Cunning Ways That Internet Marketers Convince You to "Buy Now"

[lburrell]

Has this ever happened to you? You’re browsing online, reading a few of your favorite blogs, following some links – and suddenly you find yourself on an ebook sales page. It promises guaranteed results; there’s a sale on, but only till midnight today; the offer is strictly limited to the first two hundred buyers...

...before you know it, you’re clicking that “buy now” button and paying upwards of $50 for something that you never knew existed before, when you never had any intention of spending any money.

What just happened? Chances are, you fell for one of the internet marketers’ favorite tricks. (They, of course, call them “sales techniques”.)

So how do those internet marketers try to persuade you to transfer your hard-earned dollars into their own pockets ... and how do you resist? Read on to find out...

Trick 1 – Appealing to Your Emotions
All forms of persuasive writing use this technique but internet marketers are especially good at it. They know that sales aren’t really based on customers rationally weighing up the pros and cons of a product – we tend to buy based on an emotional reaction.

For example, a common marketing method is to open with a “pain” story – something which you really don’t want. (Re-read the first two paragraphs of this article for an example!) And then, having created a potentially false or overblown need in your mind, they’ll try to sell you a solution.

Beat the Marketers: Ever heard that you shouldn’t grocery shop on an empty stomach? It’s a good idea not to shop online when you’re feeling emotional. Whether you’re insanely excited about the new business idea you had in the pub, or in despair over the state of your finances, you’re likely to fork out a fortune for unnecessary information products.

Keep a cool head, and promise yourself that you’ll sleep on it before making any decisions. Your mood will have changed in the morning – and if you still want the product, you’ll know it wasn’t just an emotional reaction.

Trick 2 – Promising Free/Vastly Cut Price Extras
How often have you seen something like this on an ebook sales page?


If you reached this point and you do not want to make the purchase, I strongly suggest you to leave, as these bonuses will surely convince you: …. Total Bonuses' Value: 346.8 $
(from Seo eBook - "From Zero To SEO !" - scroll a bit more than half way down).

What you’re supposed to think is that the kind internet marketer is giving you a huge amount of amazing extra value out of the sheer goodness of his/her heart. Well, you’re a more charitable person than me if you really do believe that.

The sole purpose of this little trick is to convince you to buy. All those ridiculous dollar values? They’re completely invented. The information is only worth what you get out of it – and chances are, those over-hyped ebooks aren’t going to be all that great.

Beat the Marketers: Whenever you see something which looks like a can’t-be-missed deal, ask yourself this simple question. If the marketer really could sell each of those ebooks or special reports for $49.99 each, why isn’t he?

Remember that a ton of stuff you don’t want isn’t added value – it’s added clutter. If you just want one straightforward ebook, go for the most reputable and valuable product you can find – not the one which offers the most freebies.

Trick 3 – Scarcity
We’re all more prone to buying when we think something’s likely to run out. Internet marketers play on this by telling us that “only the first 500 people will get this ebook for $50”. This encourages you to make a snap decision, when you’d otherwise have waited.

The one time when this is legitimate is for online courses, which often have limited membership to ensure that participants can have a fair amount of attention. When you’re buying any sort of downloadable information product, like an ebook or audio book, the idea of scarcity is ridiculous: ebooks can be copied ad infinitum!

Beat the Marketers: If something’s limited to the first 500, and you really want it, make yourself wait at least a day. Even if the marketer pulls the product (and they won’t), do you think they’d really refuse to take your money if you emailed them and asked to buy it?

And keep an eye on those products which are going to get pulled after a certain number of sales. Chances are, they’ll be back on the market soon enough.

For example, back in August 2008, Copyblogger reported that:


Buy SEO School Today… Because It’s Gone Tomorrow
SEO School has been out for a couple months, and it’s sold really well. To avoid a customer service meltdown, Naomi is taking the ebook off the market tomorrow (that’s Friday, August 8th).

… but after taking another a look. Yup, SEO school is still on sale.

(Note – I have a huge amount of liking and respect from Naomi from IttyBiz, and I believe she genuinely changed her mind and her business model for SEO school – but she is an excellent internet marketer!)

