I bought this book last night....

2 replies
Its from a known internet marketer ( I won't say who, I'm not even sure how popular he is on the WF) who was using the brand new 'buy my FREE book and pay me for just the inflated shipping and handling fee' marketing strategy. The idea is that on the thank you page you'll be presented with a higher end offer, in this case a $297 coaching package.

Do you know the difference between a marketing guru, and an internet marketer? With a guru, the deeper you dig, the more obvious it is the attention he or she paid to the details. With an internet marketer, its only, its always, its all about throwing out the next BS marketing campaign to snag more money - oh, and then we'll throw in some bullsh*t product(s) or shiny objects to make the campaign work.

Another key difference between a guru and a marketer, is the time investment they've made in the past to develop at least some sort of working relationship with their clients FIRST! So when they come up with the latest marketing gimmick or strategy like the 'FREE' book for the cost of shipping and handling - it actually works for them.

Take the case of this 'book' purchase I made last nite. Crappy landing page with links that led to unfinished or non-functional 'support' pages; a video on autoplay with no controls for pause/play or volume, and so on. It was too obvious that it was thrown together in haste so that he could quick get this marketing technique out there and capture the money stream. The deeper I dug, the worse it got.

So here's one of my rubs...the landing page made a poor impression on me as a consumer, so guess what I was thinking by the time I reached his offer for coaching? Like maybe he should practice what he preaches and clean up his own crap first before he assumes he's qualified to teach anybody anything about internet marketing. Maybe he slept at a Holiday Inn last night (inside joke for the US audience).

A number of years ago I was a senior manager at a very large software firm aka $12 billion annual revenue. One day I was attending a meeting where the CEO was giving a presentation to his team about his recent visit to the White House for a summit of tech CEO's. Our CEO was asked, "So... what did you think of President (will remain nameless) ?" He took a few moments before responding..."He's a mile wide, and an inch deep."

With a guru, the deeper you dig into their product or content, the more profound the details become. Then they use the same level of thought to be applied to the techniques used to market and sell this product and content. Product and Content come first - Then the relationship with your clients, and then the marketing technique to sell them.

Closing thoughts....

The thankyou email I received last night after my book purchase congratulated me on my purchase, and advised me that they were still waiting for their first shipment to arrive. In other words, they don't even have the d*mn things in yet to fulfill my order. Oh, and don't bother contacting support - the links don't work or go to a non-reply address. It was only 10 bucks, but still I paid by credit card so a chargeback (out of pure retribution) isn't completely out of the picture yet.

As for my former bosses at the software company - including that CEO? I think they're still in prison for many years to come for securities fraud. Sometimes deeper isn't a good thing.

Talltom
#book #bought #night
  • Profile picture of the author araza617
    Thanks for the great share Talltom!

    It essentially comes down to a matter of "practice what you preach" that distinguishes the real gurus from the hypocritical internet marketers.

    It's actually so ironic seeing a sales page where the guy is trying to convince you that he will teach you how to market your product correctly and the product itself is marketed so terribly. In fact, I once came across a WSO (no names are needed) and the guy had the guts to say he would help you "BUILD A KILLER SALES PAGE" and "BOOST YOUR CONVERSIONS BY AT LEAST 250%" when his sales page was one of the worst ones I've seen to date.

    It's a weird world out there.
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  • Profile picture of the author araza617
    Thanks for the great share Talltom!

    It essentially comes down to a matter of "practice what you preach" that distinguishes the real gurus from the hypocritical internet marketers.

    It's actually so ironic seeing a sales page where the guy is trying to convince you that he will teach you how to market your product correctly and the product itself is marketed so terribly. In fact, I once came across a WSO (no names are needed) and the guy had the guts to say he would help you "BUILD A KILLER SALES PAGE" and "BOOST YOUR CONVERSIONS BY AT LEAST 250%" when his sales page was one of the worst ones I've seen to date.

    It's a weird world out there.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8969770].message }}

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