Wed 12
Sep 2007

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18 Responses to “ Hey you Pavlov dog! Sit up straight and pay attention… NOW! ”

Comments:

1. Manoj says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 12:08 am

   Yes, I don’t mind getting emails everyday. I want to know whats going on in the IM world who is launching what? I consider reading salesletters in itself as an education to see how different marketers position their offers.

2. Patricia Rits says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 12:14 am

   Point taken, thanks! You are a marketer yourself obviously.

   Just in case you aren’t subscribed yet, Tellman Knudson writes some of the most creative emails I’ve come across. He sets a very good example of how to use personal stories in your messages. He’s one of the few who’s emails I actually read most of the time…

3. Camilo Buitrago says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 12:20 am

   I don´t like to receive emails everyday from the same person, I prefer to have one great email per week than 7 simple emails every day.

   I agree with the training your subscribers part, but when it is done with great interesting emails so I will be expectant to receive the weekly food for my mind.

   Patricia @ Camilo
   My questions were very general. There are of course differences between certain mailings. When it’s a course (like Linda points out) or some daily joke, inspiration or whatever service, things are different and you do expect to receive something on a daily basis.

   As for the training bit - I actually had a sleepless night about this - I resent the fact that this is done without the conscious consent of the subscriber. If you state upfront on your subscription form that subs can expect a mailing every day/week/month or whatever, that’s ok. You then know what you’re signing up for.

   The way it was worded though in the comment (You have to train your list to expect email from you on whatever schedule you determine.) reminded me of the 4-part BBC documentary “Century of Self”:

   The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests? Episode 1 discusses how Freuds theories started the industry of public relations.

   It’s a real eye-opener. You can watch it on the internet at:
   http://www.freedocumentaries.org/

4. Linda Cummings says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 1:54 am

   Hoorah!!!

   Finally, someone who agrees with me that every day is too much.

   I’ve decided that it will be a rare thing for me to stay on the list of anyone who emails me every day. In fact those who only email me once a week are much more likely to get my business (unless it is an email course). After the course I expect good information and few “buy from me right now or you’ll miss out” mails.

   And while we’re at it, after that course, if I’m on more than one of your lists, be kind and offer me a way to opt out of all but one of them. I will not buy everything that comes out, so “buy now” emails are a waste of my time and the senders’.

   Thanks for bringing this subject into the open.

   Patricia @ Linda
   Thanks for adding to this the fact that marketers are actually setting themselves up for failure in the long-run by abusing their customer relationship with an endless email flood.

   My good friend Lisa Preston advises a mailing schedule where you have a sales pitch or recommendation once every 4 mails at the most. She also thinks 1 mail a week should be the limit.

   Sometimes I’m inclined to believe that the women marketers are more sensitive to this issue. Maybe a natural tendency to focus more on the ‘we’ and the relationship you establish. Then I was also pleasantly surprised when Mike Filsaime announced at the start of this year that he was going to trim down on mailings. He definitely kept his word.

   Your suggestion about opting out has proven to be quite difficult in many cases. A lot of mailing providers simply don’t have the technology to facilitate this properly. I’m quite pleased with Aweber who makes it possible to send a mailing to more than one list at the time while removing duplicate addresses. It’s not perfect as you will often find that people use different addresses for different mailinglists, but it’s a start…

5. Lark says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 2:23 am

   Since we last corresponded through our blogs I’ve wondered what you were up to, Patricia!

   We all have this idea we must hang labels onto ourselves; but, I for one, do not.

   For example, from the moment I began the study of internet marketing I had difficulty referring to myself as one of them, though, truthfully, I feel all of us are constantly selling something, even if it’s just the idea of ourselves - whether on the internet or not.

   You must know that I eagerly opened your email message the instant I saw it - the other 400 or so received today… I largely ignored.

   My study of marketing and socio-political philosophy, combined with my more recent volunteer work as a writer seeking to influence popular public opinion, has led me to believe most all manner of coercion and preying upon human neuroses is morally and ethically wrong.

