Webupon

Spam used to come in the blue eight ounce can. Now days, it filled up your email inbox. According the Hormel’s SPAM website a Monty Python skit is responsible for the adaptation to the internet. It does not make a whole lot of sense, but then again neither does a lot of the spam you receive. What they have in common is that SPAM is junk food, while spam is junk mail. Hormel insist you maintain the difference between the two by spelling the junk food, SPAM (all uppercase) and the junk mail, spam. Another difference is Spam, the food is cheap and spam can be quiet costly. Billion of dollars a year are lost sorting out spam targeting online mailboxes.

Time is money for them.

Written in this long drawn out copy, the sales letter lists the gazillion ways their proposed product or idea can benefit you and line your pockets. Research shows the because of the internet if your message cannot be absorbed in 15 seconds or less, your audience is lost. I cannot auto scroll through most of these pages in 15 seconds let alone read them in that time. I assume that they are a test. If you are dumb enough to read the whole thing, possibly you are dumb enough to buy in. Even better, these hucksters feel if they overwhelm you enough you will just give up the bucks.

Why do they want to make me rich?

First of all this is where I have the edge. I was born rich. More precisely, when it comes to these long-winded pitches, I was born, Rich Hard. I become China’s Great Wall right about as I get to the “Why do I want to make you rich?” (That is only if I hadn’t wound up face down on my keyboard snoring before I get to this supposed killer sales line.) When I read these letters, I realize this line that appears in 90% of these shillfests is really a rhetorical question. You do not have to answer it. You know this is all about making someone rich and someone else poor. I assure you the reader is the latter not the former.

How about those hundreds of dollars of freebies you receive with your $97 payment?

Let’s think this over using an unnamed sales letter I just received…for the umpteenth time. It reads I should act with now there are only 17 offers left. Checking over the previous sent, I see sales have been quite sluggish. In fact, according to one there have been twelve returns, since. If I do act now I will receive this hundreds of dollars of fabulous free gifts. Okay, I’ll google one, James Allen’s thesis “As A Man Thinketh. Barnes and Noble sells the paperback edition at a member price of $3.15. Further checking, I have no less than fifteen urls where I can download the e-book version free. I do not need get the odds on googling the other gifts and finding them similarly priced.

The personal touch.

These copywriters think they have an in because they keep referring to me in the first person. Only they does not know my name is not Some. Some Pinhead is a penname I used on a sign up for free newsletters. It comes from my personal nickname for my ex’s boyfriend. Therefore, when I get these I usually forward them. I know he likes the personal touch.

Where did this $97 pricing come from?

I took a few courses in college on sales and marketing. The concept taught is the .99 rule that I see in advertising everyday. I even participated in a project where we marketed the same product at two different prices, $49 and $49.99. The latter outsold the former 3 to 1. That is point one. Point two is I clicked on the be an affiliate link. If you are an affiliate, you get 50% of the sale price commission. Why would anyone be stupid enough to let you in on how much more they are ripping you off, when you buy? The classic tagline from the “Back to the Future” movies, “Hello (several knocks to the head) Mcfly?” comes to mind here. I crown this price folly with the observation that most times the mentioning of price in the letter appears to be an afterthought. Many times, I have to search through the spiel to find the cost. They do repeatedly have links to buy throughout the document. The price may show up once or twice, but nowhere the link to an order page. It is a brilliant piece of psychology. By treating the price as unimportant, you might but into it. For me, if the price is insignificant, the product more than likely should be as well.

Robert Allen has my next job and yours as well.

One of the kings of internet shilling keeps sending me (actually Some Pinhead) an email mail with the subject, “I found your next job.” I assume he means snow job. The sales copy uses the current fad of the five-mile letter with an awesome twist. As you try to click out you get a prompt asking you to stay. When you click on that, what appears to be an automated IM chat starts up named Jasmine and gives a sales pitch offering a five-dollar discount. I responded by saying I thought this was a very novel approached and asked how long had they been using it and the success rate. Jasmine told me she was automated and restated the offer of the discount from $39.99 to $35.99. I asked Jasmine for her home phone number. Again, she repeated herself. Funny thing is when I countered with $29.99; Jasmine replied she was only authorized to offer the five-dollar discount. Again, I requested her home phone number. Jasmine politely posted she was an automation and did not date clientele. I typed in “Have a good day.” Jasmine returned a polite “Thank you.”

Robert Allen is a prominent internet huckster that claims to have made millions by helping people make millions. My question is if the man has made and is continuing to make millions by his methods as he claims, why is he shilling them for $39.99? You should be wondering this too. I did read his book “Multiple Streams of Internet Income.” One of its prominently featured elements is the five-mile sales letter. They literally went pages and pages long in the book. This gave me an “aha’ moment. This is obviously the guy behind this obnoxious email explosion. I am considering talking to a lawyer because I believe these letters are connected to my contracting carpal tunnel syndrome. Maybe now, I have a genuine shot of getting rich from the Internet and Mr. Allen just as he claims he wants to help me do.