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Caveat emptor.
Don't manipulate or be manipulated.
Let's continue the week firmly in gripe-mode and slam some crappy business practice—all of course in the spirit of 'good, well-intentioned objective reporting'.
One of my main gripes with business is deception… whereby 'smart' people manipulate the less-savvy. I've whined about this before and will likely do so again, such is the size of the bug-up-my-ass about it.
There's a lot of money to be made in providing people with things they want—whether or not they're of any benefit—and I have no problem with that when the process is transparent and everybody knows the deal.
A wholly different scenario is the one where some hotshot advisor suggests they have the solution to 'your problem'—even when they know they don't and are simply dishing-out promises for which the substance doesn't match the hype.
This, regrettably for the reputation of business-as-a-whole and genuinely well-intentioned people, is the process by which much of the money changes hands in Internet-oriented marketing.
Add-in the almost de-rigeur headlines, buy-now bonuses and some time-sensitive element of 'this offer is only good for [insert period of your choice]' and credibility crashes fast.
Some of the stuff may well be good, perhaps even very good, but many will never know because they're switched-off by the crassness with which the marketing is undertaken.
One specific credibility killer is the time-sensitive call to action… whereby you're encouraged to complete a 'give us your contact details' section in exchange for freebies: 'Hurry, we only give you 15 minutes to complete the form in order to receive your free gifts.' To foster a sense of urgency, there's a javascript-based counter which shows the reducing time.
Silly. Sure it'll likely shift high volume, but it's not a decent way to do business.
Good, brand-class companies don't operate that way, and neither do well-intentioned decent folk. This type of strategy seems to be the stomping ground of Internet Marketers (including some very well-known and respected ones).
Simply refreshing the page restarts the countdown—and if you just leave the page alone and open another browser window/tab, at the end of the countdown the browser will deliver a 'just refresh the page to begin the countdown again' message.
All pretty dumb, really. A clumsy attempt at manipulating the potential buyer.
Filed by g on October 14 2009 
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