Every time I see an email, or worse, a sales letter that begins with this sentence, I am a little irked.
Okay, to be really honest, a piece of copy like this really pisses me off.
It’s obviously one of those things one copywriter made up some time ago for some successful information or internet marketing product that was rescued from someone’s swipe file, that someone else swiped, that someone else swiped and so on and so forth. Why not? It sounds good, it crystallizes the fear that an internet marketing newbie has, while wondering if they should spend $7, $27, $37, $197 or $1997 on something they’re hoping will solve a problem they’re having, mainly, how to make money doing something on the internet.
I suppose it may have made millions for someone a long time ago, but I’m sure something got lost in the spinner. Because that approach doesn’t work on me, and I’m beginning to wonder if it really does.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the use of fear to sell. I’ve used it successfully in a whole bunch of advertising campaigns offline selling kiddy dewormers, banks, insurance companies, utilities companies, causes and even politicians. I’ve even won awards for them.
Selling fear works. Most of the time, it works even better than dreams.
It pisses me off because unlike the campaigns I’ve done, the fear is false.
Or at the very least, the statement is unprovable. And it’s written in a way that makes it unprovable..
WILL.
FAIL.
WILL FAIL.
YOU. WILL FAIL. AND I WILL TELL YOU WHY.
Self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?
Assuming that some words got skipped because of layout issues and the original phrasing was something along the lines of the statistical probability of someone failing online–most likely because it ‘s long and unsexy phrased that way– I still need to ask: Based on what? Anybody ever do a test? What sample? Did you research? HOW? 350,000 people put up new blogs everyday (according to a 2007 study, I suspect it’s more than that now), and that’s just the blogosphere. More than that, I guess. Or maybe just a little bit less– I guess I could check Google. I’ll have to know the parameters of failure though.
It’s unprovable. At the very least, inexact.
My not making six-figures yet does not count as failure. My taking a real-time job while I’m learning the ropes does not count as failure. I’ve only failed when I’ve decided I’ve failed.
Give me a real, quantifiable fear, then tell me I don’t have to be afraid so I can shut that out of my mind immediately. Tell me I’m losing 40% of my chances of making the sale because I didn’t put an affiliate link in my 404 page, then sell me a quick html for newbies course because I dunno how to do that with my WordPress.
Tell me I’m losing fifty six million backlinks which could potentially lead to my website ranking which could potentially give me more clicks because I waste my time posting on forums (I made all these up, I really don’t like IM forums in general, and I dun know anything about backlinks or ranking. Yet.) instead of taking twenty minutes to write articles, submit, post, tweet, or whatever. Or I’m missing out on adding 50,000 affiliates to my list by not having a product out because I’m too scatterbrained to make a product about dog-training, and then sell me a time management course.
Yes, I am afraid of failing, don’t rub it in. I’m trying to think happy thoughts so I can work faster here.
Don’t tell me I’ll fail unless I stick with you. That’s what my first boss told me. I quit, moved to a different agency and then outranked him and made more than he did (In the real life job terms, not SEO-keywords sense.) in the six months afterwards. (Come to think of it, that’s what my second to the last boss told me too, I never did make boatloads more than that one, but then he owned the business. But I don’t see the guys sticking with him succeeding either. Never mind. )
As any abuse counselor will tell you, fear is not a good place to be starting a relationship. Marketing, internet or otherwise, is a relationship.
I really do wonder how well it does for someone sending the email, or the guy whose product is at the end of the salesletter.
Sure, the guy you’re promoting may get the email addy he’s scaring people for. I doubt if the OTO it’s attached to gets the sale though. It just seems like bad business to me, do you really want to start a relationship based on fear of failure?
Do you really want a sale from someone who’s probably going to either ask for his money back, or perform badly despite your utterly brilliant system because the fear of failure was on the top of his mind when he bought your product, and not ask for his money back, but will go broke and never buy anything ever again long before he ever reads your pitch for the $97 product?
I don’t think so.
It’s okay, I don’t really blame you. I blame your swipe file.
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