The Truth About Internet Marketing Part 7

Sorting Out the Scams

In your search for the perfect business opportunity you will, unfortunately learn that there are some dishonest marketers who will try to take your money and provide nothing of value in return. Luckily, there are also a lot of trustworthy people who will support you and lend a hand in educating you – some for a fee and some for free.

You want to surround yourself with honest, ethical people.  It may take some time to find these people but as you start networking with others you will soon learn who the good guys are.

At the same time, you need to play it safe and use good judgment.  When it comes to business opportunities, there are many out there that really are too good to be true.

The one mistake that so many new to internet marketing make is not seeking out others to network with.  One of the best things that you can do is find a good network of people to help you.  Start by joining a reputable marketing forum and getting to know some of the regulars there.  You may even come across some big names who are willing to coach you.  Although you will find a lot of free advice you might want to consider hiring a coach that will give you one on one assistance.

Be sure to take your time. Don’t rush into anything trendy - avoid people who try to push you into any sort of impulsive buying decision.

It is hard to even trust those “scam alert” sites because some are just people with a vendetta against a product owner and others are using this odd tactic where they actually sell products as an affiliate by writing a review and starting it with, “Product X Is a Scam!”

They use this approach because it makes people think they are dealing with someone  honest, and then in their actual review, they build the product back up in your eyes. Look for true customer comments and learn the difference between seeing a Photoshopped “proof of income check” and a real detailed case study that shows how someone achieved success in a step-by-step manner.

How do you know what’s a good investment and what’s not? When you’re evaluating an eBook, you honestly can’t trust the testimonials.  Some may be real but how do you tell the difference?

Basically there are three kinds of testimonials:

1.)    Phony feedback – with this testimonial the product owner simply made up every word you’re reading. They purchase an image of a friendly face to use as the “customer,” and make up a name to go with it.
2.)    You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours – Marketers often make deals with each other where they’ll each promote one anothers products even though they haven’t tried it themselves.

3.)    Actual customer feedback – This is the real kind of testimonial – the kind where a product owner sells a product, hears back from a customer who likes it, and asks permission to post his or her comments right on their sales page.

The problem is, you won’t know what’s what as an average consumer. I’ve seen many photos of the same person with several different names posted to sales pitch pages (obviously scraped from a site such as istockphoto and completely made up).

I also happen to know who’s in whose good old boy (or girl) network, so when I see marketer A promoting marketer B’s product, I don’t know if it’s because he really believes in it or because he himself has a product launch coming up soon and needs to generate return favors that he can call in when the time comes.

If you type in, “[Product name] review,” all you’re going to come up with in most cases is a review by an affiliate!  The truth is, the reviews on my site often point to an affiliate product.   Now granted, many affiliates (including myself) only push products they truly believe in – but unless you know this person’s intentions, how will you know whether or not you can trust him or her?

One good place to look is in forums for that niche. For example, you can go to the Warrior Forum and look in the section titled, “Internet Marketing Product Reviews & Ratings.”

Check here for reviews or post to ask for reviews on specific products. You want to hear what the people are saying.

This is really what networking is all about. You don’t want to go at it alone.  You have to learn how to befriend other people in your niche and talk about what works and what doesn’t, and about who you can and can not trust.

There will be times when you find a product and can’t find any reviews.  These are the times that you have to use your intuition and decide whether or not you want to buy the product and see for yourself if it lives up to its claims.  Just be sure that you know what the refund terms are before purchasing just in case it doesn’t live up to its claims.