With my information product consulting part-time gig, I handle roughly two clients per month. One of my clients, Gabe, is a guy with great raw writing talent. When it comes to marketing his products and brand though, he is admittedly clueless. No surprise there, why else would he hire me then right? Anyway, I was sitting home working one night, and Gabe called me. His first session wasn’t for a week or so yet, so I was surprised to hear from him.
The Inevitable
He had purchased some Internet marketing product for almost a hundred bucks, and was fuming about it. He explained how he was misled by the claims on the sales page and most of all, on all of the positive “reviews†that he had read. He said there must be two dozen reviews about the product, and they all make it seem like the best thing since canned beer.
Break it to Him Easy
He got his money refunded, but the whole experience angered him. Of course, just like when you have to tell your beloved son that there is no real Easter Bunny, I had to break the news to poor Gabe that not only is there a sucker born every minute, but so is a review site. I showed him some examples, had him pick a bunch of products from Clickbank and other affiliate sites, and search on Google for reviews of that product. My point was made pretty quickly.
I told Gabe that I would like to have , â€Is he really dead, or is it a scam??†etched on my tombstone. I told him to speak directly with people in the better marketing forums if he really wants to know about a product. To be honest, the whole nature of those fake review sites just feels dirty to me, and I look at them as a Blackhat tactic, even though I am sure a lot of people would disagree with me.
The same thing goes for most article sites nowadays as well. I swear, people would highly recommend using dynamite to cure constipation if Clickbank would give them thirty bucks to do so. And media people are upset about Wikipedia? Review sites make Wikipedia seem like a master reference for the Library of Congress. Pick any Internet marketing product and type the name into Google and add “review†or “is it a scam?†at the end; you will see one review site after another. I would love to know what other Internet marketers think about the whole review concept, because it seems like it is here to stay.
James Junior is an Internet Marketer and author of the free ebook No Cost eBook Marketing.