Free Signup
| FREE Entry! |
|---|
|
|
By Matt, on April 22nd, 2011% Top Tip Number 7 for Beginners to Online Business:
Free Stuff Now! Forced Continuity
One of the big things these days is internet marketing membership sites, where they get to charge you every month. Many are expensive, useless toys, although some provide exceptional value in constantly sourcing new products for you to sell or learn from (these sites are often easily picked from the crowd because they have a free membership option – you don’t get access to all the best goodies, but you do get to look around to see if it’s worth spending the upgrade cost).
In the same category is “member products” – sites where you must do your work and possibly your hosting through the seller’s online site. Access to the product you thought you had paid for is conditional on you remaining a member – with a horrible tendency to charge you $97, $127, $197 or even more for each month.
Now I can’t write off every site that uses this approach – every now and then one of them is actually worth the money – but the majority prey on beginners who blame their lack of progress on themselves rather than the deficient product they are paying for. It takes months (and lots of dollars) before they realise whose fault it really is.
Your Unwinnable War
Many of them (and many for-sale-once, done-for-you products) create an unwinnable war for you – giving you what appears to be great content or complete web sites (or affiliate campaigns) that they are also selling to 200, 500, 1000, or 10,000 other people at the same time. How can you stand out among such a crowd of absolute duplicates? How can you get traffic (the lifeblood of any site)? How can you get anywhere in the search engines, who recognise duplicate sites/content and discount them in the rankings?
Sure, if you’re a marketing/traffic/SEO guru you can win the war – but you’re being sold this as the beginner’s answer to overnight riches, and you have no chance of competing until you learn a whole lot more, by which time the product/site/service is stale. In reality, the winner of the war is the person who sold you the product in the first place – because he/she not only got your money, but also got the material to the top of the search engines before you even purchased.
“I Own You, Sucker”
And remember, “free hosting, no technical knowledge required” really means “I own you, you’re stuck with your monthly membership payments until the day you wake up to the fact this isn’t going to work for you”.
Forced Continuity
There are two very common ways of sucking you in to forced continuity these days:
- One is the never-ending string of “Get this wonderful (physical) product Free!” (their cost is covered by the shipping they charge anyway). Your free product includes a bonus membership or monthly newsletter, and there’s a huge reliance on inertia – that you’ll just let the monthly charge keep coming off your credit card without really noticing. Quite often you’ll be so buried in information overload that even when the newsletter does arrive you’ll put it on the shelf “for later”.
- The other is the “get all this for just one measly dollar!”, getting you to sign up for the 5-day, 7-day, or even a generous one-month trial before your monthly fee is automatically deducted from your credit card or PayPal account.
Too Tempting to Resist?
It’s extremely tempting, especially based on the hype-filled (and information-poor) sales letter. It is so easy to spend that dollar, or sign up for your free CD or iPod-clone to be shipped to your door, that I can hardly blame anyone for doing it.
However, there is one important thing you must do immediately after you sign up (or before, to be safe if you’re the forgetful type) – and that is to make a plan for cancelling unless you discover the product is one of the rare gems that pops up occasionally.
Set the Alarm Bells
When we sign up for one of these schemes, we put an alarm in our diary for before the end of the initial trial (or immediately after, if we really want to see the “bonus”, so we only need to pay one membership payment) – it says “Cancel XYZ product today, before they charge me the membership fee”.
We don’t actually insist on cancellation – the diary entry (usually in a smartphone with calendar alarms) is to remind us to make the decision on whether this is really a worthwhile product before any more money is taken from our accounts. We don’t want to be the sucker they rely on for continuing income – the one who forgets until it’s noticed on a credit card bill six months later . . .
Your Memberships
Found a good membership? Been sucked into a useless one? Leave a comment so others can have the benefit of your experience.
VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast) VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)
By Matt, on April 19th, 2011% You Spammers are Crazy!
This poor little blog has had more than 5000 spam comments posted (and stopped by Akismet) in its relatively short life.
It’s obvious that many people are using (useless) software to try to get their backlinks. How stupid is it to be posting comments on the site map, about, and other such irrelevant pages (irrelevant in that they don’t deserve commenting).
And who in their right mind is going to approve comments with 40 links in them, or with the commenter’s name being “make quick money online”, “diets weight loss”, “hyundai santa fe reviews”, or, to scrape almost to the bottom of the barrel, “webcam sex girls”.
And I can often tell how poor a product is by the huge volumes of spam promoting it.
Please, people, make a useful comment – something that refers to or adds to the information here (that’s what comments are for, right?) – or leave us alone!
Don’t Fall For it!
If someone tries to sell you automated commenting software, think long and hard – and find some unbiased reviews – before you even think about touching it. The junk produced will have a negative effect with the search engines anyway . . .
