Mooch Marketing

Ken's Blog

The "dark side" of Direct Marketing is fully online, more effective than ever. So far, so boring -- we all know that.

Even when SiteSell first started in the late 90s, we were in the midst of direct marketers. A clique of talented but unethical marketers worked together, cross-selling each others' "Internet Marketing Secrets" for ridiculous prices.

We stayed clear of that cabal, and built a business based upon underpromising and OVERdelivering. We're still around, growing steadily. But you don't see the "old outfits" anymore. I guess they've made their money and moved on. So...

LESSON #1 Only the scammers get rich. Their customers? They are missing thousands of dollars.

We are now seeing a second major round of the dark side, a new wave of hucksters selling nebulous products and services for ridiculously high prices. And sure enough, gullible people continue to fall for irresistible copy that manages to convince them that, somehow, this one time, this proposition is different. The killer doubt...

LESSON #2 "Geez, what if?" That question lures folks into the same bad decisions over and over again. Some of them have been burnt before and will be burnt again.

The sad part is that they are good people, motivated to get ahead. But they get so excited (because they WANT to believe) that they fail to consider that no serious business person would really sell a goose that lays a golden egg.

One of the top masters showed me the inside of how this game works and it's brutally relentless. Let me open your eyes a touch...

The customers are called "mooches."

A "mooch list" is invaluable. Those who have fallen for the sucker traps before and spent big dollars? Their names are worth big money. It's so easy to pluck dollars from gullible, innocent people -- it should be a crime.

And so the cross-sell, up-sell, whatever-sell, goes on. Understand this...

LESSON #3 It is not about delivering value. It's about extracting money from your wallet.

Re-read the above.  People like this really exist. Our basic good faith in people makes us all "marks." But people, whose sole goal is to separate you from your money in return for as little as possible, really do exist. The good news?

LESSON #4 The hallmarks of a scam are obvious. Just take one big step back and LOOK. Don't just "read and get sucked in" -- take a hard LOOK at the big picture...

• A "tsunami" of promotion found you.
• Relentless hard copy at the site.
• Tons of free reports worth a gazillion dollars but "today only."
• Excitement wells up in you, but take a second look. Is it reasonable?
• Boil all the words down to what you actually GET, and it's often nothing more than, say, a set of templates, or some coaching.
• And yet, the hype makes it all feel that "I MUST have this. The secrets to the business universe are here."

At this point, if reason is not exercised, the next step is 100% predictable. It's like watching a movie that is so trite you just know how it all ends. Badly. Always.

And once these folks have your name, the targeting never stops.

LESSON #5 The bottom line lesson? Think! Don't be a mooch.

At SiteSell, we buy some of the loudest (SBI! owners ask about them in the SBI! Forums), most convincing stuff flying around, in the name of research (thank goodness it's tax-deductible). They are always disappointing, ranging from outright fraud at worst, to gross exaggeration at best...

No great secret unveils itself, I'm sorry to say.

No real value is delivered, let alone anything approaching the price paid.

There are times when I'm tempted to expand our research and put out "The Mooch Report" and dismantle this junk. We should "name names," I suppose. But on the Net, they'd just move on, change aliases, and start all over.

It's so easy for them. They have "The List." And they have one incredible talent -- the ability to take money from the gullible.

If you've been fooled, or if you have ever been mightily tempted, I hope this article has shed some light on the darker side of the "Internet Marketing" racket.

Don't be a mooch.

All the best,

P.S. The "real" secret is actually revealed in DAY 10 of the Action Guide. Feel free to send me $800 per month for it. I only have "3 seats left, so hurry!"  ;-)

Aug/2010:  Scam artists are threatened by the "keep it real" honesty of the SBI! way to build Web businesses.  A large group of sploggers coordinated a "site build it scam" campaign of fake reviews against SBI!.  Ironically, their splogging technique was subsequently banned by Google.