   Coercion includes intentional employment of overt persuasion tactics, cognitive use of force, even physical violence.

   Neuroses (plural of “neurosis”) are remnants of leftover emotional baggage predicated on fear. As human beings, we all carry around emotional baggage which is damaging to us psychologically - and we’re not always consciously aware of their harmful effects on our psyches - including the ways they affect us emotionally… and influence… our day-to-day activities.

   Increasingly, I find I’m only interested in investing in relationships; and I have no need for those who want to tell me how to think. This is quite different from someone who merely wishes to share a part of their thinking… and offers some small window… into their heart… their soul… or their work.

   For all human life, IMHO, is generally about love and freedom - in one form or another.

   As for investing in beliefs, I hope you and your readers will find this recent thread of opinion and commentary interesting:

   http://www.trustedadvisor.com/blog/163/#comment550

   Time is the most precious gift one person can bestow on another… and, as one who’s now working as a writer/copywriter for a… top internet marketer, personal development coach and public speaker… your insight about chat was also rather instructive… since I’d never had to communicate in a collaborative team effort online before.

   http://msms2.blogspot.com/2007/04/resplendent-noise-dave-lakhani-has.html

   Thank you, Patricia, for the opportunity to respond again!

   Beyond all reason, I’ve saved every email you ever sent since I first signed on to your list.

   Maybe it’s just because I like your style!

   But, otherwise, let’s simply let sleeping Pavlovian dogs lie, shall we?

   P.S. - In response to the initial question of your email, I confess that, for me, this line of communication has only proven to work in war - but never in a situation when fruitful dialog was the aim.

   http://msms2.blogspot.com/2007/02/good-morning.html

   Patricia @ Lark
   Boy, you threw so much back at me (including those links) that I kind of lost the thread of the conversation. Talk about information overload…

   I’m glad you subscribe to radical truth as now I know I won’t offend you with honesty. Thanks for that link btw. I find it an extremely interesting subject. Have done a fair share of experimenting with it as well in my wild days. It’s good to be reminded.

   Radical truth in marketing would be a really interesting topic to delve into as well. With some of the responses coming in, it seems that more and more people are craving truth and truthfulness. Yet it is bloody scaring at the same time.

   Can a sales letter for example be successful if you are blatantly honest about your motives? Which for a large part would include a drive to make money.

   Hello, I need to pay the rent again this month. Could you please assist me by buying my product?

   Or…

   Hello, I’m competing to be the next internet millionaire. To win the contest, I need to make bucket loads of money. So I really need you to believe my pitch because I desperately want to win this thing…

   Would that work?

   Or should it be left out in the assumption that of course everybody already knows that the marketer’s purpose of a sales letter is to make money.

   In any case I agree with about everything you say. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts and insights!

   Patricia

6. Frank Lockhart says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 6:17 am

   Hi Patricia.

   An emphatic NO to both questions.

   Particularly annoying are the dozens of emails about the same thing. But I get sooo Many emails, including spam, that I’ve got into the habit of deleting anything where I don’t have some respect for the sender or, if I don’t know the sender.

   I also HATE the people whose lists I’m on who use some pretext to send me through a “squeeze page”. I’m already on their list and I don’t want to be a second time. Sometimes they send me to someone else’s squeeze page when all I want to do is check out what’s being offered. In these cases I don’t get to see the offer because I log out. If I liked the offer or had further interest in hearing more from the person, I’m happy to give my address but, not to some stranger who I may not wish to hear from again.

   In all honesty, I have become very disappointed with the way many internet marketers conduct their business. So much so that that I’d be ashamed to lend my own name to such practices.

   There are of course some genuine people out there and I am happy to be associated with those. I include you in that group.

   Patricia @ Frank
   Thanks for your faith in me! But don’t assume I’m perfect. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in the past and was lucky to have honest responses from my ‘victims’ pointing this out to me. That’s after all a great way to learn - from your mistakes that is.

   My mistakes include trying out squeeze pages. I think that the majority of marketers now agree that it no longer works because spam and other mail has increased too much and people - like you - simply refuse to supply their information if they don’t know what it’s for.