Trick 4 – Limited Time Only
Have you ever noticed the amazing coincidence that whenever you go to an internet marketer’s sale page, the “time limited” offer just happens to expire at midnight of the current day? There’s usually a counter ticking away those precious seconds while you can still buy, buy, buy at the cheap price. Some marketers don’t even bother with a counter, they just put in a line of text like this:


Order before Midnight tonight, , and you'll get Rapid Thin at the Special Price of $37.00. This price is only guaranteed until Midnight.
(from Lose Weight FAST! The First, Last and Only Diet eBook You'll Ever Need - about two-thirds of the way down the page).

I’ll let you into a secret – this is a complete and utter trick. The web site is simply programmed to show the current date, whatever day you visit. Unconvinced? Pay repeat visits to the sales page. Does the price and offer ever change? No – but the expiry date does.

Beat the Marketers: Don’t get pressured into buying just because something’s time-limited. Again, if you decide you do desperately want the product after the sale’s over, try emailing. How many marketers are going to turn down a sale? (Remember, information products cost virtually nothing for them to produce – almost everything you pay them is pure profit.)

And treat those ticking counters and “only till midnight tonight” offers with the contempt they deserve.


- This was a cool blog post I had in my reader today and thought it was appropriate for this forum (esp for newbies). You can find the original here: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2009/04...marketers.html

[seemar49]

That's what has given internet marketing a bad name. It's time for change, Who want's to join me?

[lburrell]

Originally Posted by TMG Enterprises

You forgot this trick - "hurry before I am forced to increase the price"

Tina G

haha that was a good one I have to admit. But seriously I have already been forced to increase the price so I should change it shouldn't I?

[nobodyspecial]

Don't forget trick ...

#6 - Lying

[bgmacaw]

Learn from the master of the impulse buy, Ron Popeil

YouTube - Ronco Mister Microphone TV Spot - 1981

[flavius333]

Gee, man

thanks for the extra link from the Warrior Forum. I happen to be the owner and creator of the "Zero to SEO" ebook that you made an example of.
I'm a fellow warrior myself, otherwise where would I have learned such great internet marketing tecnniques?

[pavondunbar]

Originally Posted by TMG Enterprises

You forgot this trick - "hurry before I am forced to increase the price"

Tina G

LOL...yeah...

it's like the markerer has a gun to his head while he's at his computer...

and the assailant is telling him...

"Increase the price now before I blow your head off!"

LOL...

Pavon

[Robert Puddy]

or you could go back 2 days later and its gone... they meant what they said

And I would refuse to sell it to you after the deadline, because it makes my deadlines real and they get acted on.

Robert

[lburrell]

Originally Posted by flavius333

Gee, man

thanks for the extra link from the Warrior Forum. I happen to be the owner and creator of the "Zero to SEO" ebook that you made an example of.
I'm a fellow warrior myself, otherwise where would I have learned such great internet marketing tecnniques?

I'm sure it's good mate!

[Cynthia A.]

And the infamous launch day: "my server crashed!" because so many were trying to buy. You'd better get in quick before they're all gone!

[nanohits]

Originally Posted by Robert Puddy

or you could go back 2 days later and its gone... they meant what they said

And I would refuse to sell it to you after the deadline, because it makes my deadlines real and they get acted on.

Robert

Yeah right. What are the odds of that? A man becoming pregnant?

[dave830]

Appealing to emotions is a "trick"? Sorry, but isn't that the basis of SALES in general?

"People buy based on emotion, they back up the decision with logic." Terry Dean teaches this, and he's got nothing but integrity as far as I'm concerned.

Certainly there is a line- you can't lie, you can't make stuff up, fudge numbers, etc. Period. And our consciences tell us if we're doing that. And there's plenty of crooks in the business.

But if you're not trying to build a sense of urgency and excitement in customers, how can you make a living in sales?

My $.02
Dave

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by Cynthia A.

And the infamous launch day: "my server crashed!" because so many were trying to buy.

While this has been discussed "to death" here recently, and I'm sure there are a few who have probably used it as a marketing technique.. you'd be surprised how many of those crashes are real.

MySQL is great, but it wasn't designed to handle the kind of traffic a lot of product launches throw at it (and many web hosts don't offer an alternative). Get a couple thousand people all hitting the order page at once, all trying to submit their order into the database at once, and the server will crash almost every time.. it's a given. There are ways around it, but none of them are cheap or easy and I've come to realize that the majority of marketers aren't exactly the most "tech savvy" people in the world and they don't need to be (afterall it doesn't take a lot of technical knowledge to put together a web page, or even to "write" a script when you've outsourced all of the programming).

