How To Use Video to REALLY p*ss off prospective customers
Hi,
I case you haven’t noticed, video is the new “Wunderkind” of the internet , and it will make you money, cure cancer, and grow back your hair.
Some people use video very well. Others – err – don’t.
Warning: RANT ahead.
Take Mr. Shah for instance. He sells a product called twitollower, which is intended to automatically collect targeted followers for your twitter account, so that you can build a massive list of people who will hang on your every word and every time you tweet them they’ll hurry and buy your stuff, yada, yada, yada.
You know the story.
Now, I heard about this and was interested in finding out about it. (Hey, it’s my job as a consultant to be aware of this stuff.)
Well, apparently there’s a special deal going on that the moment.
And to find out what it is, you have to give Mr. Shah around 40 minutes of your life, because he only discloses the URL and the price at the end of the video.
I don’t have a problem with the video. It’s very professionally done.
I DO have a problem because it’s the only way that anyone can find out about the product and the offer.
There’s no PDF, or text or anything.
So to save you 40 minutes of your life, if you are interested in this, go to
twittollower.com/discount
Where you’ll find that this will cost you $67 per month, going up to $97 per month after 200 people have signed up.
And then you have to watch ANOTHER video, (which is essential, because Mr. Shah says that they wouldn’t have created it if it wasn’t.
Guys, if you are going to make a long video about something, please provide the info in some other form which does not require someone to sit and watch through the whole thing.
(I didn’t actually watch it all – just let the thing run through and fast forwarded the controls to the end to see the punchline.)
So thanks Mr. Shah for leaving the controls there. Some people don’t and force you to watch in real time. Talk about forced continuity!
(And don’t even ASK me what I think about THAT! )
I think I’ll end my rant now, and have a nice warm cup of cocoa.
cheers,
Eric G.
Edit 14th February, 2010.
And here’s another one.
Ryan diess is sending around a video about a new traffic generation technique that’s much better than google.
He forces you to sit through a 25 minute video presentation, (with no controls) to pitch his new product at you. (Has all the usual marketing urgency, scarcity, and threats of pulling it off the market because too many users would cut into his own profits from using the system)
OK, I’ll spill the beans:
He’s selling his secret methods of placing adverts on Facebook for $197.
There. It only took one line to tell you. Not 25 minutes.
Sheesh. The torture I put myself through for you!!
Edit Again:
Looks like the guruwankers are sniffing the coffee.
Mike Filsaime’s latest video (about him going bankrupt, which I’ve received an avalance of messages from all the usual suspects including Mr. Kern) has no visible controls.
But it DOES have a light grey, barely visible link which allows you to download the video, or go straight to the sales page.
So that’s a step in the right direction. (But you have to give up your email address to get it)
Oh. the content of Mike Filsaime’s video?
I had it on in the background while I was doing something else, and it probably went on for 45 minutes or so. He talks about when he was broke and had to pawn his wife’s engagement ring.
Of course there’s a sales pitch involved: for resale rights to his cloaking and tell a friend programs.
Wonder how many hundreds of thousands of man-years are wasted by these videos
cheers,
Eric G.
I agree! I got mad at Travis from BumMarketing with his last vid that left off the controls. Gee, and right after my morning coffee, which is when I have to take a whiz! So Travis didn’t get my undivided attention, he just got his tab closed down in firefox.
He’s not the worst though. I usually like the stuff Carrie from Barefoot Executive has to say, but her vids stink. It’s like we’re the guinea pigs as she learns to use this new flash software which is nothing but all these flashing and fading and flying effects with text set to some crappy heavy duty orchestral music from some B movie. Took her five minutes to show me two sentences. That was three weeks ago and I haven’t watched a video of hers since.
Forced Continuity, oh yeah, those guys should be hung by the . . . nevermind.