Mooch Marketing
 By
Ken Evoy,
CEO SiteSell Copyright © 2007
The "dark side" of Online Marketing is fully online,
and unfortunately more effective than ever.
Unethical marketers have been doing it for a long time. Back in the late
90's a clique of talented but unethical marketers worked together, cross-selling
each others' "Internet Marketing Secrets" for ridiculous prices. What ever
happened to underpromising and OVERdelivering.
So... LESSON #1
Only the scammers get rich. Their customers? They are missing thousands of
dollars.
We are now seeing a second major round of the dark side, a new wave of hucksters
selling nebulous products and services for ridiculously high prices. And
sure enough, gullible people continue to fall for irresistible copy that
manages to convince them that, somehow, this one time, this proposition is
different. The killer doubt...
LESSON #2
"Geez, what if?"
That question lures folks into the same bad decisions over and over again.
Some of them have been burnt before and will be burnt again. The sad part
is that they are good people, motivated to get ahead.
But they get so excited (because they WANT to believe) that they fail to
consider that no serious business person would really sell a goose that lays
a golden egg.
One of the top masters showed me the inside of how this game works and it's
brutally relentless. Let me open your eyes a touch...
The customers are called "mooches." A "mooch list" is invaluable. Those who
have fallen for the sucker traps before and spent big dollars? Their names
are worth big money. It's so easy to pluck dollars from gullible, innocent
people -- it should be a crime. And so the cross-sell, up-sell, whatever-sell,
goes on. Understand this...
LESSON #3
It is not about delivering value. It's about extracting money from your wallet.
Re-read the above. People like this really exist. Our basic good faith in
people makes us all "marks."
But people, whose sole goal is to separate you from your money in return
for as little as possible, really do exist.
The good news? LESSON #4
The hallmarks of a scam are obvious. Just take one big step back and LOOK.
Don't just "read and get sucked in" -- take a hard LOOK at the big picture...
" A "tsunami" of promotion found you. " Relentless hard copy at the site.
" Tons of free reports worth a gazillion dollars but "today only." " Excitement
wells up in you, but take a second look.
Is it reasonable? " Boil all the words down to what you actually GET, and
it's often nothing more than, say, a set of templates, or some coaching.
" And yet, the hype makes it all feel that "I MUST have this.
The secrets to the business universe are here." At this point, if reason
is not exercised, the next step is 100% predictable.
It's like watching a movie that is so trite you just know how it all ends.
Badly. Always. And once these folks have your name, the targeting never stops.
LESSON #5
The bottom line lesson? Think! Don't be a mooch.
We've bought some of the loudest, most convincing stuff flying around, in
the name of research (thank goodness it's tax-deductible). They are always
disappointing, ranging from outright fraud at worst, to gross exaggeration
at best... No great secret unveils itself, I'm sorry to say. No real value
is delivered, let alone anything approaching the price paid.
If you've been fooled, or if you have ever been mightily tempted, I hope
this article has shed some light on the darker side of the "Internet Marketing"
racket.
Don't be a mooch.
Ken Evoy's
Blog
About the Author:
Ken Evoy is the CEO of SiteSell Inc. He is the author of many FREE E-books
about online marketing including
Make
Your Site Sell,
The
Affiliate Masters Course, and
Make
Your Content PREsell and many others. SiteSell's flagship product
Site
Build It! has been used by over 100,000 customers to not only build
Web sites but to build successful online businesses.
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