The genius of it is, most marketers who have been involved in major product launches do know enough to expect the server to crash at some point during the launch, and they know how to use the situation to their advantage when (not if) it happens.. but unfortunately because they know how to use it to their advantage when it happens, to a lot of people it comes across as some kind of a "marketing stunt".

[The Copy Nazi]

This is obviously (and crudely) just linkbait but I'll bite. I'm a copywriter. Of course we appeal to the emotions. Der. Its called "sell the sizzle not the steak" and is the basis of all selling - not just IM. As for the other techniques - I actively try to discourage clients doing it but they mostly ignore me. Personally I won't buy ANYTHING from a site that pulls those stunts. But seems they still work, unfortunately.

[shane_k]

what about the WSO one where they have

first 5 copies $5 (sold out)
next 5 copies $10 (sold out)
next 5 copies $20 (sold out)
next 5 copies $40 BUY NOW

And I saw this like 1 minute after the WSO was posted. And this happened a couple of times.


Shane_K

[shane_k]

Originally Posted by Cynthia A.

And the infamous launch day: "my server crashed!" because so many were trying to buy. You'd better get in quick before they're all gone!

I just do not get why people believe this would be a marketing tactic. If your server crashes you make no sales. The person selling the product wants to make sales, they want to make money.

And for those of you who are going to try and say they do it to create urgency and scarcity that is just ridiculous. There are way more easier ways to create urgency and scarcity than saying your server crashed.

One more point.

If people are on the page the day off the launch then they have more than likely ALREADY made the decision that they ARE going to buy the product. So why would you want to interrupt that process and piss your customer off by using this as a marketing technique?

The Point?

If you are on the sale page the day of the launch they do not need to market to you anymore. You are already sold.


Shane_K

[nanohits]

Originally Posted by shane_k

what about the WSO one where they have

first 5 copies $5 (sold out)
next 5 copies $10 (sold out)
next 5 copies $20 (sold out)
next 5 copies $40 BUY NOW

And I saw this like 1 minute after the WSO was posted. And this happened a couple of times.


Shane_K

Oh ya, thats daylight robbery. I really dont like IMers doing this. The other thing that I dont really like is half the reviews even on the WSO's as bad as the WSO is they still give it a glowing review simply based on the reputation of the Author. Thats plain crap IMO. I mean look at movies. DO the best reputed actors always make a great movie or the most famous directors always make a great movie? Even iof its crap there will be fanbois that say its a great movie. Similarly I find this in WSO's which is plain wrong and I am sure there are a lot of them over the years who have become friends that give each other glowing reviews even though they probably didnt buy the product. I am finding more and more of this.

[Cynthia A.]

Originally Posted by stevenh512

While this has been discussed "to death" here recently, and I'm sure there are a few who have probably used it as a marketing technique.. you'd be surprised how many of those crashes are real.

MySQL is great, but it wasn't designed to handle the kind of traffic a lot of product launches throw at it (and many web hosts don't offer an alternative). Get a couple thousand people all hitting the order page at once, all trying to submit their order into the database at once, and the server will crash almost every time.. it's a given. There are ways around it, but none of them are cheap or easy and I've come to realize that the majority of marketers aren't exactly the most "tech savvy" people in the world and they don't need to be (afterall it doesn't take a lot of technical knowledge to put together a web page, or even to "write" a script when you've outsourced all of the programming).

The genius of it is, most marketers who have been involved in major product launches do know enough to expect the server to crash at some point during the launch, and they know how to use the situation to their advantage when (not if) it happens.. but unfortunately because they know how to use it to their advantage when it happens, to a lot of people it comes across as some kind of a "marketing stunt".

I talked with someone who is a very tech savvy computer person & he says the server crash excuse is B.S. If a professional football game can stream online with millions of people watching at the same time with no problems (or all the millions of people who are watching Youtube videos right this minute), how come a few thousand people coming to a Internet marketers site at the same time causes a crash? And if they make so much money (because these launches are not their first - it's usually version 2.0, 3.0, 4.0) - since everyone seems to have these server malfunctions, why didn't they prepare for it well in advance? They themselves don't have to know anything about servers. Outsource...isn't that what they tell us to do?

[SteveJohnson]

Originally Posted by stevenh512

MySQL is great, but it wasn't designed to handle the kind of traffic a lot of product launches throw at it (and many web hosts don't offer an alternative).