   The other problem with squeeze pages - marketer’s point of view - is that you don’t build a responsive list. Everyone and their brother now knows that when you opt-in on a squeeze page, you’re likely to receive tons of mail you don’t want. So people use hotmail addresses they never check or have some address that directs this mail straight into the trashbox (that’s how I’ve set it up myself) and you only check it when you know you’re about to receive some free report or whatever.

   Finding your own way and your own style takes time. When you start in this business, you have so little experience. You tend to look at those that have a reputation for being successful. And it can be tempting to try things they testify to work if that improves your ROI dramatically. It’s amazing how good your mind can be at shushing your conscience…

   There are not many examples of successful marketers who conduct their business with honesty, integrity and respect for their customers. Or if there are, they seem to get lost in the noise of those others…

7. Dom Delimar says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

   Patricia, I totally agree with you.

   I myself am a subscriber to at least dozens of newsletters with various frequency of mailings. And while I always find time for some of them, there are newsletters I haven’t even read twice since I’m subscribed to them. A simple question arises: why do I even bother receiving them in my inbox if I don’t have time to read them? Well, every now and then I actually do catch up with some of them and then decide if I really want to continue to receive them.

   There’s just too much of good information out there today and you have to be really smart these days organizing yourself to find the time for what really matters, always being aware of your priorities.

   If someone mails nonsense every day just for the sake of emailing every day, I know how to “punish” these…

   And as this task of filtering loads of information on a daily basis gets tougher and tougher I find the RSS technology (and Google Reader) very helpful and I’m grateful to those webmasters that use it.

   Patricia @ Dom
   This summer I switched from Outlook Express to Mozilla Thunderbird which has this handy plugin called ‘KnujOn’. It adds a tool button with which you can submit junk email with one click to KnujOn.com, an organisation which fights spam.

   Thunderbird itself has a junk button and everytime you flag a message as junk, it will learn the headlines, some body keywords and sender’s addresses and IP. Next time you receive similar content, it gets filtered out of your inbox without you having to press delete or junk again. In just a couple of weeks I reduced manual spam and junk deletion to less than 5 minutes a day!

8. Dom Delimar says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 1:25 pm

   I forgot to mention that I also run a newsletter, and have to admit that I wish I mail my subscribers more often.

   The main reason I don’t is I believe it has to be something very valuable as to not waste their valuable time because I expect them to punish me just as I would punish someone else.

9. KC says:
   September 13th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

   I would say that it depends on the content. One way to ensure that content is relevant is to make it part of a series on a particular subject. A matter of syntax really but how it’s packaged does make a difference.

   You can always add any additional comments either at the beginning or end of the series content, but you have to have a good reason for mailing every day. I have to have a good reason to read it too. A series of narrowly related to the subject provides both.

   The reason Pavlov succeeded was that he had something the dog wanted and needed. FOOD! The results would have been quite different if he had showed up every day with a big smile on his face and just said. “Howdy dog.”

   As a consumer I resent the training comment. If I get the slightest impression that I’m being trained, I’ll perform my well practiced magic act and disappear right before your very eyes.

   Patricia @ KC
   And those marketers who truly understand the food bit in the Pavlov training, are the most dangerous. You provide the food for say 10 to 20 days while ringing a bell. At some point you simply ring the bell and skip the food, but the dog starts to drivel nonetheless. Unlearning to drivel takes much longer. You can even stop it from happening by supplying food again every now and then. But not regularly as that way the dog will figure out at some point what the schedule is…

   Translated to email messages this will get your customers hooked to reading as they will never know when the next surprise gift is included in the letter.

   Subsequently you write your emails to be filled with hidden persuaders, emotional triggers etc. that will perform the magic trick of getting your prospects to buy your junk. The methods of suppressing reason and critical thinking are pretty well documented…

   But what if you don’t sell junk but products of real value - does that justify the use of coercion methods?

   I find that a really hard question to answer. I’ve come across really great books, software and tools that are not cleverly sold by their owners. Probably resulting in much less sales then they deserve, which is a shame.

