A simple request for vendors who offer a service or product.

I know that you often spend an inordinate amount of time with all the fancy graphics. I see themes like x men, fast and furious, the list goes on, and on, and on.

I appreciate that you have to SELL some people. I appreciate that you like American pop culture.

Al I ask is that somewhere after all that ....stuff I have to sort thru, could you put simple text at the bottom that tells what your service is and actually costs with a link to buy it?

If I need something, I want to go there, order it and be done. I don't really care if it is the wolverine package, or the vin diesel package, or the superhero package or whatever nnsense you decided to hang your service on.

Just say:

500 word articles-$X - order here, and I am good.

I almost never order from anyone who I have to sort thru all that nonsense just to figure out what is being offered and what it costs. I am probably missing out on some good service, but I cant bear all that hype.

For those of us who work efficiently, just summarize your service at the bottom so we can get on with our lives, we can always refer to your movie poster for details.

Totally agree.
Some of those mega long arse graphics take too long to load and I stop reading halfway through if the information I am looking for isn't there.
I think noobs might be impressed by it but sometimes I think people are trying to hide how poor the actual package is by using fancy images.
A couple of those sales threads look outstanding but I still have no clue what is actually on offer lol

I know exactly what you mean. I was looking for a particular service about a week ago, I never found a suitable one here because I gave up looking. Too much crap taking too long to load and I have a very fast internet connection!!

I don't think some of the sellers on here realise that sometimes you can overdo it.

I prefer simple.

really all a service needs is a written beginning middle end product explanation
what / when / where / how / more thought goes into a writen explanation of
a product than flashy pics.

I believe that happens for a pretty straight forward reason. No internet marketing forum (at least from the ones I've seen so far) "allow" for "higher end" services, referring about services that start at like $1 - 2k a month for a min period of a year.

In my humble opinion, this simply leads to a business cannibalization where the only way to compete is by offering LOW prices and DISCOUNTS!!! When this becomes a reality, most businesses aiming to deliver a low end but higher price than the competition (striving to bring a bit of quality to the table) sometimes feel that showcasing their prices will put off customers; whereas if they don't advertise prices, they might still have a chance to get in touch with the lead and close it.

In my personal view, avoiding prices is just a double edged sword, where one side could get approaching leads but the other side could simply ignore your thread and create a "hate" image of your username/biz. This usually happens to people who do not fully believe on their product/service and so hiding the price tag is an alternative way that could lead them to a sale (usually it does not when it comes to services targeting startups and small businesses).

This however happens the whole time when it comes to corporate services, where you deal with 10k+ monthly budgets and where you know what your customers are ready to pay; and it works just fine.

All in all, I have to agree with your statement as I feel most services in the forums would benefit more if they were upfront with their prices, however, you need to consider all of those services using that sales technique in order to gather leads; might not be many, but im sure it works for some


/e

W130SN said:

Totally agree.
Some of those mega long arse graphics take too long to load and I stop reading halfway through if the information I am looking for isn't there.
I think noobs might be impressed by it but sometimes I think people are trying to hide how poor the actual package is by using fancy images.
A couple of those sales threads look outstanding but I still have no clue what is actually on offer lol

Click to expand...

This is exactly why it happens, because most of the target customers for IMS in the forums are what you described above.

Hear, hear!

I think the graphics have been getting more and more excessive - and far too long.

Some of them are becoming reminiscent of those spammy, long one-pagers.

I am all for a well designed sales page, but I am also wary of over-packaged products. The phrase 'over-promise, under-deliver' often springs to mind.

Occasionally someone starts a BST with no graphics and I breathe a sigh of relief.

For me, succinct and concise is always better:

What is it?
What does it do?
How much is it?
How do I buy it?

W130SN said:

I think noobs might be impressed by it but sometimes I think people are trying to hide how poor the actual package is by using fancy images.

Click to expand...

Reyone said:

This is exactly why it happens, because most of the target customers for IMS in the forums are what you described above.

Click to expand...

Reyone has hit it on the head and said what IMO, a lot of us are thinking. It's marketing fluff to disguise the specifics so that the buyer is so awestruck that they don't even realise what they've bought.


I've tried both options and can support Reyone. In this particular market, they simply sell better with comic characters and the like. Our problem is, it's in the service sellers' interest to continue advertising in the way they are, so I doubt that we will see change.

I was just saying this to myself the other day when I was looking for something on bhw. I stumbled upon something and gave up before I figured out exactly what they were selling.

Deleted member 364366 said:

Reyone has hit it on the head and said what IMO, a lot of us are thinking. It's marketing fluff to disguise the specifics so that the buyer is so awestruck that they don't even realise what they've bought.


