The key aspect of marketing is to aim to fulfill your audience’s needs… do not treat them as morons, do not annoy them, do not promise a lot and then fail to deliver.
Sadly, due to the idiocy of a few, marketers have a bad name amongst those in the industry… marketers are quite often seen as dishonest people that will do anything to make a buck. Below are three examples of people / organizations that have failed at marketing, and three examples you can look at to see what NOT to do.
1. Big Marketing Online
If you’re in a niche where most people are tech-aware, you generally can’t play them for fools.
Introducing Big Marketing Online.
Run by someone named ‘big Jason’, BMO were recently found to be faking their feed count. Of course, lying to your readers is one of the best ways to get off on a good footing with them.
They didn’t even game their Feedburner statistics… but just put up a fake image. In a niche where people know all about feed counts and how to tell if someone is faking it… how stupid does BMO think the rest of us are? They were found out pretty quickly, by a friend of mine – George Pearce.
Here’s proof…
Their actual feed count is around 550. Hardly a number to be ashamed about, so why lie about it?
With credibility now gone to shit, can’t see the blog surviving too long. Unless they become honest, of course.
2. Logo Angel
When the people at Logo Angel came onto the scene, I thought they were pretty smart.
Offering free logos, website designs and mascots in exchange for exposure is a great way to get the word out. Especially if you pick the right people…
However, Logo Angel have been one of the reasons I’ve been pissed off lately online – their moronic staff does not know how to do business professionally (if only they had never invented the ‘nudge’ function on MSN…).
I’ve been emailed, added to instant messenger, private messaged on Blog Premiere numerous time by these morons, each time asking the same question and not taking no for an answer. I’ve put their emails into the spam folder, blocked whoever on MSN, but they keep adding me from different profiles and emailing from different addresses. All with broken English. ARGH!
I’ve heard they’ve annoyed the hell out of quite a few, and doubt too many people will be using them. Shame, because their website is professionally designed and the ideas behind the start of it were good…
3. Cuil.com
Cuil promised lots… a user friendly search interface, more indexed pages than Google, and more relevant results.
They’ve got so many indexed pages, that they forgot to rank for their own name. Oops! Shame, because whatever they did marketing wise, they did right – they’ve gotten thousands of links their way from blog posts and a tough marketing strategy, branding themselves the latest ‘Google Killer’.
Sadly, most searches for yourwebsite.com run up nothing… although I do rank first place for my name (but only around 10th for TUK). Rule number one – fix all possible errors before you have an expensive launch. Next!
So the lessons today are…
1. Don’t lie to your visitors.
2. Don’t piss off potential customers.
3. Tweak and test all problems before a launch.
Simple really, but looking at the money invested in 3. and the ‘experience’ of 1., you’d be forgiven for thinking marketers were full of brown coloured excrement. 
What kind of huge marketing mistakes have YOU seen?
Tomorrow I’ll talk about how you guys can learn about a strategy I’ve used to make $7,500 over the last two months at no financial costs to yourself at all…
August 6th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
My first blog was a sarcastic humor blogspot blog where I made fun of everything. So of course I made myself a 450k feedburner subscriber button image. When you put your mouse over the image it read “Yeah right”. I thought it was funny, but you’d have to be stupid to try that on a serious tech website.
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August 6th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
“$7,500 over the last two months at no financial costs to yourself at all…”
*grabs bag of popcorn*
*sits back and waits*
Ralph’s last blog post..Just What Is The Montauk Monster?
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August 6th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Oh wait, I just checked out the site. I don’t think he’s being serious. Right next to his button is his “Other Headlines” posts where you see:
“Number of Views: 213″
“Number of Views: 179″
etc.
Even though it’s tagged “This is How Many People Subscribe to my Blog Feed”, he must be making a joke.
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August 6th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
If it’s a joke, it’s a pretty bad one. Either way, marketing fail!
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August 6th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
I couldn’t agree more. It pisses me off that people have to lie about their feedburner count… if you need to lie then obviously your blog is a piece of crap and no one under the sun should be reading it.
