Do you get annoyed when an Offer is misleading?

Hi Sam,

Threads like this seem to appear every day and no-one seems to analyse it any deeper than saying 'this is wrong, people should do this instead.'

I'm not having a go at you in any way, shape or form and I understand your motives. But in order to learn something from this, we need to examine things a little more closely, I think.

There are some things you have said which are basically incorrect. Allow me to explain -

This sounds great - all warm and fuzzy, but it is correct? Is it actually true? Do we live in a world where those who mislead fail, and those who tell the truth prosper? Is this also true of internet business?

Has the person gone out of business because of what they did? If not, then why are they an idiot?

You see you say this -

Which is the way it should be. BUT, you then jump to this -

and -

This prompts me to ask - are you saying that people should follow your advice BECAUSE you are doing it your way already and you are MORE successful than those who mislead, like the person in your example?

If not, why are you saying it? Because you want the world to be a better place?

You see, people are here to learn how to earn money. If you give advice that is based on the way that you would like the world to be, rather than what will actually make them more money, you might be doing them a dis-service.

Disclaimer - if you look at any of my posts here, you will know that I don't advocate misleading people as a way to do business. I'm not suggesting that for one minute. But I STILL think what I am saying is important, or I wouldn't be saying it.

Let's go a level deeper.

How does marketing work, at the most basic level?

You have a target market. That target market is derived from a bigger pool of prospects. There is a certain percentage of the bigger pool that you are targetting.

Now let's go hypothetical.

Let's say that this marketer is targetting the percentage who are new/naive enough that regardless of the bait and switch, they will STILL sign up for the continuity program.

It doesn't matter what the real percentage is, but for example purposes let's say that 3% of the bigger pool fit that category.

That means that for the 97% of people who follow the link but don't sign up to the continuity BECAUSE like you, they are offended at the bait and switch - this is NOT the target market.

The marketer will probably do something with that 97%. He will hit them with any old crap just to try and get something out of them, now that he knows they are in the 97% and have already seen through his tactic. In his mind they are spent, gone, fubar.

BUT he was only EVER really focused on the 3%. They are his target.

He KNOWS before he starts that out of 100 people 97 of them (on average) will see through it and disappear.

But he has his business set up so that he still makes a profit from the 3% who don't.

.............

Do you see the difference in the way you are viewing it, and the way the marketer is viewing it?

For him, it is a numbers game. He doesn't care what you think because he has already written you off at the start. His only problem is continually funnelling more people to the offer, and making the most of the gullible 3% who sign up for the continuity offer.

He just has to keep filtering to get his 3%.

.........

This is marketing 101.

So what do you think you will achieve with this thread?

The marketer isn't going to change his ways because of this, nor are any of the other successful marketers out there who are playing the numbers game.

And if you were to change the mind of someone who might be about to play the numbers game themselves, and they then decide to treat all of their prospects with respect - what have you achieved?

Was your theory based on your own success, or was it based on the change you would like to see in the world, to make it more like your own personal utopia?

Therefore, are you misleading those who take your advice?

It doesn't take much experience to know that the marketers who build a huge successful business based on only ever showing respect to people, never misleading people, and never viewing them as just another number that needs to go through a filter to establish their naivety - are very few and far between.

Whereas the number who build a similarly successful business, but who do it by knowing their numbers, conducting tests, filtering and funnelling people in order to despatch the cynical ones ASAP, and to focus on those who are more naive and to milk them for all they are worth - are much greater in number.

.........

For clarity - I feel the same as you. I hate to be deceived and manipulated. I refuse to do business with people (as their buyer) who treat me in this way.

BUT I know the difference between what works in marketing, and what changes I would like to see in the world regarding my own personal version of utopia.

And I don't get up in the morning and try to mould the world into that utopia, because the world isn't playing ball with me and refuses to respond to my desires, and my forum threads.

I find this one of the most difficult conundrums in business, and it's why I don't sell to the IM crowd, even though I know I have a lot to offer.

But in the meantime, there is no point living in a dreamworld and fooling ourselves that successful business happens through love, peace and harmony.

It doesn't. It happens through manipulation, persuasion, interruption, distraction, cajoling, nudging, agitating, bait and switch, filtering huge numbers, targetting the weak etc.

And 99% of marketers will try and present a picture of being that amazing guy who really cares, but this is simply a cunning smokescreen to disguise the fact that they will only ever truly succeed by using the above list of actions, casting their ideals aside - and the reason for this is because of another numbers game - the one where the majority of marketers take the easier route and totally swamp those who are genuinely honest.

Don't believe me? Look at the facts. How many politicians succeed through altruism towards their people? How many huge corporations succeed by actually putting their customers first? How many small businesses fail BECAUSE they try and do business in a way that is in alignment with their personal principles?

