Why do internet marketers and internet marketing tools/services come across as so sleazy?

Because half the time, they are sleazy. Half the products and sales page target the get quick rich crowd. It is no different than another industry I won't mention that 9 times out of 10 sells "the dream" because the product is overpriced junk with outrageous claims.

The unfortunate part is the few gems out there get drowned out by the crap and learning how to wade through them is difficult. The great thing about Pat Flynn (while I don't agree with 100% of what he pushes), he never pushes anything he isn't using himself.

The minute I see an outrageous claim on earnings, traffic or anything like that, I automatically ignore it. the minute I get the same email from 10 different marketers, I ignore it.

Cynical? Yep! But I have wasted less time and money this way then just buying the dream...

I highly doubt ******* has bought 100% of the products available and has applied them 100% as instructed to be able to base a 50% failure claim.

But that's not the point.

Welcome to the world of marketing. You work in digital advertising. Certainly you understand.

The techniques you see being employed...headlines, hooks, story telling, guarantees, scarcity, photos, testimonials...are as old as marketing and advertisign itself. Why do you see them? Because they have proven to work for years and years and years. The only thing that changes is the tongue and the medium.

They sell what people want. Not what people need. And as long as there is a market, there will be products.

Only you can decide if you actually need a product or simply want the benefits the product is selling you.

Be careful what advice you take from this place. Just because someone talks a lot doesn't mean they actually know what they are talking about.

Anyone can talk about it all day. Few can do it all day.

Lucid, why are you here? I'm not being sarcastic, it's a serious question.

The answer to your question is: because it works.

It's the same reason a low-budget infomercial aired via remnant media performs better than a big-budget commercial with expensive targeted media. Short and sweet message, bullet points, feature benefits, reach as many people as possible for the smallest dollar amount.

There's a difference between selling a PRODUCT and selling a BRAND. If it's a quick hit product, there's no logical reason to take the extra effort because it won't help you sell more. If you're building a BRAND it makes sense to create a solid image ("brand essence") . A PDF teaching you how to buy cheap Facebook ads isn't a brand.

The MMO niche is massive and this place is a haven for those looking to make a quick buck of newbies. Why else do people want to become internet marketers other than to earn money and independence for themselves and this of course is an internet marketing forum.

Soon after I joined I started a pretty controversial thread about the "hype" in the WSO comments and was wondering if this sleaziness actually worked. Well for the vast majority of their target market it does and they will always be working of the lowest common denominator to get people to buy their products. A lot of the copy writing is repetitive and dumb but hey - who cares if it works for them !

As you gain experience, you will develop a "filter" that helps to rid the BS from the helpful information. My advice is to be as skeptical as possible starting out as nearly everyone has an agenda - which obviously boils down to lining the old pockets! You seem to have figured it out pretty quickly though so I am sure you'l be okay! Feel free to PM if you need any advice

Ha, I love your post!

When I was first introduced to IM I was ashamed to tell any of my friends about it and it was because of the sleazebag factor. The 'community' that introduced me to IM was the same and I remember thinking oh god what am I getting myself into. After spending a few thousand bucks on what was essentially a pyramid scheme I had learnt enough to know it was not my thing. I don't regret it though as it opened the door to a whole new world that I am really enjoying being part of. Lucky for me though, I did find some coaching that restored my faith in IM folk and then of course the Warrior Forum helped the process along.

I do still get annoyed with some posts that say, I am a newbie, how do I make $100K etc etc. This is part of what gives IM such a bad name, I mean it's a business and it takes hard work to build something sustainable. I for one couldn't do spam marketing and promote anything to make a quick buck. I want to be proud of my business and my achievements!

Stick to WF and you won't be disappointed. Sure people want to make money on here just like anywhere but the help is genuine most of the time and when people post where you can clearly see their sleazy marketing intentions, nobody bothers to respond which is great!

I get my point is we all get to choose what type of internet marketers we become and anyway the big wheel turns and you get what you give.

As for Pat Flynn...if you look at his earnings posts, th vast majority of that comes from being a bluehost affiliate, I believe. Month after month. He even has a link to the video, and I believe that is where most of it comes from. Do yourself a favor and click the link.

I think he is pretty transparent with what he does. I am not so sure his previous tactics work now. Though I haven't really paid a lot of attention to him since my ipod died and I found what works for me.