   And I’ve also been tricked into buying heaps of junk because it came with a very persuasive sales letter.

   All I know at this point is that it’s vital to educate yourself about the methods and tricks which are used in marketing. Not only to protect yourself against becoming a victim of overzealous email marketers - there’s always your ‘magic disappearance act’ - but also because politicians employ similar methods and then it involves decision making on a scale that affects us all in a much more dramatic way…

10. Richard says:
    September 13th, 2007 at 5:54 pm

    Many of the emails I get purport to be information, but are only fluff or repeated material that is a weak premise for sending yet another marketing pitch.

    The JV craze has made it even more insane. So yes, they won’t sell my name, but they will mail me in the name of others. Is that any different? I get more and more cases of getting email from a dozen sources for the same product. It’s like a horrible case of inbreeding.

    Getting this stuff daily does not make it with me (like you say).

    I eventually wrote an Outlook rule to isolate those folks’ mail so I can process the important stuff. I review that folder a couple times a week and have lately dropped off of many of the “guru’s” lists because they are not sending me what I believe to be information rather they are sales pitches poorly disguised as information.

    I have way too many other things to do than read that stuff.

    Interestingly my style (as someone above mentioned too) impacts my outbound mailing to my list. I am sensitive to time constraints and don’t want to bother them too much. However, I will let them know about this email and blog post. I’m sure many of my subscribers can relate.

    Great info (yes real info)!

    Patricia @ Richard

    The JV craze has made it even more insane. So yes, they won’t sell my name, but they will mail me in the name of others. Is that any different? I get more and more cases of getting email from a dozen sources for the same product. It’s like a horrible case of inbreeding.

    Thanks for bringing the JV crisis into the equation. That’s another arena where ethics and $$ seem to bite each other. Particularly as when one person helped you out, you feel obliged to reciprocate. It’s a standard promise even with JV proposals. Sunny Rivers (comment #13) has another interesting thing to say about this: that the way the partner you promoted treats his customers will also affect your own credentiality. Something to keep in mind next time you ponder about a little inbreed orgie…

    I wonder how many people have the same hesitance about mailing their own lists. There’s you and Dom Delimar (comment #8) who mention it. I’m in the same league. No doubt there’s plenty of us. Kind of makes me feel good!

11. Inventor says:
    September 13th, 2007 at 10:58 pm

    Well Patricia,

    At one time I was subscribed to over 25 marketers newsletters…

    Now it’s more like 6 to 10.

    I got sick and tired of the ‘HYPED UP’ prices and the worthless products. Some marketers paid $25,000 for the sales letter page and the actual product cost them LESS than $200.00. (Elance or Rent-a-coder, etc.)

    Then they hammer you with as many as 3 emails PER DAY… I had one affiliate offer me ‘TRIPLE’ my money back if I bought this guy’s over-priced product. (That would have been about a $1,200.00 refund! and he emailed me twice a day for a week. Believe me … THAT WAS TEMPTING!!!)

    Then they try the price increase trick: “Buy it NOW before it goes up to $XXX.XX!!!!” – Well ‘fine’ raise your price I don’t care… if I think you’re over-priced already, what makes you think I’m going to buy it at a higher price?!?! (Maybe this works on some but not me.)

    Then you have those ‘F*R*EE’ reports with the 10 to 20 Bullet points that “TELLS ALL”!! and after you sign up to their mailing list and read their report you see that it’s nothing but ‘Common knowledge’ — bare bones BS — just basic facts that been around for years –!

    And all those bullet points were just a sales hype hook to get your name and email address!

    Short answer: ONCE A WEEK! PERIOD! End of story.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Has anyone ‘really’ read the disclaimers at the bottom of that sales page?!?!?