It most certainly was. MySQL is enterprise-level software, when deployed and scaled efficiently.

Originally Posted by cynthia_a

I talked with someone who is a very tech savvy computer person & he says the server crash excuse is B.S. If a professional football game can stream online with millions of people watching at the same time with no problems (or all the millions of people who are watching Youtube videos right this minute), how come a few thousand people coming to a Internet marketers site at the same time causes a crash? And if they make so much money (because these launches are not their first - it's usually version 2.0, 3.0, 4.0) - since everyone seems to have these server malfunctions, why didn't they prepare for it well in advance? They themselves don't have to know anything about servers. Outsource...isn't that what they tell us to do?

Why spend tons of money on super-fast, super-sized server clusters when they're only going to be used 5 or 6 times a year? The server crash excuse is NOT bs, despite what your 'very tech savvy computer person' says. When a server overloads, it crashes.

The reason YouTube stays up is that it has scaled to handle millions of viewers at once. If anyone pays any attention to the internet, especially newer sites that are just coming into their own, they'll see all kinds of server issues as the companies try to sort through their expansion woes.

Outsourcing server capacity isn't as easy as calling up the local temp service to get another person for the road crew.

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by Cynthia A.

I talked with someone who is a very tech savvy computer person & he says the server crash excuse is B.S. If a professional football game can stream online with millions of people watching at the same time with no problems (or all the millions of people who are watching Youtube videos right this minute), how come a few thousand people coming to a Internet marketers site at the same time causes a crash?

I imagine watching a football game online is nowhere near as dependent on a database as the ordering process for most "membership-based" product launches are. For example, with the latest Butterfly Marketing launch, every order had to hit a databse. In fact it had to hit several (at least two for butterflymarketing.com, one for cancelmetoday.com, one for instantaffiliatewebsite.com and I imagine all of those databases were on the same server). All of that activity on the database server is what causes the crash, it has nothing to do with the activity on the web server. A decent server running Apache can handle millions of requests at once, it might lag a little but it can handle it. MySQL, on the other hand, wasn't designed to be hit that hard in a typical webserver environment.

To use the latest Butterfly Marketing launch as an example again.. Mike had a limited number of copies he planned to sell (or give away, however you want to look at it). Whether that was the original 5,000 copies or 15,000 is irrelevant, he had far more people lined up to make the purchase on launch day than the number of copies he planned to sell. If the server hadn't crashed, he would have easily sold out in an hour or two. Talk about social proof, 15,000 copies (or even 5,000) sold out in a couple hours is much better social proof than crashing the server. He wouldn't have had the technical problems that his helpdesk is still dealing with close to a month later. He wouldn't have had the "bad press" and people accusing him of intentionally crashing the server as some kind of marketing stunt. He wouldn't have had so many unsatisfied customers, many of which still can't download the software they ordered (even after their course arrived in the mail) and I'm sure quite a few who have requested refunds and chargebacks.

If it was bogus, if the server didn't really crash, what did he gain by faking it? The way I see it, he lost money because now he has to pay his staff for all the extra hours they're putting in to sort out the whole mess. He also lost a lot of customers, people who have said they would never buy from him again because of the whole situation and the (somewhat understandably) slow responses they're getting from the helpdesk. I'm sure he lost quite a few subscribers in his continuity plan too, people who might have otherwise stuck around for a few months and put more money in his pocket. He had nothing to gain by intentionally faking a server crash, so why would he?

Originally Posted by SteveJohnson

It most certainly was. MySQL is enterprise-level software, when deployed and scaled efficiently.

Yes, but a single MySQL server running on shared hosting (or even on some dedicated servers) wasn't designed to handle that kind of traffic. That's why it supports "clustering" across multiple servers. If you compare the different enterprise-level database "engines" that are out there, MySQL may be one of the most popular but it's far from the best in terms of speed and handling a lot of requests simultaneously.

Why spend tons of money on super-fast, super-sized server clusters when they're only going to be used 5 or 6 times a year? The server crash excuse is NOT bs, despite what your 'very tech savvy computer person' says. When a server overloads, it crashes.

Exactly. Of course you could scale your hosting to handle a major product launch, but financially it doesn't make sense to do that. Why pay for half a dozen (or more) dedicated servers and pay someone to set up all the clustering and everything just to use them a couple times a year? That's a lot of money down the drain just to prevent a server crash when most marketers who are involved in the big launches already know how to handle "damage control" when their servers crash.

