arekiller

Are ‘killer marketing tactics’ dead?

By Shahnaz Rauf

FFA page advertising once very effective, is almost defunct now; Banner advertising has lost its lure; Email lists are fast loosing out; Even ezine Articles as a form of advertisement are reaching a point of saturation, as any ezine editor will confirm.

Just like a person develops immunity to certain antibiotics/ drugs if taken frequently or in large doses. Similarly the impatient web surfer first reaches a peak of intoxication and then quickly looses fascination and develops immunity. Poof! The technique is no longer effective. In fact, any new technique very soon reaches its saturation/ cut off limit. It looses effectiveness, once thousands of websites start using it.

Some more sales techniques that are fast loosing ground are:

1. Affiliate Programs: This concept worked very well initially when some of the pioneers like amazon.com launched it. But now almost every e- business has an affiliate program. This is usually very prominently advertised. Everyone coming to the site ends up becoming an affiliate. A lot of competition is created. End result: very few or no sales for the affiliates. Resulting in loss of business for both the owner and affiliate.

2. Testimonials: Now every site on the internet is offering testimonials. Some of them are offering hundreds or more. Anything that is mass produced ultimately looses credibility. Especially as every one knows most of these testimonials are generated through promises of gain, competitions etc. Very few are sincere.

3. Loading your offer with too many free bonuses: This not Only overwhelms the customer, but may also create a problem for his/her hard drive. Further more:

- It is in direct opposition to the current trend of ‘de-cluttering’ your life.

- It opposes the psychological concept that ‘Good things come in small packages’. For instance good news, good luck, a raise etc. usually come in very small doses. While bad luck, accidents, bad weather, the holocaust, earthquakes etc. come in leaps and bounds and engulf all. Man has been exposed to this idea since the beginning of time. It has become ingrained in his psychological make up. Of course the baser element of greed is still there to contend with.

- Quality counts rather than quantity. Remember we are living in the 'designer age' i.e. Gucci, Armani etc. Thus small but sleek and expensive is the 'in-thing'. Hence any day I will prefer to buy one good quality dress for $50.00 instead of 5 dresses for the same amount. The logical question that immediately springs up is: why so many in only $ 50.00, what’s the catch?

So how do you revitalize the above tactics and make them work for you? A few possible techniques that may work at present are:

- Make the affiliate program highly exclusive geared towards top quality targeted affiliates only.

- Give some proof to support/instead of testimonials. This could take the form of giving a very strong guarantee (triple your money back or more); giving a test drive or a shareware version of your product.

- Make your offer realistic and 'psychologically acceptable'. With more awareness and education, greed is no longer a very strong motivator.

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