Hacks

Got an e-mail message from someone I have—up until now—trusted, promoting a set of videos for the copywriting niche. The message was short and to the point, piquing my interest a little, but here's what he said about the sales letter for the product:

P.S. I know, the sales copy leaves a lot to be desired. You should have seen how bad it was before I did a quick edit on it!

Hey, some of us are paying attention here. If the sales copy for a copywriting product is bad, the product itself is undoubtedly worthless!

Seth Godin says it better than I.

Man, oh man! I am only 40 pages through Sylvie Fortin's new Internet Marketing Sins manifesto and I am sitting here thinking, "This girl has nailed it!" (Sylvie, by "girl" I mean, well... you know I mean no disrespect.) She's naming some of the worst tactics used in Internet marketing and calling them for what they are. I myself have called marketers who use these tactics "hacks."

So I'm in good company. No less than Paul Myers himself has spoken up about "hacks":

1. You can sell anything with good marketing. Even slop.
2. Slop costs you the back end and repeat sales. Better sell a lot up front.

Going right along with what I mentioned yesterday about hacks, here's some guidelines from Daniel Turner of PLRPro.com about spotting hacks:

So how do you know which ones are for real, and which ones aren't (because there are also a lot that truly do work).
The truth is, you can't...but there are some guidelines that you can follow:

1. Turn on your BS meter, if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck... it's a duck

Marlon Sanders goes a little crazy today. The e-mailed article doesn't seem to be online, so I can't point you to it, but this one statement hit me:

Don't expect to buy 1 stupid product and become a pro. Guys and gals, this isn't about being a HACK and making money.

Frankly, I've been seeing a lot of hacks—and products from hacks—lately. Of course, I suppose that's nothing new. I've been seeing them for years. The problem is, I see marketers of all stripes promoting these products and I begin to lump these marketers in with the hacks.