Outsourcing server capacity isn't as easy as calling up the local temp service to get another person for the road crew.

It's getting easier and cheaper all the time, but it's still not to the point that it makes sense to run a huge server cluster just for a few product launches a year.

[Cynthia A.]

Originally Posted by SteveJohnson

It most certainly was. MySQL is enterprise-level software, when deployed and scaled efficiently.



Why spend tons of money on super-fast, super-sized server clusters when they're only going to be used 5 or 6 times a year? The server crash excuse is NOT bs, despite what your 'very tech savvy computer person' says. When a server overloads, it crashes.

The reason YouTube stays up is that it has scaled to handle millions of viewers at once. If anyone pays any attention to the internet, especially newer sites that are just coming into their own, they'll see all kinds of server issues as the companies try to sort through their expansion woes.

Outsourcing server capacity isn't as easy as calling up the local temp service to get another person for the road crew.

So are you saying there are no servers that can be "rented" to handle a surge a few times a year? I find that hard to believe. These launches are planned out well in advance. Thousands of people buying a $2,000 product (several times a year) isn't enough money to justify the expense (even if they get half)? I'm not talking about "newer sites that are just coming into their own." I'm talking about the guys that are doing the "million dollar" paydays. 500 sales @ $1997 is nearly $1 million. And you know that they try to sell as many as they can during that launch period.

Originally Posted by stevenh512

If it was bogus, if the server didn't really crash, what did he gain by faking it? The way I see it, he lost money because now he has to pay his staff for all the extra hours they're putting in to sort out the whole mess. He also lost a lot of customers, people who have said they would never buy from him again because of the whole situation and the (somewhat understandably) slow responses they're getting from the helpdesk. I'm sure he lost quite a few subscribers in his continuity plan too, people who might have otherwise stuck around for a few months and put more money in his pocket. He had nothing to gain by intentionally faking a server crash, so why would he?

Faking a server crash is a form of scarcity. Everyone wants what they can't have. "So many people want to buy this that we're overwhelmed! Hurry! You better buy before you can't get it." Then they continue to send emails for days afterward to go buy now since the server is now back up. I just find it strange that these server issues happen every launch (some marketers have had it happen to them more than once) & no one has yet figured out how to stop it from happening.

[Craig Desorcy]

Recently had a client that wrote in the sales page "Take your time, I'm not going anywhere... come back again later and I'll be here" And a bunch of other type wording.

"Unlike other ebook sellers, I'm not going to push you into ordering NOW. Print this page out, come see me again, I'll be waiting."

Why did this person contact me for help? Zero conversions.

One of the most uncomfortable things I had to get over was boxing people into ordering. As time went by I learned; we really don't take action unless we are pushed. (Internally or externally).

I guess making the reader put pressure on themselves to take action is best.

We here are the worst group to try this with because we hate being marketed to and we've seen it all. For us, that call to action better smell like a rose LOL!

Happy marketing,

Craig

[Steven Fullman]

Originally Posted by SteveJohnson

Outsourcing server capacity isn't as easy as calling up the local temp service to get another person for the road crew.

Correct.

It's easier.

But only once you've planned for it.

I've heard people...respected folks at that...come here saying, "Whoah! 10,000 simultaneous hits...server meltdown..."

Bull****.

Go speak to the folks who run real datacenters.

10,000 concurrent connections? Lol.

Scaling up for a product launch is totally as easy as picking up the phone...

Steve

[paulmkarst]

Originally Posted by dave830

Appealing to emotions is a "trick"? Sorry, but isn't that the basis of SALES in general?

"People buy based on emotion, they back up the decision with logic." Terry Dean teaches this, and he's got nothing but integrity as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, I totally agree with that too. By appealing with their emotions, it's a way of trying to establish a relationship with them. Try to please them first... It's a bad approach by getting to sales talk right away. It'll just scare them away!

[Johnathan]

Actually -- I would disagree with you.

I would say the server crash is BS -- in that there is no excuse for it giving that it is so cheap and inexpensive nowadays to put together a properly structured mysql database/tables/etc, with an appropriately distributed load (if you actually have that many visitors at once).

Unless these guys are setting up a 1998 MS Frontpage webserver on their home computer, at 14400 baud (ok, yes, I'm exagerating, but the point is the same), then there is no excuse that they should have these "problems". Especially when "they" do the volume that they purport to do.

