marketing - 2/3 - Marketing, Sales, and the Art of Persuasion

Internet Scams – emotive marketing

February 1, 2010 By Paul Lorinczi 44 Comments

My cousin in Hungary has renovated an old home in a small town north of Budapest called Göd. He did a fantastic job modernizing the home with a new kitchen to a 2 car garage with opener. It is a home that has a small moment in history as the last place that Admiral Horthy the leader of Hungary during the interwar period stayed before his exile to Portugal.

My cousin is selling the home because the kids are all grown up and they are downsizing. He asked me to post it on some Real Estate sites here to attract Hungarians that may want to move back. After all, since Hungary is no longer a communist country, there is an attraction for some to go back home.

What has happened? I have had some legitimate inquiries into the home from people I am trying to attract. Hungarians that are looking for a nice home back in Hungary.

However, I have also attracted the most bizarre scams. I like this one from a gentlemen professing to be a Colonel Glen Parent of NATO forces in Iraq. There is a real person name Glen Parent who is in NATO, but this guy is just too funny. He obviously has taken on the persona. HIs English is a lot to be desired.

Here is his message to me:

“Hello ,

I have received the information about your house and i want to assure you that i will surely buy the House.However,i must say that I’m confident and comfortable dealing with you.I have a confidential proposal for you.I hope i can trust you to partner with me to achieve this.

Before i continue, let me introduce myself to you, I am Capt.Glen Parent of the US-NATO COALITION troops in Iraq,on war against terrorism.

I have now in my possession the sum of $10.5 million which was recovered from one of our raids on terrorists camps here in Iraq,because they keep most of their money at home for evil activities which they normally get through illegal deals on crude oil.

Based on the suffering we undergo here some of us do meet such luck. It happened that in our last raid last week we raided one of the terrorist strong base here in Iraq and we recovered this huge sum. This box of money have been deposited with the RED CROSS OFFICE here in Baghdad for its safe keeping pending on the availability of the rightful owner.As the commander of the units,it is under my power to approve whoever comes forth for this funds.

So i need someone i can deal with on trust and that is why i contacted you. so If you accept, I will put you forward as the beneficiary/owner of the funds and then move the money to you in Europe. As a military personnel i cannot parade or claim such an amount,so i need to present someone as the beneficiary with my military hierarchy of command.I just need your acceptance and all is done.I have a 100% authentic means of transferring the money through diplomatic courier service to you in Europe.

Once i confirm your interest to my proposal and your positive reply i will proceed to register your name as the beneficiary.

If you are interested, then let me know so i can proceed to register the consignment in your name as time is very important to me. I am doing this on trust, you should understand that as a trained military expert I will always be carefully in my dealings so everything is intact. This money is my life and i am willing to give you 30% of the total sum when the money is delivered to you.All perfect logistics/intelligence for the success of this transaction has already been put together. I wait for your response so we can proceed immediately. In less than 7days the money should be in your safe custody.

The only telephone access we have is radio message which is for our general use and is being monitored,therefore all communication will be via email till i finish my assignment here and fly straight to your country to meet you. I sincerely seek your indulgence to give this proposal a positive thought.

Regards
Glen Parent”

My response to him was the following:

“Dear Glen,

I hope this message finds you well. Blessings from the USA.

I think you sent your email to me by mistake. You should probably write to a book publisher. Your story would make great fiction for airport book stores.

As we say in Magyar, ”mennye a picsaba“

Regards”

The emotive part is that these guys are all ready to part with their money quickly. He has the money and this transaction can happen quickly.

The next one is similar, but a little more sophisticated. He has two email addresses and a partner in Toronto. They have even gone so far as to create a fake website to make themselves look legitimate. Now, I am not going to reveal what I found to tip me off. I am going to leave that to you to figure out. But there are some things you should always check to see if someone is legitimate. I will give you a hint, the site is 3 years old and there is no way to contact them.

Here is what I wrote:

A Chinese guy wants to buy a house in Hungary?

Why?

Paul Lorinczi

His reponse:

Dear Paul

Thanks for your urgent mail, I am intrested in the property, my stock broker and I will be in your location in 4 weeks time and will update you, I love hungary and I would like to spend my whole life in hungary.

I would like my stock broker to forward your lawyer or you a down payment of the property before coming and view the property. I want the funds to be available before my arrival, the home will be a cash buy, I would my stock broker to send your lawyer the funds, information below for a check to be drawn, forward me your lawyer or your complete.

Contact Name:
Check Payeable To:
Contact Address/ Physical Address:
Phone:

Regards,
Mr. Lee Chang
Chief Financial Officer.
Tel: +86 10868 99249
Email: leechang@ejecutivos.com
Broker:1- 416-8239-266

His from email is different than his respond to email. His website address does not match either address.