    What it boils down to is: “I LIED!” And your chances of making any money from this Plan/Scheme/Rip-off product is SLIM AND NONE!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    One gurr-roo spent 45 minutes on stage selling his ‘Mass Email’ program… Later (off-stage) another marketer asked him “WHY?? - when that plan doesn’t work any more and hasn’t for years…”

    His reply: “Yeah I know; BUT I’ve got a garage full of that junk and I got to get rid of it!” – THE PRICE?!?!?! $2,999.97…

    Now you have another ‘List Builder’ marketer that openly calls us his personal ‘CASH’ Herd… He constantly says: “I’m MILKING MY LIST!”

    —- MOOOOOO!

    Bill

    Patricia @ Bill

    Hey Bill, old buddy! Thanks for adding your 2 cents - eloquent as always

    I hope you were wrong about the average marketer’s brain location (as you pointed out to me recently) since that would gravely diminish the chances that they actually COMPREHEND what’s being said here by everyone…

12. Coen van Vollenhoven says:
    September 13th, 2007 at 11:22 pm

    When I was a student, I once had this job of selling art door-to-door. I’m not an artist myself, but I was told that the best way to make sales was to pretend I was from art college living on next to nothing and that I was selling my art work to pay for art supplies.

    I found it really hard to sell this nonsense. It was a lie and people could probably read it from my face. I wasn’t succeeding in any way…

    So after a couple of miserable hours, I decided to be honest. I stopped telling people that I was trying to sell my own work to them. That in fact it wasn’t even original art work. But hey, it still looked quite nice and as it cost next to nothing, maybe they would like to buy some.

    Suddenly I was making sales!

    I believe honesty goes a long way. And also that you need to believe whole heartedly in your message or else just shut up.

    On a personal note: Patricia, I always LOVE getting emails from you!

    Patricia @ Coen

    Thanks for responding - I know how you feel about these marketing things in general so it’s great you voiced your opinion here. Is your new website helping you to make more sales yet?

13. Sunny Rivers says:
    September 14th, 2007 at 5:53 pm

    Hi Patricia,

    There is nothing wrong with you; you simply have identified yourself as a renegade entrepreneur, operating from your own unique set of standards, based on win-win customer relations.

    Thank you for bringing up this most important question. My answer is an unequivocal no, I do not want daily emails, and I lose respect for the senders assuming that I do. The hidden message is: I am going to pommel you with offers until you buy from me, and then when you do, I will reward you with more offers. How ludicrous!

    There are a couple of issues that should be addressed – just because we are on a mailing list does not mean we want to hear about every available offering. Why don’t the guys with the huge lists poll their subscribers? Doing business online or anywhere, for that matter, starts with building a relationship with customers by creating trust. A great way to create trust is to find out what they want.

    Right now I am going through the very situation you mention. The initial offering over delivered with a huge amount of give-aways. I was impressed. It caught my attention. It took a couple of weeks to realize there was a huge trade off – daily emails, many of which sit there unopened. Now, instead of wanting to do business with this person, and work as an affiliate of his, I simply want to remove myself from his list. And, I’ll bet he is in your group!

    How can I ethically be an affiliate of his, when I hate being bombarded with daily emails? If I point my subscriber list in his direction, and he sends daily emails to them - that diminishes my customer credibility. My reputation is now on the line. So he took a great beginning and killed it with daily emails.

    Even if his emails just contained a useful marketing tip sent daily, I would put that in the category of information overload. Once a week is a more appropriate time frame for assimilation.

    Another issue is – when people are bombarded with offers, they don’t make the best buying decisions, and returns (or requests for refunds) increase. Then the sellers accuse the buyers of ripping off their electronic products, and not paying for them, when it may be the product simply was not what they expected.

    People may be taken in at first, but over a period of time, using all the latest psychological selling techniques simply turns people off and leaves a bad taste in their mouths.

    We all want to make money online. It still boils down to the principle – find out what people want, and give it to them. It is a very simple process. Ask our customers, just as you have done. Then, under-promise and over-deliver.

    Thanks for giving us the opportunity to voice our opinions.

    Sunny Rivers
    Renegade Entrepreneur Cafe

    Patricia @ Sunny

    I hadn’t even thought out the consequences that far! Thanks for pointing out that daily mailings also affect your business with affiliates. Very interesting point!

