Snake Oil & MY Social Media Scam?

So I had another post (and video) about my vacation to post here today, but my Google Alerts pointed out an interesting article that I debated whether or not to respond to.

First, I don’t know whether to feel honored or peeved at the article.  It is a 6 page blog post about…me.  Here it is:  Snake oil at its slickest: A social media spam story

In this case, I wouldn’t say it is the “most flattering” piece that has ever been written about me.  You know, words like “Scam, Pyramid Scheme, Snake Oil, Spam, etc.” usually don’t do too much good to a person’s reputation.

But I want to start off and say that Jennifer Leggio, the author of the article, has every right to post this article, despite my disagreement with it.

She really digs deep into the outer shell of my TruSocialGuru offer and many of the points she makes are arguably correct.  But right now, she is essentially judging my marketing of the product, rather than the product itself.

Email Spam:

The article starts off talking about a “SPAMMY” email that she received about the article.  Understand that this (and most emails) about TruSocialGuru are not written by me.  They are affiliates.  I have very little control how my affiliates initially market my product.  If I am informed of potential spamming actions, I will contact my affiliate management company about it and shut their campaign down. (I have already done this twice with this offer).  Judging TruSocialGuru on how affiliates are promoting my product is unfair (especially since 99% of the internet marketing world uses affiliates to market).

The Sales Letter

Yes, this is probably the most “aggressive” sales copy I have on any website at the moment and what you see here is one of 8 variations of the page that is being tested.  Some of the copy is more aggressive than others, but realize a few things:

1)  I make no false claims in any of my copy.  I speak a lot about potential, my own successes and successes of past/current clients of mine.

2)  Like ANY home biz opp product, the percent of people who succeed at these programs are usually minimal - not because the information is wrong or misleading, it is because people don’t apply them.  I built my internet marketing career by chipping away at internet marketing 1 hour per day, 6 days per week.  Yes, it is work, but you will find success if you follow the fundamentals and apply what you are taught.  This goes for ANY online money marketing program (including the ones that are $1000’s of dollars).

My competition:

Social media is HOT right now and the landscape of internet marketing has changed because of it.  To say that social marketing is bogus or doesn’t work is a bunch of BS.  I use social media in ALL of my online ventures to build traffic, create SEO, generate buzz, and increase conversion (all which directly lead to sales).

That being said, I feel that I do have a right to sell a product like this.  If you look at the TruSocialGuru product itself, you will find it has an enormous amount of information for the low price that it is.  I have recently seen Twitter offers, for example, that do con you into spending $1.99 for a crappy CD-ROM and then put you in a forced continuity membership of $99/month.  That is sneaky!  I have also seen $1000 versions of my similar products to my own that offer no more or no less than what I offer with TruSocialGuru.

I do have my own recurring upsell in the buying process, but it occurs AFTER the purchase and it requires the buyer to create an entire new order (nothing really deceptive about this).

The Funnel

Speaking of the funnel, Jennifer makes a lot of mention about how I am trying to send clients through hoops.  Yes, I am a believer in the marketing funnel and I work hard at providing my clients with excellent information for little or no cost at the beginning.  At no point do I “force” people to do anything they don’t want to.  All of my email lists are on an opt-in/opt-out basis and if you don’t want it, don’t buy it/join it.

The pop-up ad that appears when you exit is ironically just a survey.  Basically a “Tell Me What You Liked and Disliked About the TruSocialGuru Offer”.  This is NOT a virtual chat desk or a pop-up downsell (though, I have used those in the past on this offer).  It is just GOOD MARKETING and trying to understand my client to increase sales and provide my clients what they want.  And in return, I offer a few free videos.  The opt-in on page two is standard list building.

Conclusion

Understand that the home business opportunity/make money online niche is not always the cleanest place to reside in.  The market is hyper-competitive and unfortunately there are a lot of bad apples selling some complete garbage at inflated prices.  I see it every day.

To be competitive, you must market aggressively, which is fine (in my opinion) as long as you deliver a quality, fair priced product.  Funnel marketing (which is the model I base most of my online businesses on) provides potential buyers the opportunity to “sample” my products and information at no costs or an opt-in (which can easily be opt-ed out of).  And at the end of the day, I have always offered full-money back guarantees on everything that I sell and I’ll be damned if you can find a single person who I did not follow through with this guarantee.

Jennifer, thanks again for spending a lot of time writing a quite thorough article about me and my product.  It is not the most flattering article, but I do find it interesting to hear what others may think (and the comments, both good and bad) are an excellent reflection of the current states of the internet as we know it.

cheers…matt

P.S.  Please leave comments on what you think about this article and Jennifer’s article!  Look at the TruSocialGuru offer and you be the judge…