HONESTY people!
Germz’s last blog post..Domaining + Siteflipping = Tons of Moola
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August 6th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Yea, feedburner count and faking it has been something that drives people a lot!
everyone is pretty desperate to show off empty success to everyone.
And I do not think its a joke…not me.
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August 6th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Hehe, I noticed that fake feed count the moment I saw it
As for the second one, I know exactly how you feel, I used to get tons of Emails from them and suddenly they stopped, I wonder why? 
Looking forward to reading your post tomorrow, sounds interesting!
Rajaie AlKorani’s last blog post..How To Effectively Deal With Negative Comments On Your Blog
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August 6th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
i dont think its a joke and also i hate when someone fakes this kind of stuff.
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August 6th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
The first one was quite funny, if they really knew what they were doing. Previously, when I was quite new to everything, I was using a theme that had a feedburner stats image showing 373 readers on my blog.
I got a lot of emails from people asking how did I manage that. At last I realized it was fake, and I removed it.
If they know what they’re doing and still doing it, then they are not good at business. Business is not done with small kids, and those who are intellectuals understand what is what.
- Swastik -
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August 6th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
when I found that fake feedburner count and told George; I was actually going on the site to check out his latest work, as the few things I saw of him from affiliate challenge I thought it was worth a look, and the negative plug from the Net Fool about his contest i was willing to disregard…but upon going there I was shocked! So much in fact I created a new topic of posts…’for shame’….
(almost as shameful as this plug :p)
Donace’s last blog post..For Shame!
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August 6th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
incredible how some bloggers/webmasters lie with all their teeth!
faking rss subscsribers is so easy to find out… come on.how can they believe they will fool anyone?
Hugo Santos’s last blog post..Creating a forum Part 2 – Forum installation and configuration
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August 6th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Well I’m the only one who seems to think it is a joke, so I’m probably wrong. I just thought it looked too obviously fake because I remembered his joking personality on that net show and because of the way he had it laid out next to those posts. Maybe I misread it.
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August 6th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I wonder if the Logo Angel is the same people as Crewind Inc. This guy Steve has emailed me, left messages on my blog, im’d me and just in general bugged the hell out of me.
His IM intro was always just “Hello”
He pretended to be 2 different girls at one time. The title is always “Get A Article, Web hosting, Animated Banner/ logo/” in exchange for links.
At first I thought he might be legit so I asked him to show me his work.. he sent me to some MonsterTemplate kind of templates which was horrible. I asked him to design some sample bans headers and he kept saying his “designers” would have to get back to me.
Horrible marketing if you ask me and damned annoying on the spamming of messages and emails.
CreatingRevenueOnline.com’s last blog post..Invoicing Made Easy
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August 7th, 2008 at 1:54 am
I’m waiting for the next post.
Make $7500 –
Ganesh’s last blog post..Sunday Link Roundup – 08/03/2008
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August 7th, 2008 at 6:27 am
@ CRO, think it’s the same people. Gaah!
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August 7th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Make it 2
Faking subscribers number is the very end of the road. I would delete the blog and exclude it from Google.
Shame on them.
j. noronha’s last blog post..Improve Your Advertising Income, Display an Image Gallery
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August 7th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I just find the whole IM niche a bit tacky; all the cliches of long sales pages, fake-urgency, inflated promises, etc etc. It obviously works, or people wouldn’t do it … but I always feel like taking a shower after I see some of the worst examples. As a result, I put more of my efforts into non-IM niches.
Minnesota Weekend Getaways’s last blog post..Three Wonderful Art Museums in Minneapolis
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August 7th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Hi Jason,
Just one thing on the fake RSS thingy because I knew the real reason why he did that. Jason Henderson is trying to bait links which you obviously did not fall for. A lot of big blogs actually link to his site on this issue.
Anyway, bad or good, it is up to different individuals. For me, RSS feed count no longer impresses me when evaluating a site value and performance.
Wayne
Wayne Liew’s last blog post..Big Blog Contest by Big Jason Henderson
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August 7th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Ha ha, I love the idea of the fake image. I really have 50,000 readers but I don’t want people to feel lost in the crowd so I fake it to look much smaller.
