October 21, 2011
Porter Stansberry - Clever Marketing Tricks - Be Careful
Two days ago my wife handed me a miniature book titled - The End of America. It was written by Porter Stansberry. Ouch, that's a depressing title.
My wife and I are pretty politically active, and I'm deeply concerned with the future of our nation. I've blogged about the dangers of deficit spending and out-of-control national debt at my Tim Carter's Firepit website for over two years, so the title of the book got my attention.
Luckily I had read another book a few years ago that has changed my business and my life. It's a book written by the prominent psychologist Robert Cialdini. I highly recommend that you read this book of his: Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion.
Notice that one word in the subtitle - persuasion.
If you read Dr. Cialdini's book, and I beg you to do it, you'll quickly see that Porter Stansberry makes use of just about every psychological trick in his mini book to PERSUADE you to buy his newsletter, reports, etc. It's very very clever marketing.
I happen to hang around with some very savvy Internet Marketers. For years they made use of a long-form sales letter on webpages to get you to purchase something.
That's all Porter's The End of America book is. It's just a sales letter.
He uses these powerful psychological triggers in it:
- Reciprocity
- Social Proof
- Scarcity (via massive doses of Fear)
I realize those are weird words and I'll not spend the time explaining them. Dr. Cialdini dose a much better job than I ever will in his book.
The bottom line is this: Porter Stansberry may be an expert on the things he writes about, but understand that he's pressing on very convincing psychological triggers in your brain when you read his webpages, miniature books, etc.
As the shift sergeant used to say at the opening of Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there!"
Posted by Tim Carter at October 21, 2011 6:48 AM