The emotive part is the “I am going to give you cash money and it is going to happen based on this exchange of emails.” What they do is give you a check for a higher amount than the agreed purchase, then they want you to give them the difference by opening up your checking account. It is a scam.

I went online and these guys have shown up on other sites. You can see it here:

http://www.consumercourt.in/beware/11369-request-company-sales-representative.html

So, the final example comes from a guy name Anye Elvis. He lives in South Africa. He does not want his home country to know what he is doing and wants to keep things quiet. His nameless son will be the go between guy.

Hi,
I am located in South Africa. No i am not a Hungarian but will wish to invest in Hungary. How is the acquisition process going to work?. Due to the nature of my job, i will not be able to come over for the viewing of this property but will definitely send my son who will handle the transaction and make the payment for me. With this, i will wish that this transaction be confidentila since i do not wish my home government of know i am investing out of the country.
I will be contacting the Hungarian consulate in my location tomorrow to find out what they will need for my son to be able to proceed and i will let you know asap as i do need this property asap.
Thanks

The common theme is they all want it done quickly. So, the carrot is I will buy your home with cash. We need to do it quietly and quickly, so I can unload the cash.

My favorite was Captain Glen Parent. His was the best story by far. If anyone knows the real Captain Glen Parent, he may want to know that someone is impersonating him to try to launder money and scam people to give him money.

Beware, these scams are old, but they are finding creative ways to get people to part with their money.

Filed Under: internet marketing, marketing, Online Behavior, Social Commentary

Interesting Book on Successful eCommerce

January 19, 2010 By Paul Lorinczi Leave a Comment

Found this online. Kind of repeats a lot of what we usually recommend clients do with their eCommerce.

Filed Under: eCommerce, internet marketing, marketing, Online Behavior

Star Wars in Concert

December 13, 2009 By Paul Lorinczi 1 Comment

Ok, so my wife tells me, “I got you and Andrew concert tickets for “Star Wars in Concert” for your birthday.“ I have to admit, I did not jump up and down. “Ok”, I said with a one eye brow raised.

If you have kids and you have kids that love music, take them! It is kind of expensive at $65 a ticket, but it was worth it.

We saw the concert at Conseco Field House. Surprisingly, the sound was excellent. I leaned over and ask my son, “Is this live, or is this Memorex?” He gave me a puzzled look of course because he is not familiar with the old Aretha Franklin commercials from the 1970s-1980s.

The real point of this post is, “Community Orchestras can learn something from the Star Wars in Concert series.” The concert combined visual montages with the music. People were clearly entertained. (I am still shaking my head at the quality of the sound. The orchestra was so tight).

I remember when classical music was taught to me. I finally learned about classical music while on a study abroad program in Austria. Our Professor taught us the significance of Mozart, Beethovan, Hadyn in the context of their time. He was so enthusiastic about the music that I finally go it.

John Williams film music is very easy to get because we have the visual support of the film to help convey what the music is saying.

What if Symphonies started applying some of the same techniques to traditional Mozart, List, or Beethoven pieces. After all, we are an easily bored society. People want to be entertained by our standards today which include video or visual stimulation. Maybe we should have a video running that accompanies the music being played by the Orchestra.

Think I am crazy? Well, Conseco Fieldhouse was full. So, something tells me people are ok with orchestrated music. They just want to be entertained with it.

It was a great concert. I recommend it to anyone.

Filed Under: internet marketing, Internet Public Relations, marketing, Social Commentary

Is Fear Being Used to Hack People?

November 5, 2009 By Paul Lorinczi 1 Comment

My colleague, Mike Seidle has writtien an excellent post on the use of fear in marketing. It is a topic I sometimes bring up in my own posts. He has nailed some good ones here. You can read his post at his site:

http://mikeseidle.com/blogs/indymike/09-11-04/fear-being-used-hack-people

Courtesy of www.howstuffworks.com

Ever wonder why the news cycle keeps getting more and more fear-centric? Why do political special interest groups spend so much on creating alarm? It’s pretty simple:

Marketers, the media and politicians are hacking your brain.

Before you get out the tinfoil hat, let’s discuss the security hole they are exploiting:

Your built-in capacity for all-or-nothing responses to fears and pre-wiring to overreact to threats.

Randolph Nesse, provides quite a bit of detail on this phenomena in is an evolutionary biologist who has spent considerable time researching all-or-nothing defenses. All-or-nothing defenses are very costly and appear to be like overreactions to a threat that is statistically unlikley to result in harm. Nesse has found that overreactions happen to work well in nature when analyzed over time. Even though a bird may abandon hundreds of meals because of passing shadows, the response kept the bird alive the single time the threat was real.

Overreaction is tough to unlearn. Animals continue to overreact for generations even when the original
threat has been gone for generations. This is why birds born in
captivity at the zoo still fly away when a shadow passes overhead despite a zero chance of being eaten by a predator.