I think he is genuine. And you dont pull in 50k per month by not knowing what you are doing. And I've never seen the big Pat Flynn launch. He does what he teaches. Which is more than a lot can say.

Many people are blessed with copyrighting skills, web design skills, graphics skills, or sales skills. Only few are blessed with the full package.

The IM niche mostly exist of individuals or small businesses creating products from the ground up, with just one or two of the skills listed above. Very few "Full Package" brands in IM.

Because marketers are only out for money and don't want to put the work in to bring something useful and meaningful to audiences. Quick money, how can I make quick money? No one wants to work anymore. People are also skeptical about telemarketing, identity theft, investments, etc. now. Every night on the news, we hear about some guy that scammed a number of people out of thousands of dollars. We take that and are skeptical about spending money on products we're unsure about so that's why it looks sleazy.

A lot of smart people chipping in here.. but I'm very surprised that noone is mentioning the actual VALUE you are going to offer your visitors / customers.. A lot to do with the technical machinations of IM, and nothing on the actual content you are going to be creating.

Even if you want to sell affiliate products or monetize with Adsense - you need to put some SERIOUS hours in, to create compelling content that people give a damn about.

If you go into a niche, make sure you know a lot about it, and can write about it even if you're not getting paid. Chances are, it will take a while to get the ball rolling.

If you know nothing of your niche, or you're not bringing something fresh to the table, it's going to be a very frustrating and unprofitable process indeed.

Here is my perspective on it:

Internet marketers are really selling a dream and hope.

Newbies are looking for hope.

As a result many sales pages are misleading.

AND much of the testimonials are misleading as well, because they are still hoping for the dream.

From a distance it's easy to see, when you are new in this business it is hard to decipher what you are seeing.

Kate

When you start making money in IM you will be amazed at how fast your perception of "legitimacy of the IM industry" changes!

OK. Back to the origial question.
It's a forum bud, we are for the most part, solo operators.

Most times even are friends and families don't get what we do.

We're here to share ideas and sell each other stuff we've made or written.

Sounds like you're from a corporate background, where you add your layer to whatever product it was you were selling, before passing it on to the next guy for his contribution.

Round here we're strictly DIY, we do it all ourselves.

I don't think I'm unique here, and I think a lot of people do like I do, which is;
they work in some area of this biz we call IM, and when they develop some new tool, or technique that's making them good dollar, they share it here.

Me I mostly sell physical products. So if I ever bring an offer to the forum, it's because I know it will work for my fellow members.
I'm hardly going to pass my e-Book or whatever to the guys in Finance to price for the market, then shoot it over to the design crew to create the packaging then on to marketing to devise my sales pitch.

I do the lot myself. Like most people here.

Now it's getting more popular for members of this forum to simply live off (or try to live off) their fellow members, by flogging all manner of dodgy tools promising this and that, or some untried new method of selling more / getting more traffic.
And these chaps are definitely tending toward the sleazy, so I understand your concern.

But for the most part we're a very genuine bunch, and it won't take you long to figure out whos who.

Just excuse our sloppiness in some areas, we do our best.

IMO and expereince, they are by and large sleazy. Giving you the less for the money that they possibly can, or not at all. PTBarnum - "There's a sucker born every minute." Seems to be the "business strategy for many.

There are a few out there that are worth patronizing, who are ethical and will do what they say.

I will be starting a thread asking for "The Good, Bad and Ugly" for companies they have dealt with. Kind of like a short "Angie's List" for the Forum.

Thanks for making this post. I've been lurking on here for weeks trying to learn IM and I had the same impression you did. The majority of this site revolves around marketers trying to sell marketing products to marketers. There's useful info here for a newbie and I'm used to digging in forums for the few relevant crumbs but this forum is rough.

because most are LOL

I like your original post as it is definitely the elephant in the room to some extent. There ARE lots of sleaze bag marketers, many frequent this forum, particularly one particular part of the forum, the part where you will see all those big red letters and claims of automatic income and 6 figures a week and all that crpola.

By the way, the best thing you can possibly do is NOT buy any of those products until you DO figure out a niche and you DO start building your site. Then and only then will it be in your best interest to pick up some tools for your site. (Plug-ins or software that do specific things that you are pretty sure will be valuable or time savers for your site and/or marketing your site.)

But snake oil salesmen abound in this IM business!