And this whole thing becomes even more perverse in IM because you CANNOT sell products to your customer base that tell the truth. You CANNOT tell them that they need to deceive every single day in order not to get crushed by the competition who do.

Why?

Because the people on their list are customers AND potential marketers.

So if the marketer tells them truthfully how to succeed, he is also admitting that he deceives them (as his customer) on a daily basis. So instead, he gives them a bunch of crap which is designed to look like he is helping, but usually it is simply training them to become HIS affiliate.

I'm not knocking you, but I can't sit by and watch another thread pass by that skims over the difficult, unpleasant, distasteful truth and advises people to take a course of action that is going to make it harder for them, and pretends that the advice given is based on real success, rather than someone's distorted view of the world.

There will be exceptions to the rule out there that appear to have succeeded through treating people with respect at all times, and by putting the customer first (and probably a bunch of IMers who will respond negatively to me here, claiming that they are genuine, and that I am full of s*** - they don't like people knowing the truth).

But as for advising the masses to follow this route, based on the fact that you were deceived by a marketer and didn't like it, and then reframing it so that it appears that your advice is based upon how you found more success than those deceptive marketers by being genuine - is deceptive itself, is it not?

Any thoughts?

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the replies to my post (Sam, Mary and sbucciarel). I'm concocting my reply and waiting to see if any more responses come in that help me to make it a worthwhile response.

My goal here is just to be open minded and take things deeper so that we can learn. If I hadn't made my post and tried to encourage some deeper thought, perhaps you would have got a bunch of agreement posts Sam, and that would have been it.

I think it's an important subject (it is for me) but I'm not trying to hijack your thread. If I can offer some value, I'll come back to it.

Edit for an addition - why do I think this is worth going deeper on?

There are two sides to this ethical coin.

Side1 - those who like to conduct successful business while contributing positively and developing business relationships based on trust

Side2 - those who see marketing as a technically orientated activity where the buyers are numbers and the main consideration is working the numbers to improve ROI - regardless of the feelings of those 'numbers.'

From my observations, in recent times (during the rise of the internet) and these difficult financial times, a large proportion of the bigger businesses around us have swung wildly towards Side2.

It would appear that due to pressures from many angles, they can no longer justify a weaker ROI in order to uphold ethical values.

Everyone (big business) seems to employ small print tactics and unethical tactics nowadays. And in these difficult financial times, when many individuals are struggling, when they try and communicate with the companies that they buy commodities from (mobile phones for example), buy their essential services from (water, electricity etc), and get their financial products from (banks, credit cards, mortgages) they are made to jump through hoops, sent around in circles, sent to Indian call centres, left on hold, have the phone put down on them etc.

Often this means that they can't get problems resolved and have to give up - so in effect, customer service has been abandoned. I know of people who have been unable to terminate contracts due to these problems.

I imagine many of these companies would say that they were forced to act this way because their competitors took this route and started taking their business and making better profits than them.

So as internet marketers, not only is it important for us to at least investigate these subjects and learn about them for our own business plans, it is also important as we are also consumers at some point and we need to be switched on, educated, and ideally aware of the tricks used in order to recognise and avoid them.

What I mean is - I see only so much value in saying - 'it's unethical, it's wrong - don't do it.' And then leaving it at that.

It would appear that a majority of the top IMers have gone down the 'slightly hidden continuity' route of late. Why? Are they all charlatans? Or is it to make the world a better place? What drew them in? What does that mean for lower level IMers? Who's example do they follow now?

Hi Ed,

With respect, that's the equivalent of saying, 'let's not talk about this.'

This is a marketing discussion forum, so let's discuss two distinctly different and opposing and highly relevant approaches to marketing. Whoever doesn't want to discuss it doesn't have to - there's no need to let us know.

(how's that one Paul? #12)

Dang...I seem to have misplaced my "ExRat For President" emoticon.

Mighty fine reply, Roger.

And...

Also a mighty fine rebutal, Sam.

Is it really his loss? How likely do you think you were to buy something in the future, give that you hadn't in the year plus that you had been a subscriber?

I'm not saying you're wrong to be pissed or that using this particular marketing angle was wise. Just curious to whether or not there was truly a loss on the part of said marketer.

Hi Sam,

After some thought, I'll try and deliver the main point of post #4 in a different, hopefully more accurate manner -

Mr. Hypothetical marketer has a business that works on the 97/3 rule. He's tested many other ways of doing things and this is the optimum.

97% of his prospects will be agitated and feel deceived by his marketing. The product is OK, he isn't a criminal, but he uses tactics like sending people to a freebie which isn't a freebie.

He KNOWS that regardless of this, 3% will go on to become lucrative customers for varying periods of time. He needs to mislead them at times because after testing, he found that if he was always upfront, the response he got wasn't profitable.

