Recently a new craze has been hitting the e-product scene, product sellers are using blogs or testimonial collections and sales pages to get you interested in buying their product. But on the day the product is supposed to be released, without any warning or indication the seller sends out a notice to everyone on their list that the product will be delayed a week or 2, and then goes on to blame the delay on something along the lines of “We don’t want people to make rash buying decisions”. The beauty of this tactic is that most people actually believe you, so you come across as a nice person - but in reality it whips everyone up into a buying frenzy.
The first time I saw this used was with a program called stompernet, run by Brad Fallon and some bald guy. They set up a website showing a whole series of audio interviews of “successful” students, and released a handful of information videos where they discussed pretty general search engine info you could find at any forum - but in a witty and funny way, and billed it as amazing information worth thousands of dollars!!
With stompernet it was actually kind of funny, because the videos they released played out as if they were going to teach you natural ways to build your site’s search rankings, etc… Yet 2 years ago, Brad Fallon’s flagship site was a featured site on link metro and with literally thousands of reciprocal link exchanges on the site!
Of course I’m more than a little jealous, since they earned more in a day than many people earn in 50 years.
The most recent occurrence of this strategy is from a guy called Rich Schefren and his soon to be launched business coaching program… I may do a post on how that played out after his program launches tomorrow, but so far he has followed the stompernet plan pretty closely.
It’s quite interesting to watch how modern marketers are starting to prey on our built-in sensibilities; it used to be the realm of con men and scammers, but with more and more people selling products, I guess you need something to stand out.
March 14th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
haha awesome post.. gotta love the the different strategies for pulling in customers.. but i don’t think that works for everyone.
March 15th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Jay!
You’re a good writer and observer of human nature. I did like your post, but come on man! My hair might be thinning, but I’m not bald!!
:o)
Andy Jenkins
March 15th, 2007 at 6:14 am
Andy:
Nice to hear from you, sorry I honestly couldn’t remember your name when I posted the message, something just struck me with the hair from a video I saw of you awhile back.. So there you have it everyone Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins… :)
Everdayweekender:
I agree it doesn’t work for everyone, but I found it interesting that despite how jaded I’ve become in the past year towards online products.. The tactic worked even on me and it wasn’t till the dust settled that I labeled it a tactic… Mostly because I can’t imagine any online marketer in their right minds wouldn’t want impulse buyers picking up their product and it got me all hot and bothered over getting the program even though before then I was rather skeptical.
Like anything though since Brad and Andy (sorry about the hair thing) pulled it off so beautifully with stompernet, more people will start to use it until its effectiveness fades.
Still it is amazing how when someone tells us no we won’t sell you something you just want it all the more.