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Homer actually called me today.

He is starting to trouble me. At some deep level some of the things I’ve been saying seem to be getting through.

Maybe he is not destined to stay guru fodder for ever!

He told me he was confused. Which one of the 10 links to join Stompernet should he use.

“Why do you want to join” I innocently asked

“It’s obvious I must – if I get the same email from all these super bad gurus it must be good”

So I tried to explain that the real objective of most of these guys is to get their affiliate payment – “Homer, I’m sorry to say, they don’t care about you, they don’t care whether you’re successful – in fact it suits them better if you’re not successful because they keep you on the hook and spending money. How will the product help your business?”

“I’m not sure, but with all this activity I’d be mad not to give it a try”

“Homer, you must get off of these email lists and focus on what you need to do – get your strategy sorted out and stop getting diverted”

I thought something had finally clicked. We started talking about unsubscribing from all of the lists he was on and then he revealed the truth about about super list building:

“Mr Anti Hype” – he always calls me that, he is so full of respect.

“I bought into a program about 6 months ago. It was brilliant. I gave my email address to watch the video. I then gave it again to see the sales page. After I’d paid I gave my email address to download the product, then again to see the ultra special one-time-offer (obviously I had to have that) and I think one more time on the upsell page”

“Now, Mr Anti Hype (see he does always call me that), isn’t that brilliant business sense. Get your customer to give the email address loads of times to make sure they didn’t get it wrong. You can’t be too careful wot wiv the way peeple spel today.”

“But, Homer” I sighed, “when you try to unsubscribe you’ll still be on all of the other lists – each time you give them your email you’re on another list!”

Yes, that did happen once” he continued “Marge was giving it to me large about this and that and how I was wasting what’s left of my life reading emails and so I did try to unsubscribe from one list”

“It was from someone I thought was really good. She sent email after email about the latest product launch – I never understood why because she said the first one was the only one I’d ever need. Anyway, there were two unsubscribe links at the bottom of the email and I tried both but the pages weren’t found. I forgot about it for a few days until her next email and I tried again. Same problem so I gave up. I still get the emails to this day”

“Is that how they do it MrAntiHype? Make the unsubscribe links so they don’t work? That’s cool!”

SIDENOTE – I think I must be on that very same list

“You know, I think you’re right. I need to get off of all these lists. I’ll make a start tonight.”

He left me saying “…so it’s far better for me to get the email from just one guy so I’m not confused as to which link to use and I can sign up without delay”

Some people never learn!

The AntiHype

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© TheAntiHype for guru-fodder.com, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: email lists, list building, the antihype, unsubscribe, unsubscribing
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