If you are selling a $200 system (or more, whatever), and have 10,000 purchases over one day, you can set up a system that can easily handle that for about $100-$200. (And that is providing extra money 'just' in case). (Plus, they don't really need a server cluster -- but if they do use that, you can easily get 5 dedicated servers for $50 which can easily handle a load of about 10,000 visitors). Traffic wise -- the only thing (at the moment) that might be a bottleneck is if they had 5-20 GB of data being downloaded simultaneously by say 2000-3000 people at once, in which case they should get a larger server cluster. But that even nowadays is not a big deal.

So there really is no excuse. The ones who don't do anything about it either don't take the time to set themselves up properly (either don't care if its happened before, or if they are new, aren't aware of it), or actually do use it as a marketing publicity stunt.

There really is no excuse nowadays for that.

Johnathan

Originally Posted by SteveJohnson

It most certainly was. MySQL is enterprise-level software, when deployed and scaled efficiently.



Why spend tons of money on super-fast, super-sized server clusters when they're only going to be used 5 or 6 times a year? The server crash excuse is NOT bs, despite what your 'very tech savvy computer person' says. When a server overloads, it crashes.

The reason YouTube stays up is that it has scaled to handle millions of viewers at once. If anyone pays any attention to the internet, especially newer sites that are just coming into their own, they'll see all kinds of server issues as the companies try to sort through their expansion woes.

Outsourcing server capacity isn't as easy as calling up the local temp service to get another person for the road crew.

[yourreviewer]

What about these?

Time Limited offer and Scarcity

YouTube - Slap Chop (2 minute version)

YouTube - Cock Shot

[shane_k]

Originally Posted by stevenh512

If it was bogus, if the server didn't really crash, what did he gain by faking it? The way I see it, he lost money because now he has to pay his staff for all the extra hours they're putting in to sort out the whole mess. He also lost a lot of customers, people who have said they would never buy from him again because of the whole situation and the (somewhat understandably) slow responses they're getting from the helpdesk. I'm sure he lost quite a few subscribers in his continuity plan too, people who might have otherwise stuck around for a few months and put more money in his pocket. He had nothing to gain by intentionally faking a server crash, so why would he?

The people who think server crashes are a marketing technique totally miss this. If it is true as they say then what does he gain by doing this?

Nothing!

It actually costs them more; Angry customers, bad press, wage costs to their workers, extra stress, pressure, and frustration.

The cons far outweigh the pros, yet people want to blame the "gurus" for any little thing.

Give me a break.

Shane_K

[shane_k]

Originally Posted by Cynthia A.

Faking a server crash is a form of scarcity. Everyone wants what they can't have. "So many people want to buy this that we're overwhelmed! Hurry! You better buy before you can't get it." Then they continue to send emails for days afterward to go buy now since the server is now back up. I just find it strange that these server issues happen every launch (some marketers have had it happen to them more than once) & no one has yet figured out how to stop it from happening.

Here is where you are absolutely wrong.

By the time of the launch they DO NOT need to create any more scarcity.

They have already elicited that response BEFORE the launch day itself that is why there are so many people lined up to buy.

They do not need to do any more selling at all, because everyone is already sold.

Want proof. Go back and search for the thread about the latest butterfly marketing launch. Look at how long people were on his site trying to buy and buy and buy. They were on his site for a long time waiting.

Having people on your site for hours at a time just to buy your product just goes to show that by the time launch day arrived they had ALREADY done their job.

They did not need to do anymore selling that day. Their only job that day was to fulfill orders.

It just makes not sense for them to further delay (on purpose) like you think they would.

Crazy.

Shane_K

[Kyle Tully]

They're only tricks if they're not true

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by shane_k

The people who think server crashes are a marketing technique totally miss this. If it is true as they say then what does he gain by doing this?

I could see how a "properly executed" fake server crash might be used as a marketing technique, in my opinion it wouldn't be the smartest move but I can see why someone might use it as some form of artificial "scarcity" or "social proof".. but in cases like the server meltdown that happened with BFM, the database servers were still having problems a week later (I ordered a week later and my order had problems that are still being sorted out), it would make no sense to fake that and create so much extra work for yourself and your staff when a 1-2 hour sell out is all the "scarcity" and "social proof" you need. A lot of people who were ready to buy on the spot left after waiting for several hours, some never came back.. eventually he did sell out, but look at how long it took, compared to how fast it would have happened if the thousands of people who were in the ustream chat that day would have been able to get their orders through immediately.

