Here’s a snap shot of the subject lines in my email inbox right now:
Affiliate Makes $100 Million in CPA Marketing (You Gotta See This)
WOW, $34,042 per Month (Video Inside)
Make $300 in Just 10 Minutes
45 Minutes work pulls in CPA thousands
Notice a trend here The claims are getting bigger and more outlandish by the day. While some point to this and shout scam, fraud!, and Con-Men!
I see something else at work here. Headlines trying to break through in a mature market.
And Internet Marketing is the very definition of a mature market. Here’s why.
- The market is flooded with poorly differentiated products (everyone has a me-too product)
- The market is swamped with a gaggle of personalities all positioning themselves as a guru
- Customers already own an internet marketing product that most likely didn’t work but….
- Greed is still the #1 desire driving the whole gravy train
In this type of atmosphere, whoever shouts the loudest gets attention. The best way to shout is to stand on the table and scream the biggest benefit that you possibly can. In this case – it’s how much money the customer can make.
The funny thing is that copywriting legend, like Eugene Schwarz identified this phenomenon before and wrote about it in his classic “Breakthrough Advertising”. He would describe Internet Marketing as being in “The Second Stage of Sophistication” where”
“…The process disintegrates. The successful claim disintegrates. Enlargement piles on enlargement. New competitors enter the field – each trying to promise more. Headlines double and triple in size. Words began to lose their meaning – ‘whiter-than-whites’ appear. The prospect becomes confused – then skeptical. Beliveability is shattered; claims are automatically discounted by 50% by their readers. More promise is poured into to compensate. The government begins to investigate. And the sales curve begins to turn down-down-down.”
Gosh. Looks like he’s described Internet Marketing to the tee – all the way down to the government investigating (FTC).
So what do you do if you are hooked on the “incredibly expanding promise”.
That will be the topic of my next post…”What Atkins Has to Teach Internet Marketing”