It is found in almost all online products nowadays. Even funnier, it’s found in sales pages of digital products. A few years back, while working in a bank, we would be urged to attend seminars every now and then to hone our skills, marketing skills specifically. In marketing, the technique to pressure a client to buy is given special attention. Skillfully introduce a sense of urgency; a sense of the product being limited; that the offer is on a short lease and the product offer would end soon.
I admit the technique is really effective. I got enticed to buy stuff by virtue of this tactic a number of times in the past. While I got some degree of satisfaction from some of those stuff I bought, a lot of others were crap, especially the digital ones (the ones I bought online). This is why I agree wholeheartedly with some experienced bloggers who warn: If you see the phrase ‘limited copies‘ on digital products’ sales pages, get as far away from it as you can.
How To Be Scammed Not
I almost lost a few bucks just recently after receiving an email from one of those lists I joined. As usual, the sales page I was directed to spewed out a perfectly composed sales pitch and of course the ever present ‘urgency’ magic that always work – the phrase ‘limited copies’ or ‘only 234 copies left’. Hey, they even install a script that counts down incrementally everytime you access the sales page. There’s also the limited offer price of, say, $17, or $39, which would go back soon to its regular price of $197! Luckily, I somehow was ‘sober’ enough to consider googling about the product before diving in and purchasing straight away. I searched with the product name and the word ‘scam’ after it. I knew also that scammers would tend to flood the first pages of the serps with their own reviews containing this phrase in their titles and contents. Of course, you’ll only find reviews that would give favorable light on the product there. So, I had to patiently search further and finally found the first one containing an unadulterated review complete with comments from other dis-satisfied buyers. Needless to say, I saved a few bucks thanks to some people who take the time to share their honest reviews online.
Firstly, software or ebooks, or any digital product for that matter don’t ‘run out of copies’. Then, a $97 digital product is most probably worth only $17. Why? Because in some other sales page (in a forum), or in a sales page emailed through a list, it is sold only at $17. There, they would say ‘limited copies’ at $17. ‘This is priced at $97 somewhere else. See this sales page.’ Of course, the $97 sales page would be there. And, of course, there are naive and stupid newbies who get swayed by the fluent sales pitch and thus are fooled to buy it at $97. Then there are $45 ebooks that later end as free give-aways. Had you waited…
By the way, that product which I mentioned above, upon your payment, will (according to one commenter who purchased it) direct you to an upsell page which sells a software that will make the product you bought work (better). Don’t you just love them? The product actually teaches you how to make money by breaking some facebook TOS rules. Looking back at the sales page, I never found a single word mentioning facebook. A long winded sales page that takes 37 presses on the PageDown button to reach the bottom that doesn’t even give us a clue as to what it is, or that it involves facebook, or worse, that it involves breaking facebook TOS? It even has the gall to say that it’s for those who are tired of being scammed with useless information and methods that don’t work.
Have you any experience with these types of products/marketers too?
