Keep Your Money – Top 5 Marketing Tactics To Avoid

I had some new people ask me – “What is with all this stuff on these sites selling stuff?”  so I thought about it and you know what?  That’s a valid question.  I’ve been marketing for over 20 years and I like to think of myself as someone who knows a thing or two about sales and marketing (not to toot my own horn…ok, I’m going to do it anyway – I’ve always been one of the top 3 earners at every sales and marketing position I’ve held in the offline world) and I find it interesting to see some of the tactics used online.

So I put together this list of some things to look out for – the reality is these strategies work well but that doesn’t mean everyone should buy something just because they are used.  An educated consumer means keeping more of your money.

Number One

Auto Pilot Anything – this is the first major red flag everyone should look out for. If you see any websites or programs talking about making money on autopilot, take a step back.

True, you can make money automatically or while you sleep – BUT that’s only after you have put in the time and effort and I can tell you from experience that it takes time.

If you notice, many of these programs promote their ‘autopilot’ systems but spend little time in telling you up front that you will have to put in the time (usually on average 18-24 months of solid work).

What happens is people believe they can pay for a program, do a little work and sit back and rake in the cash – which is what many of these programs look like you can do. Complete rubbish!

Number Two

Earn 6 Figures A Month (or insert any other 5 or 6 figure number) – again, this is another one of those claims solely designed to get you to buy into a program.

Yes, you can make 6 figures and yes some people do make that much each month – but it’s not necessarily from their program – rather it’s usually from selling you their programs (which, by the way 95% of people who go into business online do not make any money – think about it).

Like anything and I’ll keep hammering this point home, it takes time. The gurus selling these claims of extraordinary income did not buy a program and overnight start making that kind of cash. So this is another one that you should just be aware of.

Number Three

Hurry, Only 250, 175, 45, 17 Spots Left – I particularly like this one but not from the point that it’s awesome but rather it illustrates perfectly the psychological strategies used by many marketers.

Do you really think they are only limiting their product to 250 people? LoL. No, truthfully, in most cases you can still get their product even after they have ‘reached their number’ of customers. They aren’t going to turn down more money.

Number Four

ClickBank/PayPal Earnings Screenshots – I’m going to let you in on a little secret here.  It’s very easy to setup a fake website and put whatever numbers you want in there.  Shhh…don’t tell anyone.

No, I won’t share how it’s done but it is rampant in the online marketing arena among ’sharks’ looking to take your money.  Ignore any claims of income that you see because truthfully, you have no way of really knowing that this guy actually made that much unless you are sitting right next to him looking at his bank statements – and that is something highly unlikely to happen.

Number Five

Testimonials – this one is especially interesting because there are a number of strategies used by marketers.  One is to enlist other top marketing buddies to write a testimonial for their product and usually it’s done in exchange for a reciprocal testimonial for that marketer’s own product.

Another strategy is to use fake testimonials.  I’ve seen the same guy’s picture on dozens of programs and found his picture on a stock photo site.  I like to go back to old program sales pages and look up the websites from these ‘testimonials’.  Guess what I find?  Many of the sites are no longer active.

How much weight does that testimonial carry if the person giving it is no longer online?  This is common so do not believe all the testimonials you read.

Conclusion

So the bottom line is there are plenty of products out there from marketers that do not rely on these tactics to separate you from your hard earned money.  Keep an eye out, pay attention and before you whip out that credit card ask yourself – is this really something I need?

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