Sneaky tactics that make you suspicious

The biggest alarm for me is refusing to accept PayPal and demanding WU. I see a lot of these instance in my field of business.

The date thing gets me. When I log onto a website and the first thing I see is an "official letter" time-stamped with "today's date," I already know I'm looking at someone who figured out how to use the date code in HTML or PHP. That knocks off 10% from my trust factor.

I also don't trust any sales page (WSO, squeeze page, etc) where there are more than 2-3 "testimonials." I never read any of them, even in small numbers, but those who include 20-30-40-50 just annoy the @#$% out of me.

-- j

Anything that promises the world at the click of a button, there is no such product that actually works, and anything that mentions "Loop Holes" as these usually are closed pretty quickly if they ever existed!

It isn't always fake. Just because it's a pdf doesn't mean the seller can't limit how many they will sell. Having said that, most of the time it's complete BS.

Income claims are a red flag to me.

Should be completely banned, including on the Warrior Forum (it's damaging this place).

Imagine a world where marketers have to use their, ah hem, marketing skillz to sell..
and not just think of a bigger number than the next guy.

1. Income claims
2. Claims that there's no work involved
3. Claims that you'll make money in your pajamas
4. Pictures of hot cars, hot chicks and mansions on the sales page (and the promise of
that lifestyle)
5. Claims that the offer is going to self-implode and disappear in xx minutes/hrs/days
6. Blind sales copy

It's not so much a tactic, but in a way, it falls into the "false scarcity" category. I just find it amusing, that if I don't buy OTO with the product, that OTO is often times promoted to me later on, for the same price. I guess "One Time Offer" means something different for different people ;-)

Oh, and I don't buy anything without first trying to close the browser, to see if there's a discount offer available.

I actually loled.

When they let known shills review their products? :p

When they use reviews from a previous product, and make it seem as if they are reviews of the current product.

When the sales copy says, "hurry limited time only" (or anything else along that line) and the WSO thread is one to two years old with little to no thread comments.

-Chris

The biggest ones for me are:

- Not knowing exactly what your getting.(blind copy)
- Claiming no work involved
-Claims of an unheard of method Lol!

-

I hate false testimonials and fake reviews.
Honesty isn't held as high as it used to be

Thats a good one about the video I also can't stand that. The second I click into a salespage and see the video doesn't have controls I immediately back out of the page.

Another "sneaky tactic" (it really isn't sneaky at all though), is when you land on a page and a box pops out in your face trying to get your email.

That is another thing that immediately triggers me to hit the back button. Its become a fully conditioned response at this point & I don't even think about it anymore.
I honestly believe who ever did the split testing for that one messed up big time because tons of marketers do it.

If your content isn't good enough to make me actually want more content from you, a stupid little pop up form sure as hell isn't helping your case. Although something tells me I'm severely underestimating the amount of idiots who give up their emails to them.

Further more if your content IS GOOD ENOUGH, maybe you put a 30 second delay on the window, the second it pops up your content becomes **** to me.

Marketers might say those stupid windows help build lists, and thats always baffled me quite honestly. It doesn't really help you qualify prospects either. Make people desire your stuff so much that they actually WANT to contact you, but definitely don't try forcing contact.

I want to read whats on your site, not see a huge annoying form in my face the second I land on your page. If you're asking for my email before I've even read your page, it just seems like backwards marketing to me.

-Red

Most of all the above plus:

1. Servers crashing on launches.

2. This guy is a good friend (means affiliate they've never met most of the time).

3. Bad links in emails which are just excuses to send it again.

4. Saying that they made the money with this new tool but they didn't. They manually added FB likes, for example, and made a lot of money. THEN they automated it. Anyone could make the money the same way and not need the tool.

5. Opening packages back up for sale after promising the sale ended and the reason is there were 3 people who's CC was declined or got refunds or whatever.

6. Autoresponder sequences with mistakes that are capitilized on but not changed. For example day 3 has a typo. A second/explanation mail goes out to fix it but the day 3 is not fixed for future clients. If you sign up again with a different email you get the same typo and the same explanation.

7. Claiming that X is the BEST way to do this and next week it's Y is the BEST way to do this and the next week Z is the BEST way to do this.

8. Using national tragedies for sales purposes or reasons to send emails.

9. Claim you are part of the elite customer base so you get a special deal and you know you're not and have never bought anything before.

10. Tell you not to tell anyone else about the sale or the link or whatever.

Mark

Are wso creators torn between being completely honest and not making the sales they should or hyping up like crazy and using every trick in the book that works to get greater sales, and more affiliates?

Or do you think there is a lot of blind copying going on, because they see something that has sold a lot in a small amount of time?

Two big ones for me...

1. No story or background to support who you are, what you do, how you've achieved your results, etc... Actually, I think this applies as much (if not more) to blogs that are also businesses, as it does to sales pages.

