What do you REALLY hate about marketers and what they do?

Muhammad Hassan · 06-11-2009, 04:51 PM

Here's an idea I've had where I need your help.

The idea was inspired by the following 2 threads.

What puts you off buying a product?

What Kind of Marketing REALLY Pisses you Off?

In them people say what annoys them about marketing and what prevents them from buying. If you notice there are a lot of answers which have a lot of information.

They tell marketers what not to do so that they can make sales and make money.

My idea is to start similar threads, but to narrow the focus. That way we get to know more about what not to do and what to do in our marketing efforts.

Where I need your help is to suggest aspects of marketing that could be asked about.

Obviously, it's an idea I've had to try and help people, but may not be a good idea. If it falls off the first few pages with no replies then I'll know others do not find it to be useful.

jasonl70 · 06-11-2009, 05:14 PM

Surely you noticed that most of the more experienced/successful marketers in those threads pointed out how they serve little to no purpose?

This is sales - and actual sales will tell you what works and what doesn't.

Consumers 'vote' with their wallets. Unlike face-to-face sales, anyone who isn't interested in your offer can just choose to ignore it (close your email or leave your website) - no one is being forced to buy something.

If someone is just getting started, and needs to know what their 'default' approach should be (since they don't yet have sales), I'd reccomend modeling those who's success is unquestioned. You know who I'm talking about - those evil guru's

Muhammad Hassan · 06-11-2009, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jasonl70

If someone is just getting started, and needs to know what their 'default' approach should be (since they don't yet have sales), I'd reccomend modeling those who's success is unquestioned. You know who I'm talking about - those evil guru's

I should perhaps say that my intention is to start a series of threads that deal with different aspects of marketing and to make the threads useful.

What I mean by useful is that the threads contain information that people can take away and use. The threads should show what to do with each aspect of marketing and what not to do.

There is a lot of knowledge in this forum and I was intending to get some of it in single threads that would be easy and quick to get good information instead of searching through various other threads.

I am assuming that people are do not disagree with my intentions (I could be wrong).

However, although intentions were good the way of acting them out is wrong / not the best way.

So I ask what would be the best way? What questions should I ask to get good, useful answers for myself and other readers?

A little non censoring brainstorming:

ask people to give good examples for people to follow and for them to say briefly what makes them good examples?
ask people to give bad examples for people to follow and for them to say briefly what makes them bad examples?
Or would that not work either?

Ask people what they have done that worked - but wouldn't people not want to give their tactics away?

MikeAmbrosio · 06-11-2009, 05:37 PM

I've thought about this before and I think asking these questions to a forum full of marketers lends to slightly skewed answers.

By this I mean we are in a niche that markets heavily and as a result, those of us that are marketed to (including the "evil guru's"

) see it all, over and over. We tend to develop either immunity or a deep hatred of these tactics.

But recently, in marketing products in a niche WAY far away from this one, I learned a few things. Like how some of the tactics we claim to hate and do no good actually work well in other niches.

Take the One Time Offers - we see them probably several times a day in some cases. In fact, we expect to see them now. I have noticed over the years since we started seeing OTO's a lot that the conversion on the average one is lower (depending on the product(s) and marketer(s) ).

In the niche I used the OTO on converted almost 60%. That is for every 100 people that paid for the main product 60 of them paid for the OTO.

Same with popups. In the IM niche sites I have, my optin rate via popups is "ok". Outside this niche, it's much higher.

Now, I am not suggesting that this is the case in every niche or for every marketer. I am only speaking to what I have personally observed. But I suspect others who play in this niche and other niches see basically the same thing.

That's why I think asking a bunch of marketers about marketing tactics you get skewed answers

Mike

John Durham · 06-11-2009, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muhammad Hassan

Perhaps then a better way of starting threads to help people would be to ask people to give good examples for people to follow and for them to say briefly what makes them good examples? Or would that method not be useful also?

That makes more sense.

Flaming a successful guru's techniques is the equivalent of "slapping your mom in the face". You might not always like her wisdom, and it may be sometimes hard to swallow, but chances are 90% of the time she's right, and you are just a "know it all kid" with alot to learn.

Dylan Jones · 06-11-2009, 06:01 PM

hmm....

What people SAY is very much different than what they DO. (in most cases...)

Why can't we make threads and focus our attention on positive things? This thread
could be 100x times more helpful if it were "what makes YOU buy" not what doesn't.

I maybe out of line saying this... but... if I a were 'newbie' and reading this thread with
the scarcity mindset, I would probably OBSESSE over each persons answers and
spend hours and hours trying to correct those issues on my own sites...

