How Ethical Are Your Marketing Tactics?

All small business owners will be faced with the decision to use less than truthful advertising and promotional strategies in their sales letters, email communications, ads, and other promotional material.

How do I know? It seems to be the way business marketing has evolved on the Internet.

Deceptive practices include all those little white lies, half truths, and marketing tactics that many feel are perfectly legal, excusable, and appropriate in this day and for this medium.

Some, I know, would question why we are even discussing this topic as they feel anything is game as long as you don’t cross the line of outright lying in your presentations.

I don’t see it that way.

I believe that Internet marketers have a responsibility to their prospects and customers that includes being upfront, honest, and ethical in everything they publish, say, and do.

I understand that I am opening myself up to a lot of potential criticism from the IM (Internet Marketing) community by suggesting what I am about to suggest.

But I do it as an IMer who wants to help and “take care” of my own customers. I want to practice what I preach about putting the customer first.

Haven’t we all been repeatedly giving lip service, at least, to “It’s not about you (the IMer), it’s about the customer and what he/she wants.”

Okay, here’s my rant:

1. Why does every big launch IM product cost $1997?

2. How can a product with a “real value” of $38,650 be sold for $97?

3. How come all the “short window” launches are reopened or extended because the guru’s server crashed (again) from all the massive unexpected traffic? Didn’t he learn how to take precautions the first time that happened?

4. Why do I need to know that I’m not going to pay $10,000, or even half that much, no not even $2,000, or $1,000, not $700, not $397, not even $197, not even a ridiculous $97, but if I order in the next ten minutes I only have to pay $27?  It’s a game that seems to work or it wouldn’t be copied so often – but is it really truthful – to even suggest that the product could easily be sold for $10,000?  I doubt it.

5. Why do IMers get to send me multiple emails on the same day promoting their offers simply because their email service messed up again and they’re not sure if the list I’m on ever received the first email?  It’s a tactic to flood the prospect’s inbox with multiple sales messages … maybe one will stick?

6. How could there only be 7 copies left of any digital product?  Anyone should be able to see right through this one.

7. How can an IMer send me promotions for nearly every offer that comes along and still claim that he only wants to tell me about “the good stuff that he uses and that is relevant to the reason I subscribed to his list?”

8. If a product owner is willing to pay affiliates 50% or more for a buyer from the affiliates list, why should I (the consumer) not feel like I’m paying more for the product than it’s actually worth to the owner?  Yes, I understand that the product creator is paying for someone else to market and sell his product … but if that cost is really built into the product, then why can’t I pay the owner something less than I have to pay to purchase through an affiliate?

9. How many IMers actually read or immerse themselves in a product prior to promoting all kinds of wonderful things about it? Let’s be honest now . . . 30% ? . . . 20% ? . . . 10% ? . . . 2% ? . . . Why is that?

10. Why does an income screen shot of a merchant or Clickbank account really matter:

a) when they are easily doctored or faked altogether?
b) when the small print income disclaimer at the bottom of the page says that the income described in the sales letter is not typical and that YOU may not experience any income at all?
c) when it’s the product owner’s account rather than that of a product user – someone like you or me that’s purchasing the product?

11. Why should I care about being on the first page of Google? (I only want to be ranked for relevant search terms that will bring me traffic that will convert to sales)  If organic search results are your complete marketing system, then “yes” being found ranking well on Google for your keywords is important.

12. Why are guarantees only for the cost of the product? If you guarantee a six figure income, why isn’t that the amount you should pay me?

13. Why do you say “this is the most important email you will ever read” over and over again?

14. I recently copied and pasted a guru’s one page sales letter into WORD and it ended up being 37 pages long . . . how could that be?

15. When I close a screen it means I want to go somewhere else. Why do I have to be interrupted by another pitch, then another, then another, then another when I’ve already decided I don’t want your product?

16. When you claimed your product generated $350,000 last month alone, shouldn’t you also disclose that you and your staff burned through $345,000 in operating and marketing costs to get there?

17. Is there anything wrong with seeing a picture of you and a hired model sitting in a rented Lamborghini in front of a friend’s mansion?

18. If I initiate contact with local businesses about purchasing a web site I designed, contracting for my SEO services, buying a domain name I’ve already registered, or simply listing your business in my directory, how is that not considered unsolicited commercial email (UCE), or as we have come to affectionately call it . . . SPAM?

19. Why didn’t you tell me that your PLR or MRR product would be selling for $1 on eBay shortly after it was released to the public?

20. Why do I have to give your company my name and email address for every single new video or offer that you release? Can’t you keep track of what I’ve already given you?  Don’t you segment your email lists?

I could go on and on some more, but I will stop there.

Yes, I understand some of the reasons, techniques and motivations of selling and marketing that lead IMers to employ these tactics and many, many others. And no, I don’t claim to be an expert in any of them.

What I am wondering, however, is whether using these strategies are really in the best interest of our beloved prospects and customers?

Or do we simply believe we need to use them because that’s what we see other IMers doing so we figure that’s what we must do as well to be successful?

Most of these strategies, when you get right down to it, contain elements of deception . . . or dare I say it . . . lying!

You might say to yourself, no I’m not really lying since I’m not intentionally trying to harm or hurt my prospects.  I just use these tactics to help my conversions because that’s what I see all the experts doing and supposedly that’s what works.

Please understand that I’m not singling out any person or accusing the entire IM community of underhanded and dishonest marketing methods.  Some marketers don’t do any of these things.

My purpose in discussing whether or not we are doing a disservice to our prospects with these strategies is rooted in my desire to be up front and honest with my own customers and to not insult their intelligence with obvious tricks, games, and techniques that could lead them to the conclusion that I care more about my own sales than I do about what’s really best for them … my valued customers.

In the early days of the Internet, consumers may have been oblivious to such tactics.

But to me at least, it seems apparent that today’s Internet consumers are becoming more and more aware of, and tired of (no . . . actually fed up with) these and other deceptive marketing approaches.

Am I being too harsh about marketing practices? Maybe.  Is this really not as much of a concern as I’m making it out to be? Could be.  In your mind, are these practices really not deceptive at all?

Do we in the IM community need to, at a minimum, stretch the truth in our marketing in order to be successful at promoting and selling our products? You will have to decide that for yourself!

To your online business success,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com