Being a nice guy or a bad boy in IM?

In the dating world, there is a saying that "nice guys finish last."

Some say that women are attracted to "bad boys." I have seen this myself although this is not true for all women, for sure.

Dealing with women, I have always been confronted with the dilemma of whether to behave like a bad boy or to be a nice guy. The problem is that I tend to be a "nice guy" by nature. Hence the reason I am single.

Apply this to the Internet marketing arena.

Mr. Nice Guy Internet marketer:

• Provides valuable content.
• No hype. Just reality.
• Works hard.
• Practices price-stretching, by overdelivering on content and reducing the price.
• Follows ethical marketing behavior.
• He is honest and actually gives a damn about his subscribers/customers (what a revolutionary concept).
• Gives away a lot of material for free.

Let's introduce Mr. Bad Boy marketer:

• Provides rehashed content at a high price.
• Hypes things to the extreme.
• Borrows content from others, changes it around, and sells it for outrageous prices.
• Ethical? Maybe or maybe not. He plays with people's emotions, making them feel as they need the product he is selling. But then we as Internet marketers are always somehow appealing to people's emotions.
• Dishonest and doesn't give a damn about his customers, although he promotes a fake appearance of honesty.
• Doesn't give much for free.

I won't name names here, but you know some "gurus" who fit the latter Bad Boy profile.

I have to confess that I have "Internet Marketing Bipolar Disoder"; i.e. sometimes I have acted as the nice guy and sometimes as the bad boy.

Once I actually split-tested both personalities by sending different types of emails leading to two different squeeze pages:

• One squeeze page was full of hype with big highlighted words. The email subject and content was also hype through and through.
• The other squeeze page was plain, and rather "boring." The email also went to the point with no hype whatsoever.

Results? Mr. Nice Guy won! Yuhuuuuu...

Acting as Mr. Nice Guy resulted in a higher conversion rate for my second squeeze page. People were wary of all the hype.

But this was sent to a double opt-in list containing people who were probably intermediate or advanced Internet marketers.

Yet here is something I have noticed from some of the "bad boy gurus":

Exaggeration works!

It may not work on you or me, or other Warriors, but it certainly works on some people.

But here is the problem: how do you feel morally about yourself after making exaggerated claims about your product, report, or service?

I have to admit I felt really bad, despite some people signing up to my list and buying my products.

So I want to hear from others what your experiences have been.

Have you tried to maintain a no B.S. personality, knowing that although it might be boring, you are being honest to yourself and to others?

Or have you tried the other side of coin, by providing more entertainment value than real content? By making false and exaggerated claims? What were the results?

It's your time to come clean!

Greetings to all of you.