So what about people? Here’s where it gets interesting. People have a capacity for overreaction to threats, too. How about our response to swine flu? It’s not hard for marketers to use Nesse’s “smoke detector principle” to manipulNoted security guru Bruce Schneider uses the example of a hotel evacuation because of a fire alarm, which as it turns out isn’t very to be likely to be caused by an actual fire. According to Schneider:

We tend to be poor judges of risk. We overact to rare risks, we ignore long-term risks,. We get risks wrong — threats, probabilities, and costs
– all the time. When we’re afraid, really afraid, we’ll do almost
anything to make that fear go away. Both politicians and marketers have
learned to push that fear button to get us to do what they want. – Schneider on Security

Schneider has understated what is going on. People who make a living influencing others have changed how they do their job because it’s just far too easy to push the panic button. People will respond predictably 99% of the time: react to avoid the perceived fear. Here’s how it works:

1. Paint picture of security.
2. Inject an easy to identify threat to the picture that gets the right flavor of fear.
3. Provide an easy safe place to find security.

Here’s one you’ve seen:

The picture: life with an attractive mate.
The fear: failure to perform.
Provide an easy safe place to run to. (Male enhancement pill)

Political Version:

The picture: Successful children.
The fear: Supporting jobless bums for a lifetime.
The safe place: Increase your taxes, build new Taj Mahal school

It’s so easy, a marketing script kiddie can do it. And unfortunately, it works.

Filed Under: internet marketing, marketing, Online Behavior Tagged With: Fear, marketing, outrage, outrage marketing

At the Top- Entrepreneurial Networking and Learning

October 29, 2009 By Paul Lorinczi Leave a Comment

Ron Sukenick approached me several weeks ago and described a new networking event he was putting together called “At the Top“.

As he was describing At the Top, it had a familiar sound to it. It sounded a lot like the old Entrepreneurs Alliance of indiana. I thought, “man I miss the old Entrepreneur’s Alliance.” I miss seeing everyone on the 3rd Thursday of every month to have drinks and learn about how business started, failed and succeeded. See, I used to be President of EAI. We had too much competition and everyone just kind of pulled out.

So, Ron asked if Professional Blog Service would like to be a co-sponsor of the event. I said, “Absolutely”.

Here is why, I would not have co-started Professional Blog Service, if not for the Entrepreneurs Alliance. It was there that I heard many stories from many different Indianapolis business people who were just like me. My all-time favorites were:

Ray Compton – “You don’t need a lot of money to market, you need to be creative.”
Harley Davidson – “There are three things needed to be a successful manager – knowledge, experience, and emotional competency.” With the emphasis on emotional competency.
Jeff Smulyan – Great story about how he got started

And the other companies:

Ritters Ice Cream
JD Byrider
Scott Jones
Ontario Systems

The list really goes on and on. There were a lot of great companies and speakers that participated at the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Indiana.

So, Ron has resurrected this idea with his “At the Top” program. The venue is the excellent Skyline Club downtown. (See the metaphor here, “At the Top” on top of Indianapolis?) The format is going to be similar to what we did at EAI. There will be cocktails and appetizers with a guest speaker for each meeting.

So, if you are an Entrepreneur seeking inspiration from other Entrepreneurs that have gone through what you are experiencing, go to the “At the Top” meeting November 18, 2009.

What: At the Top

When: November 18, 2009

Time: 5:30p

Where: Skyline Club – Downtown Indianapolis

Professional Blog Service is very happy to be a co-sponser of this important series of meetings. Without Entrepreneurs, there is no economy.

You can learn more about At The Top here.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, marketing, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: entrepreneurs in indiana, entrepreneurs meeting in indianapolis, Entrepreneurship in Indiana

Is Cold Calling Dead? Can Social Media Fill the Void?

September 29, 2009 By Paul Lorinczi Leave a Comment

Is Cold Calling Dead? Can Social Media Fill the Void?

Yes and No.

I know this is a hot topic right now.

Traditional cold calling seems to be a thing in the past. How many of us like an interruption in our day of someone trying to sell us something? I particularly like the ones that do not even ask, “Is this a good time to talk?” Or, I had one recently where the guy made it sound like he was representing the firm that put on a trade show I participated in. After I realized I was being sold, it kind of pissed me off. I decided not to do business with him anyway, because he had been deceitful.

I hired an expert in cold calling several years ago. She had built a successful IT Staffing business before cold calling had become so widespread. She got frustrated because it had become much harder to get people to even want to talk. Cold calling in her mind was dead.

Those are my anecdotes.

What are the statistic?

