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    • « Your Front Page — Magazine Or Novel? Improves Sales Or Flattens Them? | Home | Marketing Rebranding Mishap Gone Horribly Wrong »

    Steering Him Out Of A Marketing Mishap Skid

    You’ve created a new product and you’re ready to unleash it on the world and rake in the beaucoupROI copywriting steers you out of marketing skid  bucks. So . . . what’s the first step? Well, don’t do what this guy did would be a good step #1!

    Below, I critique his materials and efforts and tell him what to do and not to do.

    Six years ago, as one of the resident marketing experts on an online forum, I would help the marketing efforts of forum members who submit their materials for critique.

    In this one, the guy had created a product for helping men do better in their dating endeavors and he wanted to market it through the forums in Yahoo Groups as his first step.

    Big Mistake.

    The Problem: As you’ll from my analysis, he violated nearly every rule of

    proven, effective marketing sales copywriting there is . . . and ultimately, paid the price for it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

    Read on to discover what to do and what not to do, without having to incur the very expensive lessons yourself.

    [name removed, I'm a merciful guy],

    This’ll be brief and if any of it sounds brutal, then understand my time’s short and none of it is meant in any way as a personal slight. Aware of it or not, several others here are in the same boat you’re in, and on a larger scale — MOST of the sites and online marketing out there suffer from similar afflictions.

    So you have lots of company, if that’s any consolation to you (it shouldn’t be).

    > I have a book coming out soon, and how do I go about marketing it through
    Yahoo Groups??  [URL deleted, because I'm a merciful guy].

    First off — put your release plans on hold. You’re nowhere near ready to do this, based on the information you provided. I’m saving you a lot of frustration down the road.

    Second, get better educated about marketing — do an online search for marketing or Internet/online marketing. There are plenty of free sites out there with free information.

    Not all of its good, but hey, it’s free.

    > how do I go about marketing it through Yahoo Groups??

    Don’t. Never. Ever. At least until you have the other pieces in place. That is, unless you want to kill it before it ever has a chance to thrive.

    FIRST, spend the $15 and get your own domain name [his was one of those URLs buried with the path to the free domain hosting]. Sucking off the Yahoo teat and doing this on the cheap will doom your project before you get out of the gates.

    If money’s the issue, best to wait until you’ve saved the money to do it right. I looked at your site. Lots of problems there.

    Highlights (from top of your website and down):

    1. The problem with “free” domains — you surrender some of your most valuable real estate on your homepage so someone else can make their money.

    Not only is that bad marketing, it’s bad business. See opening comments.

    2. You spent too much time creating a fancy logo, and not enough time writing compelling copy. Nix it or make it smaller and put it off to the side. Making it smaller will solve that unprofessional pixilated look it currently has.

    3. Major mistake — NO HEADLINE! Put one in there that addresses your target market(s) major concerns . . . and see #2 above.

    You have only 6-10 seconds to hook people in to read more. Where is your hook? Honestly ask yourself — “If I weren’t the author, would I even bother?”

    3. Nothing here entices people to click the links, which are ill-placed on the page. Ugh!

    4. Lose the “About Me” link. No one cares. Visitors to your site are only interested in how you can solve their problems and have zero interest in the humongous, over-pixilated picture of you.

    > [here he included a lengthy title, lead and metatag info for his product. Again, I delete because I am merciful]

    5. Change the title. It’s a snoozer. Women are more the fast-twitch responders to this type of title, not men.

    5a. Have you done your research, surveyed your target market(s)? Is there a viable demand for your book? Will people be willing to pay for it?

    This blurb you wrote is very uncompelling. I won’t contest that you’ve put your finger on the pulse of the problem — I just seriously doubt men will buy it, [Time proved me correct. They never did.] at least with the kind of teaser you wrote.

    Learning basic marketing and copywriting skills should partially remedy that problem. However, even the most clever copywriting and marketing whiz-bang will be for naught if no one’s interested.

    Find the flush, hungry mob, whip them into a feeding frenzy, feed them.

    From a marketing professional’s perspective, you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, so I hope you weren’t going to roll this out anytime soon. I would destroy the Yahoo site, scrap all copy (not your book, though that too probably could stand a massive rewrite) . . . and start at the beginning — once you’ve grasped the basics of selling your product EFFECTIVELY.

    One of the best role models that you can study on the cheap, because many of his emails were here first, is “David DeAngelo”/Eben Pagan (www.DoubleYourDating.com). He’s a textbook case of effective guerilla marketing. 

    Plus, he’s a peer on this list and that may make it more believable and doable from your perspective.

    Study how he first established himself as an authority here, giving tons of valuable information, then leaked info about his new book and then, etc., etc.

    Plus his website is really basic, yet does most things right as far as marketing goes. The site is a great example of “it doesn’t have to look great to do great.”

    Good basic design, effective use of headlines that pull visitors in and compelling copy that ensures they continue to the end and then at the end, some real killer effective offers that are very difficult to not buy.

    With what I’ve seen him demonstrate thus far, he’ll own the dating/seduction information market within 3 years if he a.) has those ambitions, b.) continues his current efforts and accelerates them. If he doesn’t, it’s because he has other plans.

    Regardless, watch and model. Get on his email list. Study.

    Emulate his model and you’ll never go hungry.

    Gotta blaze. Hope this helps. At it’s least, I hope it creates more questions than it answers.

    =====================================================

    That was 6 years ago. The guy’s product launch? He ignored my analysis and that of several others, so it will come as no big surprise that his product went nowhere.

    I also correctly predicted the success of “David DeAngelo”/Eben Pagan. He became the “category killer” well within 3 years and has continued to cement that lead in the years since.

    He took his little ebook project from a one-man operation with a computer in the bedroom to an 80+ employee operation raking in $20M a year.

    Like what you read? Then click here to buy me a coffee.

    By Walter |

    Topics: Client Top Secret, Pro Analysis |


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