[Cynthia A.]

Originally Posted by shane_k

Here is where you are absolutely wrong.

By the time of the launch they DO NOT need to create any more scarcity.

They have already elicited that response BEFORE the launch day itself that is why there are so many people lined up to buy.

They do not need to do any more selling at all, because everyone is already sold.

Want proof. Go back and search for the thread about the latest butterfly marketing launch. Look at how long people were on his site trying to buy and buy and buy. They were on his site for a long time waiting.

Having people on your site for hours at a time just to buy your product just goes to show that by the time launch day arrived they had ALREADY done their job.

They did not need to do anymore selling that day. Their only job that day was to fulfill orders.

It just makes not sense for them to further delay (on purpose) like you think they would.

Crazy.

Shane_K

What you've said proves the point. People sticking around on a site for hours trying to buy. They didn't leave for fear of missing out - thus scarcity. The continuous emails that comes for days after stress the point that "you still have an opportunity before we close the doors." If they'd "already done their job & didn't need to sell anymore," what's with the 'come & get it before it goes away' emails? Maybe you buy when the doors open & don't get a chance to see the last chance emails that come afterward. It's all about using psychology & human nature which all good marketers do.

[aseltz]

Originally Posted by Cynthia A.

What you've said proves the point. People sticking around on a site for hours trying to buy. They didn't leave for fear of missing out - thus scarcity. The continuous emails that comes for days after stress the point that "you still have an opportunity before we close the doors." If they'd "already done their job & didn't need to sell anymore," what's with the 'come & get it before it goes away' emails? Maybe you buy when the doors open & don't get a chance to see the last chance emails that come afterward. It's all about using psychology & human nature which all good marketers do.

I have to disagree with this conclusion. The reason he had to keep selling was because people weren't ordering and he was having trouble moving the product.

People got burned out on the whole launch because of the delays and frustrations. Then, if you believe what Mike said, he tripled the amount of product available to keep the marketplace anger at bay from people who couldn't spend 6 hours of their life waiting for the server to come back on line. This further diluted both the urgency of the offer and also Mike's credibility.

In the end, to put a 'sold out' sign on the page, they had to pull 1000 copies off the market - and partly to make sure they had extra product on hand in case they discovered additional problems once they reconciled their books.

That doesn't sound like the work of a brilliant marketer building his market to a fevered pitch and then cashing in. To me, it sounds like a guy making the best of a bad situation.

[peato]

There's an ebook around with 1000 marketing appeals. Amazing and quite accurate. I bet I've seen a majority of them.

The bigger question...to me...is how true do you think it is that, that people are like sheep and respond to those messages?

[Mike Long]

Gah!!!

I'm really struggling with this right now.

I'm working on the copy of my new product, and I hate hate hate most of the traditional methods used to get people to whip out their wallets and start droning, "Must Buy, Must Buy".

The problem is, many of those methods work, and work well.

Ideally I've love to find a copywriter who is good enough to produce similar results without resorting to the "tricks" that are used by so many.

I'm an Article Writer, not a Copywriter, so I'm not the guy to do it. But finding someone with the kind of portfolio I'm looking for is proving to be a challenge.

Ideally though, I'd still like to avoid the usual tactics in my copy. It just feels like such a crutch to me, and definitely doesn't represent who I am, or the foundational, fundamental nature of the product I'm creating.

~Mike

[superstylefactor]

hmm... and this thread is joining the rest of the information filled discussion articles in my bookmarks! Good read!

[Cynthia A.]

Originally Posted by aseltz

I have to disagree with this conclusion. The reason he had to keep selling was because people weren't ordering and he was having trouble moving the product.

People got burned out on the whole launch because of the delays and frustrations. Then, if you believe what Mike said, he tripled the amount of product available to keep the marketplace anger at bay from people who couldn't spend 6 hours of their life waiting for the server to come back on line. This further diluted both the urgency of the offer and also Mike's credibility.

In the end, to put a 'sold out' sign on the page, they had to pull 1000 copies off the market - and partly to make sure they had extra product on hand in case they discovered additional problems once they reconciled their books.

That doesn't sound like the work of a brilliant marketer building his market to a fevered pitch and then cashing in. To me, it sounds like a guy making the best of a bad situation.