When in realty... Most of it DOESN'T MATTER! Seriously, there is only a handful
of real 'buying' triggers and the rest are just tactics to amplify those core buying
traits...

The WF forum is getting riddled with "I dont like this..", "I hate this..", "Why I wont...", and so on and so on.

All of it getting more attention then the GREAT bits of info sprinkled throughout this site... Bahumbug!

Muhammad Hassan · 06-11-2009, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dylan Jones

hmm....

What people SAY is very much different than what they DO. (in most cases...)

Why can't we make threads and focus our attention on positive things? This thread
could be 100x times more helpful if it were "what makes YOU buy" not what doesn't.

I maybe out of line saying this... but... if I a were 'newbie' and reading this thread with
the scarcity mindset, I would probably OBSESSE over each persons answers and
spend hours and hours trying to correct those issues on my own sites...

When in realty... Most of it DOESN'T MATTER! Seriously, there is only a handful
of real 'buying' triggers and the rest are just tactics to amplify those core buying
traits...

The WF forum is getting riddled with "I dont like this..", "I hate this..", "Why I wont...", and so on and so on.

All of it getting more attention then the GREAT bits of info sprinkled throughout this site... Bahumbug!

Thanks for the contribution.

My intention was to make a useful thread with good information - however, as you and other have said the way I have gone about it is wrong.

Being cheeky now - 2 questions:

1) in marketing, as with other things, there are good actions you should do and wrong actions you should not do - What do I ask to get people to give the wrong actions?

2) what are some of the buying riggers? (Would be useful to know, but of course you don't need to answer as I was cheeky in asking in the first place)

nmh · 06-11-2009, 06:15 PM

TOO MANY EMAILS!

Jay-3 · 06-11-2009, 06:19 PM

two types get dropped immediately:

Those who can't put a clickable link in their email...and...
Those who always "sent" the wrong link. Instant death.

p2y · 06-11-2009, 07:21 PM

"OMG our server crashed, so now we're slashing prices for the next 10 orders only!"

Oh, and the "this offer is only good for the next 15 minutes!" and you see a little javascript countdown timer.

MikeAmbrosio · 06-11-2009, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmbehrens

Personally my biggest pet peeve is the urgency fake-date scripts.

You know the ones - "You HAVE to buy this before 12:00 am on {today's date}" or the price is going up!!! I am serious this offer is valid ONLY for the date of {today's date}!!!"

They just seem so ridiculously transparent to me... I have literally smacked my forefead sometimes when I see them.

But same time, I know they get results because I see big names using them (names I otherwise respect apart from this little gem). Even so, I make a point of never doing that, if I put a date on a sales letter, then I make it a real date and stick to it. That may cost me dearly, but it's just a personal thing with me

And if others want to use them, well more power to 'em I guess.

Ah yes, I forgot about these.

ANOTHER "trick" that works VERY well outside the IM niche.

Oddly, in the niche I am in I have an autoresponder series set up. Every now and then I get "responses" from the people who get them because they actually do believe I am emailing them one on one.

Mike

John Durham · 06-27-2009, 02:52 AM

Unfortunately, when you are staying busy and making progress, you rarely have time to read newsletters , even from the guru's you LIKE.

JohnMcCabe · 06-27-2009, 10:19 AM

One thing I can offer, tongue slightly in cheek, is to NOT pay attention to all the "I hate..." threads. It leads to trying to please everybody. And that's like trying to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon...

If you use an OTO, you irritate the "I hate OTOs" crowd. If you don't try one, you don't know if you're leaving money on the table.

If you use video, you irritate the "I hate vdeo" crowd, while if you skip the video and go text only, you irritate the "I hate long sales letters" crowd. Put both, and you have a 50-50 chance of irritating both crowds.

Start a "what do you hate" conversation, and you get a few dozen people with a chance to air their pet peeve. Most of those people make the common mistake of assuming that if something bugs them, it must bug everyone else, too. Comes from the ages-old urge to not get outside the herd, alone and vulnerable.

Start a "what do you like" thread, and you'll likely get a few dozen people with products to promote, along with the "what do you hate" crew flipping the coin - "I like short sales letters, not the really long ones", etc.

The boring answer is to start with an approach that appears to be working for the market you want to penetrate, then start tracking and testing...

Nick Brighton · 06-27-2009, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muhammad Hassan

So I ask what would be the best way? What questions should I ask to get good, useful answers for myself and other readers?

The ones that you want specific answers to.

I commend your intentions, but to be honest there's 3 things that are an issue here:

1. Your thread title is going to attract negative thinkers (hint = "hate")

2. You thread is positive which is great, but it's like going to a personal development forum and asking "How do I become a better person?".

