this very forum, where these guys hang out and read public opinion, this method has been proven to really annoy and p**s people off.

You all know the ones, "notification of payment received", "ClickBank sale", "I have some very sad news" etc etc All designed to force you to open the email thinking you have got that sale, or thinking there really is some bad news in the world ( and with all the sad stuff happening in the world today, the "very sad news" headline I received today was at least ill timed and at most very insensitive ) ......

They should know better by now .... surely. Try to keep as many customers and prospects as you can by being honest and open and they will stick with you through good and bad. Insult their intelligence and, well, bye-bye list members.

So I'm getting over that one and then I visited a sales page from a promo email I received, this one had a legitimate headline so no worries about deception there. It was when I was leaving the page when the following exit popup showed:-


Spot the sloppy mistake.

If I was a customer visiting the sales letter and then greeted with such a slap-dash exit splash as that then the impression I would have gained would be one of complete dismay. Is it some kind of initiation test for new entrepreneurs ? Perhaps the guy is just kidding, but if he is then that would mean he's insulting my intelligence. Why should I buy his product if he can't even be bothered to get an exit page worded correctly and employ a call to action that actually existed and made sense?

You get my point, if I think I was making a point - it may be more of a rant by now, I don't know.

Is it me or are standards slipping ? The need to make a few more extra bucks from a smaller market seems to have people, respected people, doing things and resorting to tactics they would never have thought of doing during the "pre-economic downturn" times. Pushing more potential customers away with their tactics, rather than making sure they are hanging onto them as they too face trying times as well.

Kirk out.

Jeff