Wasn't Mike's BFM product essentially free (just pick it up for s&h)? You're going to have a lot more people trying to get something that's free or incredibly cheap than you will for people buying a $2K program. That's just common sense & not to be prepared for that kind of onslaught is foolish. MF isn't the only one who has cried "server crash" (I never brought him up in the first place). It seems that many of the big $$ launches in the past year have all used it (we just had another one a few days ago). And as I said before, many have used it more than once. (I think Mike may have had a server issue before this most recent one - although I'm not 100% sure.) A few people here have said it's not that difficult to rectify server overload issues & since it happens so often (& everybody promotes each others products), you'd think that they would have shared the remedy amongst themselves so it doesn't become an ongoing problem.

[nanohits]

Originally Posted by Cynthia A.

Wasn't Mike's BFM product essentially free (just pick it up for s&h)? You're going to have a lot more people trying to get something that's free or incredibly cheap than you will for people buying a $2K program. That's just common sense & not to be prepared for that kind of onslaught is foolish. MF isn't the only one who has cried "server crash" (I never brought him up in the first place). It seems that many of the big $$ launches in the past year have all used it (we just had another one a few days ago). And as I said before, many have used it more than once. (I think Mike may have had a server issue before this most recent one - although I'm not 100% sure.) A few people here have said it's not that difficult to rectify server overload issues & since it happens so often (& everybody promotes each others products), you'd think that they would have shared the remedy amongst themselves so it doesn't become an ongoing problem.

Was it really Free?? Or did he make a tidy profit in the shipping and handling fee? How much would it cost to send this by US Airmail? I would imagine less than $10. Its the handling fee that people get ripped on. If he really meant free then charge like $10 for the shipping, then I would says it value. There's way too much marketing bs in there.

[Cynthia A.]

Originally Posted by nanohits

Was it really Free?? Or did he make a tidy profit in the shipping and handling fee? How much would it cost to send this by US Airmail? I would imagine less than $10. Its the handling fee that people get ripped on. If he really meant free then charge like $10 for the shipping, then I would says it value. There's way too much marketing bs in there.

I believe there was also the (forced) continuity of his monthly newsletter - which is around $30/month.

[nanohits]

Got to give it to him though, he knows how to create a hype and market stuff

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by Cynthia A.

Wasn't Mike's BFM product essentially free (just pick it up for s&h)? You're going to have a lot more people trying to get something that's free or incredibly cheap than you will for people buying a $2K program. That's just common sense & not to be prepared for that kind of onslaught is foolish. MF isn't the only one who has cried "server crash" (I never brought him up in the first place). It seems that many of the big $$ launches in the past year have all used it (we just had another one a few days ago). And as I said before, many have used it more than once. (I think Mike may have had a server issue before this most recent one - although I'm not 100% sure.) A few people here have said it's not that difficult to rectify server overload issues & since it happens so often (& everybody promotes each others products), you'd think that they would have shared the remedy amongst themselves so it doesn't become an ongoing problem.

The BFM launch may have been essentially "free" (paying only s/h and a "forced continuity" plan that was incredibly easy to cancel), but he's also had quite a few big $$ launches that crashed the server, and as you've said so have quite a few other marketers. As far as not being 100% sure with the most recent BFM launch, I can't think of any way at all that it would have benefited him to fake the crash when he had more than enough people lined up with credit cards in hand to create all the "social proof" and "scarcity" he needed. In the end it just caused him, his staff, his JV partners and his customers a lot of trouble that they're still trying to sort out over a month later.

As far as any other marketers faking crashes on a big launch.. like I said I don't doubt a few people have tried it, but I also don't think it would be the smartest thing to do. If you have a limited number of copies you're selling, the "scarcity" is already there. If you have thousands of people lined up with credit cards ready to give you money an hour before you launch, the "social proof" is already there. To launch, then almost immediately crash the server and stop taking orders would make no sense. You'd be driving as many customers away as you might be gaining with the "server is back up" emails you have to send out. You'd also be disappointing your JV partners and I imagine a lot of them might think twice before promoting a big launch for you again since they're losing money every second that your sever is down and their customers are trying to order.

[MunkMurray]

thanks a lot,
I'm working on two sales letters now, and your posts really helps

thank you

[Obelisk]

Anyone know where I can pick up one of those Mr Microphones?

I got the music in my head & I need to get it out!