Sell Porn Make Money’s last blog post..Sell More Porn With Expired Domain Names
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August 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Great tips and really valid. Thanks Jason
Ryan @ Smarter Wealth’s last blog post..The Easiest $50 I Have Ever Made
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August 7th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Wow…I had actually seen this a while back TUK, I saw his feed numbers, and then looked at the comments and said hmmmm…so, I employed the skills I gained from “TUK’s School of Finding Fakes” and used that feedburner validator.
What I found was shocking….I couldn’t believe it. Problem is, I actually like big Jason, from the next internet millionaire and the top affiliate challenge. I think he is a cool person, however, seeing that caused me to leave the site…..ahh well.
Don’t know what people gather from doing stuff like this….however, I do know he had just bought a new wordpress theme as well…so, maybe that was one of those situations where it was included in the theme and he hadn’t changed it yet? I don’t know….but, I thought it was weird.
Normal Joe’s last blog post..New Theme, New Direction, Same Joe.
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August 7th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
The worst of the group is people that fake their Feedburner subscribers. I don’t get what benefit it provides to the blogger except that the they feel like they have many more subscribers.
Faint’s last blog post..How To Make Your Own Beer
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August 7th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Yeah I agree with Faint. It’s not like it benefits them in any way. Well, it might as long as they don’t get caught… which is kinda hard too do. People will think their blog is popular and trustworthy and just because of that they’d stick around.
Either way, it’s a dumb move.
Ralph’s last blog post..Giving Out 225 Entrecard Credits
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August 8th, 2008 at 2:15 am
These are good, glad you busted those people, LogoAngel/Crewind has gotten on my nerves, wanting me to buy all these products, saying “when are you going to buy it” and so on. If I ask them if they want anything from me, they of course decline the offer. I did give them a great business idea, hoping to make a friendship, but all they want to do is sell their products.
@Cro – I deal with this girl Annie from Crewind, always saying “hello,” and then asking if I wanted to buy anything. The banner ad price was $90 (I told them “shit! Nobody is going to buy that!”), and so I declined of course. Prices seem high and quality seems low.
Nathaniel’s last blog post..Away!
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August 8th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Love posts like these – please keep the witch hunt going!!!
suffer in your big panties big jason
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August 8th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I love when you call out the fakers/scammers!
Looking at your MyBlogLog visitors it looks like “Big Jason” came by to check out your post. No rebuttal though!?
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August 8th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
@Egk – if “Big Jason” stopped by, I wonder if any one else will? I had a pretty negative comment, I will just silently wait until the next time they contact me on Google Chat.
Nathaniel’s last blog post..Review: Rajaie Talks
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August 8th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
That’s pretty funny that he stopped by. He has nothing to say though, what he did was pretty dumb…
Ralph’s last blog post..Giving Out 224 Entrecard Credits & Ad Spots
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August 9th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Funny but pretty dumb lol show the true subscribers even if its one!
Nick Throlson’s last blog post..Motive Interactive Increases Referral Revenue To 10%
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August 9th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Crap dude…I just got an email from logo angle…I was like “hmmm, this sounds familiar” thanks for this post earlier TUK or I wouldn’t have known about them….glad I read your site!
Normal Joe’s last blog post..How to handle all the product launches
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August 10th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Looks like after this TUK post “Big Jason” decided to redirect his fake feedburner image to the following URL http://tinyurl.com/5ftuj4 where he states that he did it to “bait the ethics police” and game Blogging Idol. Kinda funny. Why did he wait until he was called out before he explained his fake subscribers count that pointed to feedburner?! Looks like he was trying to game his readers, or the blogging idol competition. Either way not very ethical!
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September 17th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
HAHA! Playing with the image is quite messy.. he should have atleast used netvibees tricks.. lol
SEO Tips’s last blog post..Pagerank Checker
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April 4th, 2009 at 5:42 am
What is captcha code?, pls provide me captcha code codes or plugin, Thanks in advance.
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