Did you see my picture on a milk carton?

When I started getting emails from subscribers asking if they’d somehow been unsubscribed from my list, I knew I’d gone too long without writing.

Why the long lapse?

Two reasons, really. First, I’ve been really busy helping my Ebook Mastermind class. Second, I’ve been trying to decide what I think about the latest trends in Internet marketing.

The class have been fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed working with this group and I’m really proud of the progress they’ve made. We’re wrapping things up now and I’m about to officially announce a new class. I’m letting you get first shot at it, though. Go to http://www.EbookMastermind.com for details.

As for the current state of affairs in the ‘make money online’ niche, I’ve been a little disturbed by what I’ve seen recently.

It all started with John Reese’s “Traffic Secrets” a couple of years ago. John’s million dollar day got a lot of people’s attention. Suddenly every big-name marketer I knew started putting their mega-product together so they could duplicate or exceed John’s success.

Jeff Walker, who helped John with is campaign, created his own mega-product based on this style of promotion called The Product Launch Formula (PLF).

Jeff is a sharp marketer and a super-nice guy. I think his launch formula is brilliant. But I can’t say that I like the trend it’s created.

In a nutshell, PLF, as it’s being applied in this market, is about putting together a $1,000+ package with 10-20 audios & videos and maybe a workbook or two. Then the marketers round up every possible JV partner and offer them 50% commissions.

The heavy hitters are usually given a copy of the product. They’re also given a set of pre-written emails with instructions on when to mail them out. The idea is to build a buzz around the product before it launches and create a buying frenzy on the day of the launch.

There’s usually a built-in scarcity factor that’s usually artificially created. For example, only 500 sets will be sold. Nothing prevents the marketer from having 1000 sets made but the scarcity helps create the buying frenzy.

Many of the JV partners offer additional bonuses or even cash rebates to anyone that buys the product through them.

So why does this formula bug me?

The problem I have with it is in order to be successful, you’ve got to get all the heavy hitters to participate. And that’s where the problems start.

What happens if Warren Webmaster invites Mary Marketer to participate in his promotion and sends her a copy of the product a week before the big launch day? Let’s say Mary, being a busy web guru doesn’t have time to go through Warren’s 20+ DVD’s and audios.

What does Mary do? She knows there will be a lot of interest in the product and potentially a pile of commissions coming her way if she promotes it. But a bigger concern for Mary might be this. If she doesn’t promote Warren’s product, then she knows Warren is unlikely to promote HER big product launch the following month.

See the problem?

Besides the big names, there are a LOT of young marketers trying to get recognized by the big shots. One sure way to get a big name guru’s attention is to successfully promote their products.

Many of these up-and-coming marketers are invited to participate in the launch day promotions without getting a copy of the product itself.

While most of these products are of good quality, there are some exceptions. And the problems usually aren’t’ intentionally shabby. However, so much work has gone into setting up the launch dates and lining up JV partners that if a problem crops up, it’s too late to push the launch back.

Finally, marketers have gotten so used to promoting these $1,000+ packages that few are interested in promoting ebooks and other more affordable products.

Now I don’t have anything against big-ticket products. Some of them are really, really good. But some of them are absolute garbage. You’ve seen me mention both in this newsletter. I decline to review many because it usually isn’t practical to thoroughly review one of these products in the brief time I’m usually given before launch date.

But the bottom line is that the prevalance of so many high-dollar packages means the cost of your Internet marketing education has gone up considerably.

In some cases, I think you can learn more from studying the way these products are launched than from the products themselves.

Now you might look at the price of my latest class and wonder if I’m like the pot calling the kettle black. 🙂

But if you take a closer look, you’ll see what I’m offering is far different from a stack of CD’s or DVD’s.

http://www.EbookMastermind.com

I’ve got a lot more to say on this topic and be writing more about this over the next few days. Many of you have written in with questions about these new trends and I want to do everything I can to help.