Online Entrepreneurs and Fake Promises
Author info: This guest post has been written by Alan Johnson, who has identified The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Online Entrepreneurs over at TheRatingBlog.com.
In this industry, the earning opportunities are virtually endless and, basically, no matter what topic you are both passionate about and knowledgeable in, you can definitely end up earning a pretty penny online by doing what you like and providing value. On the other hand, there are all sorts of people who will make tempting promises in the hope of having you fall for them, only to realize, at a later point, that they were simply lies.
In more than a few cases, fake promises are followed by a ‘buy now’ invitation, and I’m sure you’ve noticed your share of examples. People who claim that their product will help you make problems a thing of the past are lurking around every corner, just waiting to find yet another victim to take advantage of.
One of the most commonly used words in such situations has to be ‘fast’, with ‘make money fast’ and ‘lose weight fast’ being a two of the most relevant examples. People who are trying to trick you into thinking that their product is the best solution for all of your problems often start by trying to make it seem that they somehow relate to you.
They start by describing some of the most common problems people who might be interested in their product are facing and making it seem that they were confronted with such issues as well until a certain product changed their life. A lot of times, such people do that for a living and, as such, they can actually be quite convincing. I’m sure you’ve noticed your share of sales letters where such people are trying to gradually build up trust by making it seem that they have had problems similar to yours before and they even present some more than convincing testimonials. It is very carefully-planned scenario which will, as you may have already guessed, bring you in front of the ‘buy now’ button.
They also try to create a sense of urgency in order to trick you into thinking that, if you don’t grab your credit card and purchase their product now, you will regret that decision for the rest of your life. Again, more than a few such people can definitely be convincing, but in the end, common sense prevails.
Always asking yourself the ‘is this too good to be true?’ question is definitely the way to go. Whenever something seems far too good to be true, it most likely is and you are better off not wasting time and money on such a product. Common sense can and will get you far, this applies to dealing with fake promises just as it does everywhere else.
What do you do when confronted with what obviously represent fake promises? What is your reaction? Do you smile, leave and never look back or are some sales letters you have noticed actually able to trick you into thinking that maybe, just maybe, the promises in question may not be fake?
Best wishes,
Alan Johnson
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By Tom Beaton on Mar 4, 2008
These offers are typically on long sales pages, with loads of unreferenced testimonials, and other forms of social proof.
A pet peeve of mine are these long sales pages - we have to learn to differentiate good products from bad ones and a good way to do this, is to look for a review from someone you trust - not just a no one on the internet.
By Ades on Mar 4, 2008
But unfortunately those long pages do work, and most of the marketers recommend to create such pages if you want to sell something. They argue, if you create long pages your sales will increase, so the bounce rate. But they say those people who have bounced, wouldn’t buy anyway, even if you put a short page.
As for me, I do not like those long pages, and haven’t purchased anything from such pages either.
By webomatik on Mar 4, 2008
Every time I see those long pages I just turn my back and regret those few seconds I spent.
What I have learned is that fake promises are 95% of offers out there (maybe even more) and those are very often represented on pages with crappy design.
By Dining Room Furniture on Mar 5, 2008
Yes, this is most annoying and creates quite a lot of ill-will. I for one, do not like them, will not buy and will not entertain future proposals either.
By billie on Mar 5, 2008
I was goign to state the exact same opinion as webomatik’s, crappy crappy designs.
By Yeast Infection on Mar 5, 2008
I often see become number 1 in google. what happens if two people buy the product have the same keywords???
By Sergio on Mar 5, 2008
“Every time I see those long pages I just turn my back and regret those few seconds I spent.”
i agree with webomatic, this kind of pages and content are pure promises, this is a truly waste of time
By bhanu on Mar 5, 2008
This has been there from a long time and the innocent people who dont have much knowledge fall in such type of traps but as long as he/she gains experience they become smarter.
I always run away from such long pages whether its true or not but i always take precautions ( as precaution is better than cure).
Well very nice post and very helpfull for newbies on the internet.
By Stefanie on Mar 5, 2008
I don’t like the long sales pages, but I’ve definitely profited from them (although never any where I felt the promises were untrue). About 6 months ago, I did an experiment with 10 campaigns. For each one, I divided the traffic roughly 50/50 between a long sales page and a more traditional looking layout. In about 50% of the campaigns, the two pages performed equally well. For the rest, the awful, ugly, long sales pages worked better. Lesson learned. Sometimes, people like ugly, obnoxious pages.
By Alan Johnson on Mar 5, 2008
Hi there and thank you for your comments, glad you found my guest post useful and you’ll definitely be seeing more of me :)
Best wishes,
Alan Johnson
By webomatik on Mar 5, 2008
“Sometimes, people like ugly, obnoxious pages.”
This is based on some kind of research? After this sentence I think no comment is necessary. People like ugly pages. Hmmm. It is like you said : “Boys like ugly girls”. Do they?
I would like to join “lovers of ugly pages community” if it is possible, please :)
By Eddie Poh on Mar 6, 2008
Once again AJ, great post in opening can of worms. :)
There’s no quick fix in life, especially monetary. Whenever I see quick fix promises in those affiliate marketing(construction-worker-got-rich fast-and-becomes-beachbum-with-hang-ten-sign) will instantly trigger my spider sense.
The techniques are suave as ever, from limited time only, to limited seats offer. They are not killing the market in one quick blow but rather fishing selectively.
This comes to next question: How can a blog owner scrutinizes such products in banner and Text Link advertisement? Then again, it all relies on the blog owner’s righteousness to walk extra mile for his/her readers.
If the deal is too good to be true, believe in yourself, it is.
By Nicole Price on Mar 6, 2008
The most annoying of the lot is when you get promotional material for a certain product, software or tutorial, which helped the seller make millions in a short span of time. And then you see that the so called wonder product is being sold at $49 or $79. Now why would someone who is earning millions even bother about such small amounts? They even try to address this doubt by mentioning that the maker wanted to create equal opportunity and believed in giving back to society blah blah. All hogwash!
By Ades on Mar 6, 2008
Nicole, very good observation!
That’s really funny, imagine millionaire wasting his time on writing some ebook and making that extra-long-annoying pages, selling it for $49 (claiming it was priced $400 yesterday), so that he can help others? man that’s unbelievable!
By eMarketing Chat on Mar 6, 2008
Personally, I think that those click bank or ebook related offers NOT giving you what they promise. If you may believe those offers, it looks like that making money online is so easy which is not! Though from a sales perspective they are very convincing and I am not surprised that many newbies fall into the trap. Maybe that’s also their target audience often!
By Futon-Matt on Mar 6, 2008
Great post, I see so many of those ads everywhere that I don’t even go near them. I bet those guys are making a pretty penny with their tricks though.
By Amanda on Mar 6, 2008
“Every time I see those long pages I just turn my back and regret those few seconds I spent.”
“i agree with webomatic, this kind of pages and content are pure promises, this is a truly waste of time”
A long sales page doesn’t necessarily mean a bad product. There’s a lot of great products out there with long sales pages.
As Tom said, find a review of the product from a trusted source before you decide to purchase it or not. Don’t judge a book by its cover, or a product by its sales page.
By Flimjo on Mar 12, 2008
I stay away from anything that has the word “fast” in it. Yet, people still fall for this stuff. There are so many scams out there: Nigerian scams, self-liquidating loan scams, etc. People just go for this stuff always trying to look for the easy way out. Whatever happened to hard work and focusing your efforts on your own business?