3. The forum and indeed marketing in general is far too broad to try and condense into a single thread, which is essentially what you're aiming for here.

The way the forum works is that pissed off people vent in new threads, and people with questions ask them in new threads...

...that's a far more organized way to assemble information for others in my opinion.

Hope I'm not coming across negative, but that's how I see it

JackPowers · 06-27-2009, 12:10 PM

Too many emails, for me thats more than one pr. week, gets that guy or girls email on the spam list very fast. I dont want to read very small bits of usefull information every day. Give me something substantial if you want me to read your emails.

MisterMunch · 06-27-2009, 12:45 PM

I really dislike the fact that we article marketers, from the top of our heads, write unresearch articles that give advice on how to cure serious problems.

Marketers are not doctors. Still those cancer adsense clicks do pay a lot.

Word of advice: be carefull. If your "How to cure Cancer" article has 45.000 views, you may have killed someone without knowing it.

Jeff Williams · 06-27-2009, 01:26 PM

Personally, I miss simple offers.

One eBook. One powerful offer. One compelling pitch. One price.

Today, each salespage I visit seems to include a glut of bonuses, upsells, downsells, bronze-silver-gold-and-platinum pricing levels, OTOs, etc...

It stresses me out. Too many choices. So, I don't buy.

I miss simple. I'm your average, impatient, page-skimming web surfer with ADD. I'm indecisive and unfocused by nature.

Give me simple. I'll give you money.

-Jeff

googmagic · 06-27-2009, 01:42 PM

even after you buy the product they are trying to sell you something else..

:-)

misterwrecker · 06-27-2009, 01:52 PM

What I do not like about some Internet Marketers is when they do not respond to their list. They send their emails all the time and they do not respond. I understand these emails are from autoresponders but they should have a 2 way relationship with their list. Even if I have a question about a product the marketer is trying to push I still do not get a response sometimes. I understand some marketers receive lots of emails daily but if they are that big they should atleast be able to afford a customer service person. Another thing I do not like is just blatant lying. A marketer sent me an email saying he was going to give his list a special half off discount exclusively for his list so I went to google and typed the product in and it was the same price he was giving it to me for. When a marketer does something like this I will immediately unsubscribe and lose all respect for him. I don't condone lying but if your going to do it do it in a way that can't be so easily caught.

JackPowers · 06-27-2009, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Williams

Personally, I miss simple offers.

One eBook. One powerful offer. One compelling pitch. One price.

Today, each salespage I visit seems to include a glut of bonuses, upsells, downsells, bronze-silver-gold-and-platinum pricing levels, OTOs, etc...

It stresses me out. Too many choices. So, I don't buy.

I miss simple. I'm your average, impatient, page-skimming web surfer with ADD. I'm indecisive and unfocused by nature.

Give me simple. I'll give you money.

-Jeff

Yesterday when I was surfing this forum I found one guys offer for a membership which sounded very enticing for me. I was almost sold at the first paragraph, but his page just went on and on and on.

I kept saying to myself: Just give me the price already!

Well, Once I got down there and saw the price I understood his tactics better

nostih · 06-27-2009, 02:28 PM

Stop using the word "secrets" in everything...there are no secrets. So what if I don't know it, it's not a secret. Nothing new under the sun.

DennisM · 06-27-2009, 03:05 PM

Hi All,

My pet peeve is the video only sales letter that will NOT allow you either fast forward or stop it. In addition, sometimes the video will hang too and you have no choice to play the video all over again. Again, because you can't fast forward or rewind you're forced to start the video over or worse, just abandon video altogether.

I suggest to all if you're going to do video only sales letters then at least provide a PDF transcript of the video.

Thanks for reading,
Dennis

Adrian Cooper · 06-27-2009, 05:26 PM

If you want to know whether someone you are buying a product from really cares, just send them an email asking a question and see if they respond.

Better still send them a question not related to their product and see if they respond.

I am in the self-improvement niche - broadly speaking - and receive hundreds of emails from people asking for help in all sorts of ways - many in a really bad way. I always answer every single email in full unconditionally as well as follow-ups knowing they are not in a position to buy anything.

How can you put a price on turning around the life of a person who was going to take their own life?

I receive hundreds of emails from people in less well off countries where they do not have credit cards who desperately want one of my products to give them the opportunity of a better life.

I not only send them the book, I usually send them all my books.

The point I am making is this. If a so called "IM'er" can't even be bothered to respond to a pre-sales question, then don't buy the product.

If you do buy the product and they do not respond to support questions then get a refund.

They have no interest in seeing you succeed - only banking your cash.