Dear Internet marketers and marketing “Gurus”, please, please stop using the Video Boss formula for your pre-launch videos. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t take it anymore.
Case in point: The new Product Launch Formula videos by Jeff Walker.
Okay, I guess I know where this is coming from. It’s the same with the launches in general. Why does every marketer use the same kind of pre-launch process, the same kind of build-up, the same kind of hype generation? Because it works…
And I guess that type of video also works. But does that really mean that every marketer has to go and make a carbon copy of the Video Boss videos? Same style, same background music, same fonts, same colors and even the same text-animations? Seriously, you can’t select a different animation effect?
Apart from anything else, I bet that almost no one has actually tested the Video Boss type video against a different type of video. Video is a b***h to split-test, after all. Let me just say that I’ve been running a few tests with different video types and I’ve found some pretty surprising results.
I think that Internet marketers who market to the Internet marketing crowd have to start thinking on their feet a bit more and start innovating more quickly. You see, outside of the IM market, you can go ahead and use all of those tactics and techniques you know inside out. Use free ebooks as sign-up incentives, do the product launch formula, use Video Boss videos, use fake time-constraints, have one-time-offers that aren’t really one-time-offers and claim that the price is about to go up “any minute now”. Outside of the IM market, people haven’t all seen this stuff a million times before.
But if you’re marketing to online marketers, start thinking outside the box and be the guy who comes up with the next formula rather than always relying on methods that everyone got fed up with last week.
And seriously, consider using a different text-animation, if nothing else.
By the way: While Product Launch Formula is certainly going to be big and spectacular and cool and everything, one of my readers recently pointed me towards a product about launching products that looks way more interesting. Check out the Interactive Offer and see for yourself. It’s a really cool way to market (one that I like to use myself) and I learnt some very cool stuff just from the pre-launch videos. Coincidentally, I had already been doing almost exactly what the videos talk about, before I saw them.
Too bad that the Interactive Offer also suffers from Video Boss-itis…
Let me know what you think. Is this rant justified? Are you also fed up with the same old formulas? Do you use them yourself?
Cheers,
Hi Shane
So true. I totally agree 100%.
It is so obvious to me that the vast majority of named so called ‘gurus’ are a bunch of mindless sheep anyway.
Most have not a single original thought in their head.
They generally have nothing in terms of practical marketing advice to offer which is why they typically rely on a template to present re-hashed, re-wrapped stuff.
What they do have is a list which they hammer with affiliate offers and which can be traded using JV Partnerships to further add to their lists.
So it’s really refreshing to have come across your site Shane – it reeks of honesty. Thank you for your original and refreshing style and for crediting your subscribers with a degree of intelligence.
I’m pleased to be on your list.
Cheers
Brian