Anyone found a useful product in this area? Feel free to comment, but let’s not turn it into advertising in the process. 
VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: 5.5/10 (2 votes cast) VN:F [1.9.12_1141]
By Matt, on November 2nd, 2010% Vote With Your Feet!
I mentioned it in Tip 6: Understand The (Evil) Tricks of the Trade, but if you haven’t done it you must go and watch the fantastic video demonstration called “IM Victim Services: Beware Of Scandal” (better referred to as “outing the unethical scam marketers) on Mark Dulisse’s Blog – watch the video, read the comments, and absorb it all.
Remember the line “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more!“? Well, that’s how I feel after seeing the scum selling scrap with their stock-format sales pages so many times in recent months. This has been happening for years, but it’s becoming an epidemic as these people steal money from (mostly) newcomers to the online business world. And, as Mark highlights, there seems to be a clique of UK-based marketers locking in on this formula.
I see part of my job as buying some of these products, just so I can be able to advise my friends and readers who ask whether they’re worthwhile. I’m getting to the point where just the sound of one of those polished Brit accents makes me either want to close the page or be sick on the keyboard. Every nation has its scammers, and the UK has some great people (like Alex Jeffreys and Lee McIntyre), but it just seems there’s a Mayfair Mafia in action at the moment, all supporting each other and all copying each other’s evil lies and sales tricks.
And Vote with The Refund Button!
We must protest! A lot of newcomers don’t realise how painless it is to get a refund from places like ClickBank, or feel embarrassed to do so. Don’t feel embarrassed, you’ve been lied to and cheated – just do it! I don’t just refund these products, I give both ClickBank and the vendor an earfull about the deceptive tactics (when I am going to buy anything, I always save copies of the sales pages, videos and everything else through the process so I can go back and compare what I received to what I was promised.
Don’t just refund, tell them why – and tell them you believe in ethics in marketing and will never deal with them until they show they’ve changed.
Next, give every affiliate promoting this rubbish a quiet word as well – pointing out that even though they might not realise it, they are promoting junk and earning themselves a bad name. Tell them you’re not interested in hearing from them again unless they, too, start believing in ethics in marketing.
And Vote with the Unsubscribe Link!
After you’ve sent the marketer an email telling them what you think of their tactics, point out you will be unsubscribing and do so immediately. Tell anyone who’ll listen to do the same.
Then do exactly the same with the affiliates. Both are people you don’t really want to hear from again because you can’t trust them!
If enough of us refund, unsubscribe, and tell these people exactly why we are doing it, perhaps they’ll re-think their tactics and some sanity will return to the Internet Marketing World.
Naming Names
The big problem with publishing the names of these people, or the products that identify them, in the same breath as calling them liars, scammers and scum is the possibility of law suits. I’d love to list a bunch of names here (and there are several mentioned on Mark’s Blog), but I’m wary.
However, I think I’m going to start an entirely different thread soon, listing what I buy and making comments on the products. For some products the only comment will be “Refunded”.
Let’s beat some sense into them!
What do you think? Are you refunding things, or have you bit your lip and stuffed the rubbish in the digital bottom drawer?
VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast) VN:F [1.9.12_1141]
By Matt, on June 19th, 2010% We see it (or very close variations of it) all the time – what clown taught these people that “Who else wants to” adds anything to an offer, and that trying to say twenty things in one sentence in
BIG RED LETTERS
makes anyone want to do something other than throw up and close the page? Look at this headline that just hit my screen (in small type here, so you can see it all at once and see if you can get through it in one breath):
“Who Else Wants To Take
Advantage Of This Never Before
Seen Bonus Package That Not Only
Gives You 12 Hot Resale Rights
Products But Also This Exact ‘One
Time Offer’ Page That Stuffs Cash
Into Your Pockets 24 Hours A Day
On Autopilot Even While You Are
Sleeping!”
Please! How about just
12 Super-Hot Resale Rights Products – and a sales page to stuff cash in your pockets while you’re sleeping!
Do I care that it’s an “exact” copy of the page (yes, I do – it tells me I sure don’t want it)? Do I care that it’s a One-Time-Offer? And I’m sure if I see the word Autopilot too many more times they’re going to have to send the men in white coats to take me away.
More Of Almost Exactly the Same
Oh, dear, within minutes of publiishing this post I got hit with another OTO in BIG RED LETTERS. Spot the difference:
“Who Else Wants To Take Advantage
Of This Way Over Delivered Bonus
Package That Not Only Gives You 50
Hot Resale Rights Products But Also
This Exact ‘One Time Offer’ Page That
Stuffs Cash Into Your Pockets 24
Hours A Day On Autopilot Even While
You Are Sleeping!”
Does “Way Over Delivered” mean I can get it dropped off to my house even if I live way over in Russia?