    And also your insight about the relationship between email overdose and refund requests. Between the lot of us we could write a really worthwhile guideline about internet marketing with ethics / integrity!!!

    I hope I will be able to get that site online soon that I discussed in an earlier post. That would at least give people a much better chance to evaluate offers and marketers before signing up for lists or buying products that might not be as good as they thought they would be, brain clouded by the email bombardment…

    On a side note, I was starting to think of myself as a NON marketer actually. But I like Renegade much better!

14. Lark says:
    September 15th, 2007 at 4:14 pm

    Thank you for responding to my comment.

    It seems that all dialog begins from a simple premise of motivation and reward. And words themselves conjure up different meanings for different people engaged in such dialog.

    This beggars the possibility that we can, in fact, be talking past, only to each other - as opposed to talking with each other… or making meaningful connection with one another.

    So if our aim is to establish and/or maintain a free-spirited, non-binding relationship - one based on an honest give-and-take of separate viewpoints and the sharing of ideas - all our communications would be open-ended… and always inviting of feedback.

    Thus the strength of our bonding sustains itself through the lens of sustainability and cooperation; and the buying-and-selling of products and services is but a by-product of that relationship.

    Another worthy examination is of these words, economics, ergonomics and collaboration - what we often term essential, or necessary, values in the workaday world of commerce.

    These are merely names given to categories under which we might call the broader category of marketing.

    And on the internet we are permitted - then compelled - to function in a virtual reality… as part of our relationship-building process… of open-ended communications… and commerce.

    If we are radically honest… we would admit that we need each other… and we are all teachers and students… simultaneously. And our individual self-worth would be carefully maintained in a fruitful relationship based on trust.

    As we are said to be living-working-playing in an attention economy - and a reputation economy too - applying the best practices of focus and organization co-incidentally leads us to an uncompromising honesty about our expectations… and mindfulness… keeps us tethered to reality.

    From mindfulness springs an honest appraisal of life-affirming truths - from one precious moment to the next - leading us… naturally and harmoniously… towards ultimate fulfillment.

    As a lifelong student of culinary art, and, at one time, a professional chef for 20 years, one axiom I chose to adopt - in the spirit of wanting to be hospitable - was, “You’re only as good as the last meal you prepared-and-served for another person.”

    In these distinct, but inseparable instances of harmonious interaction… an intimacy… and a singular truth… would not and could not… be denied.

    As a student and a teacher all at once, this same axiom can be re-purposed in language, and acclimated to the virtual world of internet marketing.

    But, as is always the case, we must establish - and make understandable - our definitions… and intentions… first.

    Now… I can’t help but wonder… are fanciful words, all alone, sufficient to answer your questions?

15. Dan says:
    September 17th, 2007 at 2:45 am

    Hi Patricia
    Congrats with going straight!!!

    Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a world full of unbiased information about different products. And if we ever felt like we needed anything then we could, at our own pace, pick and choose excactly the product that we felt was most useful.

    I have a deep respect for those who have been part of the ‘pushy bulldog club’ of marketing, but then decide that honesty and integrity is of higher value than a quick buck.

    Take a deeeeeeep breath… and remember the time when all you needed to be happy was a full tummy, two sticks and a bit of sunshine.

    There is nothing wrong with having a lot of money, it is just not very important.

    To everybody reading this: Have a beautiful day. Give yourself time to enjoy your life…Right now.

    Thank you

    Dan

16. Jacques says:
    September 17th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    The old ‘debate’: quality over quantity.

    “An email a day is the American way!” - yeah well, it makes you numb - at best, if not worse: making most people hate your mails, not reading them, unsubscribing or blocking them - so, what good does that you? Brag that you have zillions of subscribers that do not read your stuff? And certainly don’t trust you anylonger (if they ever did), so they won’t buy (anymore)?

    I prefer the non-American way: fewer communication, but with better content - and just endorsing good stuff, not every fad, hype or craze. Building trust, not fluff.

    Steady goes the long tail

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