How To Spot The Internet Marketing Scams

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Today we’re going to talk about how you can spot the many scams that are running rampant in the internet marketing world, and how you can avoid being sucked in. As I mentioned in the last post, this is all part of our little crusade and the preparation for the new version of IM Success Formula.

A few comments on the last post asked me to name and shame people… I won’t do that though. Not because I don’t dare, but because it defies the purpose of this lesson. If I gave you a list of names to avoid, it would just give you false security… what about the hundreds of bad products I didn’t name (products not even launched yet)? … What I want to do is give you an understanding of how the market is today and how you can weed out the bad stuff whenever you see it.

You’ve seen the countless number of scammy products released last year (and a stunning amount already in January this year) – You know what I’m talking about… the blind sales letters promising you thousands of dollars at the click of a mouse, without telling you anything about what you are actually buying.

This all started with the recession hitting and for good reason… Suddenly there were (and still are) millions of people all over the world losing their jobs, losing their houses, not able to make their car payments etc. In other words a lot of people who desperately need to make some extra cash right now! People who are new to IM – they don’t want to buy information, scripts or tools, they want to buy HOPE. But it’s not only the newbies who get sucked in, a lot of more seasoned marketers have fallen for the BS too – some of these products have sold over 40,000 copies! Of course the more shady side of internet marketing caught on fast and…

Here’s How The Scumbags Operate…

* They launch product after product (usually only months apart, if that), because none of their stuff is actually sustainable. They don’t make money from their “teachings”, they need the product launches.

* They cater to negative emotions like desperation and frustration, offering hope and dreams

* The systems they are sell do not work. These guys sit around masterminding what you would buy – then they create the whole sales process… only then do they “create” some random junk product to justify the rip off.

* The “product” only has to good enough to avoid too many refunds – but in fact they are counting on the vast majority of customers to never use it. The product is an afterthought in this process!

* They don’t use these “systems” themselves – all the Clickbank income shots on their sales page is from their other launches.

* The product you purchase is just a teaser. It is designed to be just enough for you to grasp the concept, but leaving you unable to apply it, unless you buy the upsells.

* The product is priced low (usually $37). In itself not a bad thing, but in this case it’s all about sucking as many people in to the upsells as possible.

* They will usually also have a gazillion exit pop ups, offering you the exact same product at increasing discounts.

* And the list goes on… but this is already getting too depressing ;)

A Word On Automation

Overly simplified you can say that, in order to make money online you need: a website that takes orders and you need traffic to that website. Both sides of that equation can be automated to some degree.

You can buy ready-made websites, site builders etc. to get a site – and you can have traffic software that automatically submits to say articles sites. In both cases it’s rarely 100% automated though, there’s still some setting up or writing of articles. But if a product promises to automate one of the things (site or traffic), it’s not necessarily evil. There are very good products out there that can do this (or at least make your task a whole lot easier). The shit hits the proverbial fan when a product promises you to automate everything.

Let me be honest with you here… If I ever developed a system that would automate both traffic and site/selling (and I’m still trying) – I wouldn’t sell it, ever! If I could press a button and make thousands, I would keep pressing that button instead of worrying about a product launch.

Here’s an example, we have a product called Clickbank Pirate. It automates the selling side of things, but you have to drive the traffic. If we could do both (with traffic in sufficient numbers) there would be no reason for us to sell that. But in this case we need people to drive traffic, and they need our system to monetize their traffic.

Bottomline… beware of people telling you that everything is automated and works with the click of a mouse. Such a system does not exist – and if it does… it doesn’t work!

How To Spot The Bad “Products

This is fortunately very easy, when you apply some of the logic we spoke about in the last post. Here are the tell-tale warning signs to look for:

* The sales copy is completely blind – meaning it does not tell you what the product actually is.

* Instead it tells you everything it’s not, or what you don’t have to do (without mentioning what you have to do).

* There’s usually some fake scarcity tactic – with only 300 copies available (all the while they are mailing their JV partners gloating about 2000 copies sold in the first hour)

* The copy is filled with income “proof” – endless amounts of screenshots that aren’t created by the product they are selling (just proof of their success as product launchers or image thieves).

* You see the same guy launching a product month after month. If their shit worked he wouldn’t have to (note that there are exceptions to this rule, some very prolific marketers churn out a lot of good stuff)

* It promises income without work. Click a few buttons, exploit this loophole etc.