Oh, maybe they mean over-delivered? Not that it matters much, I’m shaking and looking around for anti-anxiety medication after seeing that evil automatic aircraft controller word again. The white-coats will be here within days, I’m sure. Sigh . . .
VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: 7.0/10 (2 votes cast) VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)
By Matt, on June 19th, 2010% Can I just have a small whine about the construction of sales pages? Please?
You see, I don’t want to read a bucketload of BS “above the fold” that tells me nothing about the product and nothing about what it will cost.
I am thoroughly sick of having to sit with my mouse clicked permanently on the scroll bar for 5 minutes to get to the end of the mile-long sales page – and even then to often have to squint and search for the well-hidden price.
Then, If I think it is worth considering, I scroll up about half a mile and start reading (I don’t want to go to the BIG RED HEADLINE or the pathetic “proof” pictures and videos). Then I pray this person will be one of the few who actually tells me what the product is and what it does. I’m a dreamer, right?
Toto, I have the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore . . .
VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: 7.0/10 (2 votes cast) VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)
By Matt, on June 12th, 2010% We’ll reference it in our Tips in a lot more detail as we progress through the expanded versions but there are several common internet marketing tricks designed to force you into a rushed decision (like the count-down timers), plus quite a few discounts to be had by trying to close the page and watching them dive in with a special offer.
We’ve seen this regularly, and thought we’d devote a post to examples of these (and others in the future) just in case you need the proof.
First, the countdown timer. Like we’ve said, online marketers will try many “offer-ends-soon”, “only 3 left”, “get in by midnight or miss out forever” emotive assaults to get you to buy now. They (wth the exception of the small pefcentage of honest online marketers) are almost always telling lies. Why would they stop taking money when there are buyers still coming to the page? Countdown timers are a classic example – you have 3 minutes to sign up, do it now! Again, why would anyone want to limit the number of prospective customers.
Here’s a typical example:
The countdown timer starts at 3:00 minutes, and when it gets to zero you get a “Time is Up” message. Of course, if you simply refresh the page, the timer starts again! And if you come back 12 minutes later (as we did here), or the next day, or probably next year . . . that timer is going to start at 3 minutes again, and again, and again.
Want it Cheaper? Just Say No!
Then there’s the beautifully crafted sales page telling you what an amazing bargain you’re getting on this latest breakthrough in Internet Marketing, Turnkey Website, Business-In-A-Box, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) software tool, or bunch of online-business eBooks. Even if you’re interested, close the page! (if you are actually interested, copy the URL first). These pages will regularly try to stop you with a special discount offer “just for you, just for today”. Like this one where the good old robot assistant wants to cut the bargain price from $47 to $27 – earning $20 just for clicking the “close tab” in your browser is probably doing better than Bill Gates’ hourly rates:
But that hardly stack up against this one, where the price is coming down by a massive $250, to get your (originally $447 before today’s sales page) new wonder marketing tool for just $67.
So, are you gullible? You need to be well aware of these tricks, and wary, to keep saving time and money on your way to internet business success.
VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: 8.5/10 (2 votes cast) VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)
By Matt, on June 11th, 2010% Scammers and lamers in online business/work-at-home/internet marketing are my pet hate. Not just because they’ve cost me money, but because I’ve seen them destroy people who were down to their last few credit-card dollars and were desperately seeking a magic solution.
There is no magic solution, no get-rich-overnight, no “so easy your child could do it”. But there IS money to be made if you do it the right way, learn the right mindset, and apply lessons diligently.
I started on this subject at my old blog Internet Marketing Exposed, but was stopped in my tracks by a spinal injury that left many things unsaid and unfinished. This time I want to make it more personal, more useful, and better laid out, so I’ve started afresh.
Introducing Honesty into Online Business
This is an attempt to add some honesty to the world of online business. Too many internet marketers are taking advantage of the growing desire in many net users to work from home and earn an income online.
Don’t get us wrong – there are quite a few genuine, helpful and honest people in the IM business. But the volume of scammers, lamers, and get-right-quick peddlers drowns them out.
We hope to give the novice internet marketer plenty of help in getting on the right path. We do expect to make some money in the process – but not with hyped-up attempts to send you to any page that will make us a buck, we’re sticking with people and systems we like and trust.
We’ll also try to help you through the quite complex process of getting your new online business going. Don’t believe for a second the “buy this and make money this week (or today, or in the next hour)” stories. There’s a lot of work in most approaches, a lot more than most people will concede.
We’re here to ease the pain, show you the path, point you to the good people and steer you away from the bad. We’ll try as hard as we can to make your job easier, and do as much of that as possible at no cost to you.
VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: 9.0/10 (2 votes cast) VN:F [1.9.12_1141] Rating: +2 (from 2 votes)
|
|
|
![[Valid RSS]](/images/valid-rss-rogers.png "Validate my RSS feed")
Latest Comments