I've been around this for a couple years but I have a real job so don't have a lot of time to spend here, nor to spend on building sites etc. But I've picked up a lot of information by reading some threads and buying various "how to" products, even if I did not put that knowledge to work. Yet.

Nevertheless I am an affiliate for a physical product that I built up various sites to drive traffic to, which was making me a very good part time income until recently. (The problem with being an affiliate for a product is that the product manufacturer can change the game on you and totally screw up all your hard work. But that's the subject of another thread. Just be aware that it's very important to have MULTIPLE INCOME STREAMS or else you can find yourself where I am now - my income stream has dwindled because I only had one.)

Now:
You want to find the right niche, built a good site around it, promote it, and monetize it.

There are various ways of monetizing it: Adsense and other ad placement companies; selling a physical product; or selling a digital product. Those are the basic methods for making money with a niche site. Oh, and getting people to sign up for a free product(s) or newsletter which gives you their email addy then you use that to sell them more stuff.

So you are trying to figure out WHICH niche would be the right one for you.

Well WELCOME TO NICHE MARKETING!
You have discovered the door to riches!

Now you have to find the KEY!

Keyword tools can help. You can spend hours and hours pouring over keywords, monthly search volumes and so on to figure out what might be a good niche.

Then you have to look at google search results to see the competition.
Look at the sites in the top 10 of your niche and figure out what is making them a top 10 site.

With Google - in spite of their claiming to make the search results more relevant - the fact is a lot of times you will still find GARBAGE sites in the top 10. I found one today that was deleted, had zero content! Go figure! And that's not unusual.

But what you want to do is find the sites that are there because of the great content they are offering because those are the ones you want to emulate, imho - not the ones who got there due to millions of automated links or other trickery. If you truly want to build a business or businesses in IM you want to emulate those who are doing it right.

So look at the Top 10 sites' content.
What are they doing right?
Generally speaking what I see are that sites that are doing it right are providing VALUE to their visitors. Value in terms of information.

But here's a clue:
Just because you find a good niche, provide value, and do good off page and on page seo, does NOT mean you will reach page 1 of Google nor drive lots of traffic to your site.

If it were that easy most of us on this forum would be making thousands of dollars per month.

In my view - and admittedly I am NOT an expert, I'm just a guy who's been around a little longer than you and is also trying to find the "RIGHT" niche - success involves this:

60% - choosing the right niche that is :
a) something that gets "enough" searches
b) something you know something about or are very interested in learning
c) something that will attract visitors who you can SELL something to - whether that means a link to amazon or clickbank, or a physical product, an ebook, or get them to click on ads (this takes quite a bit of traffic in most niches)

20% - knowledge about how to write converting copy or how to write valuable educational material on the subject they searched for

15% - knowing how to get traffic to the site - how to write and place ads, how to interact with people in forums on the subject and gently get them to visit your site (no hard selling will work in forums)

5% SEO and site building

As I say, I am still trying to figure out how to get more income streams going for myself so am not an expert. But this is my "current theory" on how it works.

For me the really super HARD thing is figuring out a niche that I am interested in that I can monetize.

I think that may be easier for some than others.

For me, it's really strange in a way but I swear, all the niche subjects I am interested in do NOT lend themselves to monetization! (or at least not MUCH monetization) So I am still struggling to figure out a niche that I like that I can actually make money from that also is not super competitive/over-saturated.

As for keywords, there are a lot of keyword tools and some are very user-unfriendly, some are a real waste of time, some seem to be very unreliable in terms of their results and some are very unreliable in terms of just working. (One in particular is one I used to love but now every time I go to use it, it doesn't work, it just won't interact with Google Keyword Planner.)

Right now I think the best keyword tool is to simply go to GKP and do the research manually. You can look at various threads on keyword tools though and get some ideas, and try a few. Some have free trials and some are cheap enough to just buy and try.

All in all I think you are finding the Truth about internet marketing:
IT IS NOT EASY.
It takes lots of time to learn, lots of time to find your own path and if you're not careful you can spend thousands of dollars on training, plug-ins and ebooks, and still not find the key to making thousands of dollars a month.

That said, I do believe that if you set your mind to it and are smart about it and are willing to put a year or two into experimenting and testing and failing, you will eventually find some things that work to make decent money.

One last thing I want to underline:
I DO agree with others who have said that you need to do niche sites or an authority site on subjects you are INTERESTED IN, or else it will just bore you and annoy you. In fact that is the problem I am having right now, I need to find such a niche.