There’s an old saying: “if it’s too good to be true, it usually is” and that is 100% correct. And let me add to that: “if you don’t know what you a buying, then don’t press the bloody order button!”

Hype Is Not Always Bad

Don’t get me wrong, this is marketing and we’re all marketers. We’re supposed to sell stuff (and make our wares look appealing). There’s nothing wrong with hype and clever marketing, done right! The key is to actually have a good product that works and to be honest in your sales pitch – then you can gloss it up as much as you like (and in fact you should).

Just think of shampoo commercials… A bottle of expensive designer shampoo is not going to make me a supermodel, but damn it, it will wash my hair… without the need to buy the upsell. In this case the upsell would be the conditioner, which compliments and enhances the shampoo, but is not needed to make it work. And they never actually promise to make you a supermodel, they just happen to have pretty people on the telly ;)

On the other hand… You can dress up a turd as much as you like, but it’s still just a turd.

Clickbank Pirate As An Example

If we look at Clickbank Pirate again you’ll notice a few things that separate our sales copy from the scumbag’s.

* It clearly tells you what you are buying, what you get, and gives details about the various components.

* It tells you what you don’t have to do, what is automated – but more importantly it does tell you what YOU have to do, in this case drive the traffic.

* The income proof on the site is actually real – in fact none of these scumbags would ever consider using screenshots like that.

o What do you think about the criteria and examples I used above
o Have you been burned by any of these scams, have you learned from it
o Got anything to add, better ways to spot and filter out the crap?
o Anything at all – we want your feedback

Yes it’s hyped up – but the hype is backed by a solid product. I’m not saying this to get you to rush and buy it – more to illustrate the difference in marketing. But with a product like Clickbank Pirate you have the ability to see what you are getting and then make an informed decision whether your need it or not… With one of the scammy products you don’t have that ability and they are banking on the fact that you have to buy it to know what’s in it!

Another Example

Dylan Loh, Edmund Loh and Tony Sanders recently launched a new product called Clickbank Gamers – a very good product, about cashing in on a very hot niche.

When you look at the sales page for Clickbank Gamers you’ll notice that, at first glance, it looks a lot like the scammy products mentioned above. They have clearly opted to follow a template and price point, that has been proven to work (albeit mostly for scammy stuff), and you can’t really blame them for doing it that way.

But if you actually look at the sales page you’ll notice that the copy is not blind, they tell you exactly what you are buying. And they don’t use BS tactics like fake scarcity, discount pop ups etc. I happen to know that the proof on the page is very real too – that is screen shots of Tony’s various accounts and stats (from selling in this niche).

Anyway… Just wanted to show you that even though a product that “looks” like some of the scammy one, it can be a great product. It is not enough to look at the site “template” – you have to read the page to be sure. But remember the golden rule: “if they don’t tell you what you are buying – run away fast!”

I also wanted to get this point across… You should not stop buying products altogether. If you want to run an internet marketing business, you need knowledge, information, scripts and tools (there’s no way around that); but I want you to start thinking about what you buy…

Stop Buying This Stuff!

We’ve now armed you with some knowledge and tools that will help you avoid some of the crap out there. But here’s the thing.

Last time I checked it was NOT illegal to sell a sub-par product, and you have to be really bad to be shut down for misleading advertising (they government has no way of effectively policing that online anyway). And the capitalist inside me can blame the scam peddlers, they are filling a “want” in the market and it’s not that different from some of the other weird stuff people waste their money on.

Fact is that as long as it’s profitable to launch these crappy products, people will keep launching them. The only way we can rid internet marketing of this cancer… is if you stop buying the products!

Use the logic I talked about in last post, combined with the lessons here today and start voting with your mouse fingers, don’t buy into the scams. And tell your friends to do the same, it’s the only way we can change this.

This post is already getting way too long, so I’d better turn it over to you…

It’s Your Turn Now – And We Need Your Help

1. Click on the banner below to grab a free copy of the “Affiliate Mastery & Traffic Training Videos”. This will also get you on the notification list for new blog posts and ultimately for the release of the new IM Success Formula.

2. And finally please post your comments below – we want to know:

That’s it for now, we’ll be back soon with the next post… Thanks for reading