I've had more than one instance where I really liked someones content, info, etc... and was considering buying their ebook, course, etc... and even searching all over their site, was unable really establish them as an authority. "Who is this guy/girl?" should be one of the first questions that get's answered on a personal or IM related website. IMHO.

2. Second big one is price hiding. Why are you making me click through or 'add to my cart' to see the price? Interestingly, I've seen this tactic used on sites like Best Buy and Amazon, when there's a special deal or something. My guess is that it's effective, but it pisses me off.

11. Just saw this on the forum and it reminded me - the whole gurus are shaking in their boots that I'm going to share this information tactic. They are all going to be upset. They are begging me not to disclose it, etc.

The exclusive, never before revealed, strategy that turns out to be a recorded webinar masquerading as live - particularly annoying if your time zone means you've stayed up till 2am to be there for it.

The whole server crashing plot came to public knowledge from original Product Launch Formula. Jeff Walker specifically said that don't fake it because you will lose sales. Whether he was covering his own tracks or not, you don't want to shutdown your server because you can always come up with follow up emails with a different story but you might not be able to replace the sales you missed.

I also get annoyed with these "only 10 copies left" if there's no real reason for it. We use it for price changes especially when we want feedback but you always have to remember to honor your promise. When 10 copies are sold, you will increase the price, drop the bonus or whatever. If you make those events something you can email to your list, you will also signal to your list that you are professional and if you promise something, it will hold.

" O, I sent the wrong link"

Blah, blah blah.... I have LITERALLY seen it a million times. Try something new...

I got to say this thread is turning out very valuable for a semi-marketing noob like myself. Tons of stuff in here I was never even aware of. Might even buy a WSO on "sneaky tactics" lol.

One that completely turned me off on a specific company was this...

They sent an email promising a special webinar. I had to attend at the time they designated, because the "webinar would not be recorded."

I shuffled my schedule to attend the webinar, which is tough with three kids. I even went so far as to schedule a babysitter for the 4yo.

I landed on the webinar at the appointed time, and started to realize that something was amiss. It looked all too familiar.

So, I loaded the source code to the page, and IT WAS!! It was one of those fake webinars, with a video playing in the background, and bots participating in the live chat!!

I was fuming!!

I never watched the video, and that little S.O.B. who runs that list is now on my personal hit list!!

The one that does it for me is whenever I see a wso where the seller is offering 100% commission on a $7 pdf, it's a dead give-away that there's an oto or two on the other side. I immediately click on the "x" no matter how good the offer looks.

dont want to name anyone. But just last week, i went to a salespage where guru was asking for $300 per hour. I clicked and closed the page, just then i saw the offer "Try me at discount rate, no cc required, free telephone conversation with me for 20 mins".

That just disappointed me

Squeeze pages with pics of supercars and multi million dollar mansions.

They normally go on to offer access to the 'Secret information that the government don't want you to know which will earn you $1000's in a few hours'

All this for less than the price of a burger with fries

To me it's the "Push Button Software."

We all know that this kind of thing does not exist and yet many have fallen prey to this trap.

I like Dan Kennedy's fake scarcity or perception of a "Limited Offer"... that is, limited to the number of people he can convince to buy the product!

As Seth Godin says, Marketers aren't liars, they are story-tellers.

I don't like it when others post they need a sample of the writing to see how well I can write. Mind you I don't mind giving samples out, but a sample is just that. When they start going in to the smallest of details on how it should be written and it takes more than 500 words to ask for a sample then it looks like they want an article for free.

Just strange to me how it appears they are ordering an article and not a sample.

Yea...the death threats and the whole "living in a box" routine is lame.


I can't stand that "I was living in my car, using the internet at the library when all of the sudden things took off".

What does that say about IM as a whole, that you HAVE to end up losing your mind, money and dignity before things finally "pop" for you.

To me, it says that you better learn how to do this stuff on your own, because other marketers don't seem to give a **** enough to TRULY help you out, just sell you another system that they know sucks.

Also..

I don't trust people who do not cuss! Some say it's "unprofessional" but come on. If I think you are a REAL PERSON with normal thoughts, I may be more likely to buy from you.

If you lead me to believe that you wouldn't be caught dead using *gasp* profanity or speaking like a normal person, then I lose trust.

I said it. I don't trust people who do not use an F-Bomb at least 14 times a day.


Finally...

WSO emails.

Anyone who is on the list of at least 2 marketers knows that when a new "hot" topic comes out and the WSO guys are trying to cash in, the email subject lines are pretty redundant and boring.


We get it...the creator of the WSO made "$17k in 5 minutes using the secret santa method" but come on...have some originality guys, because I don't trust people who can't re-word something and make it halfway original.

No contact details always makes me suspicious. Over-inflated egos. Making ridiculous promises.

If people told you exactly what the product was, didn't have some factor of scarcity either through dimesale pricing or time limits, if it didn't have income claims, it wouldn't sell.