I've tried both options and can support Reyone. In this particular market, they simply sell better with comic characters and the like. Our problem is, it's in the service sellers' interest to continue advertising in the way they are, so I doubt that we will see change.

Click to expand...

I can understand this when it's selling a new brand of toilet tissue or peanut butter spread but these are services being marketed to other business minded people (in most cases) who do not require all the bullshit fluff. All we really need is a breakdown of what the service is offering in terms of quality and what exactly you will get for your money.

I don't care if they want to suggest that a fluffy bunny or superman is going to deliver the service for me I just want the end result which is the service I am paying for.

Really no need to go to these lengths on a business forum unless you are selling graphic designs!

As one who is guilty of the above, I agree.

Next time I roll something out it will be more user/reader friendly and thanks for the suggestion, Techxan!

I view on mobile most of the time when surfing for BST, and is truly annoying when the whole graphic did not load up correctly.

Yes, some of the sales threads takes too much time to load and too much stuff to read.I like user friendly,simple and direct info and what is being sold,info,delivery,what results should we expect,how much and payment button,thats all.

sturose said:

I can understand this when it's selling a new brand of toilet tissue or peanut butter spread but these are services being marketed to other business minded people (in most cases) who do not require all the bullshit fluff. All we really need is a breakdown of what the service is offering in terms of quality and what exactly you will get for your money.

I don't care if they want to suggest that a fluffy bunny or superman is going to deliver the service for me I just want the end result which is the service I am paying for.

Really no need to go to these lengths on a business forum unless you are selling graphic designs!

Click to expand...

The problem is that what you think the target market is, is not. You are saying that the majority of people buying these services are being marketed to business minded people who do not require all the BS.

I can pretty surely say that these services target "business minded" people who know little or very little about how things REALLY work; even "mid-advanced-knowledgeable" people won't be able to differentiate the little details that can have a HUMONGOUS impact in any campaign.

I don't want to call out any service, but to me the MOST popular one here @ BHW has been feeding from "noobs" (god i hate that word) for YEARS - pretty much same applies to the most popular oneS; "noobs" are the gasoline for their tanks.

And what happens? Well, the business life cycle; create a product/service, burn it out, then re-launch with a different image and keep going

Internet marketing services in internet marketing forums target a "desperate" segment in most cases. Just like your campaigns for "how to make money online", IMS are no other than landing pages aiming to convert individuals into sales.

Like it or not, it is not going to stop: people need IMS, people don't like reading, people buy into flashy shit.

Deleted member 364366 said:

Reyone has hit it on the head and said what IMO, a lot of us are thinking. It's marketing fluff to disguise the specifics so that the buyer is so awestruck that they don't even realise what they've bought.


I've tried both options and can support Reyone. In this particular market, they simply sell better with comic characters and the like. Our problem is, it's in the service sellers' interest to continue advertising in the way they are, so I doubt that we will see change.

Click to expand...

I have no problem with the sales page, I just want to avoid having to read the damn thing and go straight to the summary.

BassTrackerBoats said:

As one who is guilty of the above, I agree.

Next time I roll something out it will be more user/reader friendly and thanks for the suggestion, Techxan!

Click to expand...

Go ahead and do the sales pitch, just at the bottom give us a text summary.

Techxan said:

I have no problem with the sales page, I just want to avoid having to read the damn thing and go straight to the summary.

Click to expand...

What if sales threads were forced to fill in a summarized field? That way they could still target the audience falling for the flashy threads as well as being able to target the more advanced users.

I think that could cut through the BS for people looking for straight up answers.

agree with OP
no one is impressed by all these fancy images and all.
I find plain text thread better than facy stuff

Its almost like selling a weight loss product to someone who promotes a weight loss product.

Reyone said:

What if sales threads were forced to fill in a summarized field? That way they could still target the audience falling for the flashy threads as well as being able to target the more advanced users.

I think that could cut through the BS for people looking for straight up answers.

Click to expand...

That is an excellent idea.
If all sellers had to provide that then it would save a lot of time and hopefully cut some of the BS.

I just went into forum settings and turned off images, I then went through a number of marketplace threads and it's shocking how many members rely purely on an image to sell their product/service with no text whatsoever.

I will turn it back on because I don't mind images for certain things but if other people decided to do just this how many sales would the sellers be missing out on because they can't be bothered to do a simple text summary.

Don't forget as well sellers, there are image blocking browser plugins!

one business lesson that i learned a looong time ago is: get to the point

1. what do you offer?

2. what does it do?

3. how will i benefit from using it?

and...

4. make your web pages easy to navigate.

Whiles images are required and rightly so but sometimes so many images are used which just hides the basic details about the service on offer.

Totally agree with OP on this issue.