But if he pulls the occasional trick, as well as raising the response rate to 3%, it also actively filters the list by removing those who aren't as naive, and identifying those who are (or you could replace 'naive' with 'as ready for that product at that time - enough that they don't notice the deception'). He can then spend his time on his target market, gradually upselling them via his funnel.

On average, the amount of revenue he gets from that 3% is the optimum - he has tested different approaches and changing things, and either way he loses revenue.

So his 3% are golden. His 97% are a 'necessary evil' and he has to filter them to find the 3%. He knows the 97% will see through his tactics and be offended by them.

His main concerns with the 97% are to possibly gain revenue if he can before they disappear, plus he doesn't enjoy offending people, so he tries to minimise damage and the other concern is to try not to rile them too much - just let them go.

After testing he finds that the worst consequence is that someone complains about him in forums, but can't name him - only hint at him.

And they unsubscribe. He wants that unsubscribe. The unsubscriber thinks they are hurting him, thinking that he lost out. He knows that this is not the case and he is grateful that the unsubscriber has aided him in his filtering process. He is also glad that someone who is not in his target market is not going to be annoyed further, (pointlessly) by his pitches anymore and has filtered themselves out.

...........

Now previous to adopting this system as his optimum he split-tested a different way side by side. He was up front on everything. He followed the mantra that it was wrong to mislead in any way. He didn't like interrupting, cajoling, agitating and all that stuff.

And he found that -

The customers were fickle. Even though he spent all of his resources on establishing trust, the market population rotated so regularly that it was pointless building a reputation for honesty. Regardless of the trust factor, people seemed to like to buy off everyone rather than one seller. His honesty was wasted. No-one wanted or appreciated it. Even when he gave it to them, they rejected it because they were all so jaded.

If he didn't trick people into clicking, they didn't click. If he told them exactly what they were getting, they wouldn't buy. Or they would still accuse him of misleading them, regardless.

Even though he wasn't misleading, he still found public detractors, possibly employed by the competition. And every time he did something, the competition copied it but by using deceptive tactics they made theirs look so tempting he was left in the shade.

There was nothing he could do about it. There was no real protection. It was the wild West.

........

If this wasn't hypothetical, and turned out to be true - what should Mr. Hypothetical do?

He failed completely by trying to be successful AND do what seemed right AND try so hard to put positive things out there that his hands were tied at every turn when in direct competition.

Yet constantly, others around him were taking a different approach, and they were killing it. AND, the 3% who didn't unsubscribe from them were happy as Larry, satisfied customers, dropping testimonials REGARDLESS of the fact that they didn't notice that occasionally they were being deceived.

He started to realise that regardless of what he did and how he did it, that 97% was a constant. If anything, it only got worse (higher than 97%).

Those people who were succeeding explained to him that this is marketing. It's not effective without agitating a proportion of your prospects. You have to polarise in order to move the people who aren't going to buy, for two reasons - 1) because it's pointless to try to sell to them 2) because no-one (unless they are weird) enjoys agitating people for no positive reason for either party. But to seperate them, you have to annoy one group. Unfortunately, this might be 97%. Fortunately, it's still profitable to isolate the 3%.

What does he do?

Become a typical marketer, or focus on upholding his values for upstanding, ethical behaviour at all times? And hence, fail.

And...

Is it better that he filters YOU out with open deception, or that he leaves you on there to find out later that -

a) he isn't a match for your higher ethical standards

and therefore

b) you are not in his target market?

Clarity of the above -

1) what if successful marketing requires agitating a portion of people, like you were agitated? And Mr. Hypothetical wants to be the best marketer he can be, and after testing he found that this was the best way for him? To do different would be inefficient and bad marketing - in terms of his performance as 'a marketer', as opposed to 'a marketer who is totally ethical 100%'?

2) isn't it better that he openly moved you on, rather than hiding his lack of principle better, which would only annoy you more if you bought off him and then found he had lower ethical standards, and therefore his products didn't help you?

1) + 2) - what if Mr. Hypothetical had also spent time making threads on a forum where he justified it to himself that by making the thread, he was helping others to avoid making the same mistake. But he realised that in truth, due to human nature, people only ever learnt these lessons by trying it for themselves. And the fact that he couldn't name the errant marketer meant that the only people who identified with it had already found out for themselves.

Just some more thoughts, I hope they come across in the way I intended - non offensive, possibly helpful and hopefully inspiring thought/discussion.

Hi Robert.

NO.

He said it was free.

He did not mention any cost or it was a bonus or anything.

I have seen enough marketing in my time to know the difference.

It was not "poorly explained" and was definitely not "poorly interpreted".

It was basically a deception.

Kindly reread what I said above.

Thanks,

Sam