Ticking All The Boxes On The Mindless Marketing Checklist... Mastermind Club!

A copywriter friend of mine recently signed up as an affiliate on one of those "scorched-earth" Internet Marketing product launches.

The guy running the launch was following the script to a T, from the bombastic pre-launch videos to the soulless, air-popped affiliate emails.

During the launch, my friend invites his audience to a webinar with the product creator.

And as Mr. Product Creator warms to his sales pitch, he starts calling out to the audience like a revival preacher:

"I'm getting lots of questions in the chat box, and I can see from the emails coming in that some of you have already bought, lots of excitement here!

"Alfonso says 'just bought,' thank you Alfonso!"

My friend was skeptical, and a glance at his affiliate stats confirmed his suspicions—a big, fat goose egg.

After the webinar he called out the product creator on this, and the guy shrugged.

"I was just doing a little 'framing,'" he said.

This is what happens when people follow the "Mindless Marketing Checklist."

You're doing a webinar and some copywriter's checklist says, "Social proof increases response."

You're not getting any sales, though, so you just "frame" some up to order.

Another area where this happens all the time is with so-called "scarcity."

Your garden variety marketer sends an email that says "We've only got 119 lines left on our teleseminar and the seats are filling up fast! Don't delay another minute or you may miss the most important teleseminar of your entire career!"

When of course they've got all the lines they need and only 8 people are signed up anyway.

Let's see, how many things can I think of that are wrong with these tactics?

Well first of all they're just not true.

Second they perpetuate the image that all marketing is phony and scammey.

Third, people do sometimes catch you and after they do, they'll know from now on that you play these kinds of games. (My copywriter friend swears he'll never help this guy with another product launch ever again.)

Fourth, what are you going to do when you have REAL scarcity built into an offer?

A few years back Jonathan Mizel, Glenn Livingston and I offered teleseminar for Google AdWords users, teaching a new technique. There were 475 seats available. They filled up in about 6 hours.

We could have gone ahead and gotten more teleseminar lines (which would have been expensive but profitable). We didn't do that. Why not? Because we said 475, and that means 475.

Everyone else will have to wait for the MP3 and the transcript, which will come five days later.

That wasn't the first time this has happened in one of my promotions, and it sure wasn't the last.

I don't do fake scarcity.

And when people find out that 475 really means 475, they're quicker about reading my emails as soon as they come in.

Ya think?

The worst part about all these tactics is how entrepreneurs get sucked into devoting so much of their time to crafting an elaborate, illusion of white-hot demand...

Instead of focusing their energy on the bare-knuckle basics that actually make the cash register ring.

Building relationships with your customers.

Continuously refining your DSP.

Testing new ads and messages to capture a bigger share of your market.

In Mastermind Club, we focus on the timeless strategies and techniques that actually move the needle...

The unsexy "blocking and tackling" that'll let you run roughshod over your competitors' flimsy marketing gimmicks.

To learn more (and to join Mastermind Club today), click here:

Carpe Diem,

Perry Marshall