Proponents of cold calls will tell you, it depends on the industry. But the fact of the matter is it is about numbers. On one site I found, the sales manager did the math to figure out how his people could make the $100k the owner says they could. He found his folks would need to make 510 calls a day. He already knew that he needed to “speak” to 100 people in order to get three buying customers (a .0058 percent close rate from calls to closes). He presented the numbers to the owner and suggested the following:

Purchase a bigger list to support the increased numbers needed.
Or, increase commissions so reps can earn the 100k
Or, find new ways to work smarter.

The owner’s response: “The reps might do better than those statistics.”

I am not suggesting that the phone is dead. It just needs to be used differently. Prospects need to be warmed up before calls are made. And at a .0058% close rate, there has got to be a better way.

How can social media help?

In B2B, social media can play an important role. It is a list building exercise, only it’s a list you build. The ROI in social media is building the list of possible customers, and industry contacts. An organic list is more valuable to you than a rented or purchased list. If you are generating conversation through social with your marketplace, they are more likely to do business with you.

With social media, it won’t take 100 conversations to get three clients. You can start getting one client in about eight phone conversations — which happens after you’ve laid the groundwork through a social network. Your sales pipeline becomes more predictable.

Cold calling in the traditional sense is dead. But, warm calling is alive and well. Social Media can help warm those folks up.

Filed Under: internet marketing, marketing, Social Media Marketing

Outrage as marketing

January 26, 2009 By Paul Lorinczi Leave a Comment

In the last couple of weeks, it has been interesting to see how newspapers, television, and radio use media to market. See, they need eyeballs, ears, or page views to justify their advertising dollars. So, what better way to do it than the use of outrage.

Image from sportswrap.berecruited.com

The master of course is none other than Rush Limbaugh. This weeks outrageous claim, “He hopes that Obama fails.” So, instead of ignoring him, the general media, the blogsphere, and others give him free press with their outrage. What? Rush Limbaugh spoke? Let’s go listen to him.

All the while, Rush Limbaugh is laughing his head off because everyone took the bait. He can now demonstrate to his advertisers that he has the audience to deliver their message to potential buyers of angry listeners. He smokes a cigar, kicks his feet up, and smiles a devilish smile at the power he has over the American people.

Recently here in Indianapolis, Bob Kravitz pulled a similar stunt. The day after the Colts lost to San Diego, he declared that Tony Dungy was no longer fit to be the coach of the Colts. He made some sarcastic claims that Dungy did not really deserve to be credited for a Super Bowl. He was an abject failure that needed to decide if social work was more important than Indianapolis Professional Football.

It was an outrageous article. HE GOT ME! I was upset by it. It made a blog in the New York Times. It was in USA Today. It even made Fark.

The result….page views. It generate page views for the Indianapolis Star. Page views means advertising revenue. Outrage brings revenue.

The next week when Dungy announced his retirement, you would have thought Bob Kravitz was a disciple of Tony Dungy. He had nothing, but nice things to say. After reading the article, I realized I had been had.

See, outrage got me to click on the page.

Right or left, outrage is a good way to get noticed.

And business can do it too. It can be outrageous that Chinese companies use lead to manufacturer toys for children. Or, it can be outrageous that companies healthcare is being offered by pharmacies rather than doctors. It is outrageous that our energy is being controlled by speculators, why not use wind, solar, and electric?

Outrage is a powerful marketing tool. Just ask Rush Limbaugh – he’s been making millions from it for years.

Filed Under: internet marketing, marketing Tagged With: outrage marketing, rush limbaugh

SEX SEX SEX

December 9, 2008 By Paul Lorinczi Leave a Comment

SEX SEX SEX…

I never thought of myself a prude. Today, everything seems to have a sexual connotation to it. All my favourite sitcoms have explicit sexual content in it.

What ever happened to Abbott and Costello? (I know, they are dead). I mean, where is the humour in just simple word play. “You want me to tanked up with Ethel? I don’t even know the girl.” Fine, there was a lot of sexual innuendo back in the day. It just seemed to have a little class with it.

Today?

I watched a deoderant commercial that was highly suggestive to say that when you get married and are getting ready to consumate your marriage, you don’t want a deoderant to ruin the moment.

Or, I love the Levi commercial where the guy and the girl take off their clothes and jump off the pier. That is a great image to show my raging hormoned teenage Son and his friends. These images do have an impact on a teenage mind. (As a parent, this one kind of pisses me off).

Or, watch any sitcom today. They kiss, then they have sex. Yes, this has been written about many times. When you step away and really look at what is happening, it does condition teenagers to see sex as a kiss and a roll in the sack.

We rented Scrubs from the library this weekend. Great show, I love the daydream sequences. But…holy crap, the Surgeon that is always talking about his thing. Isn’t that sexual harrasment in the real world? And all the kissing and making out in the hospital? Isn’t that a little over the top? The writers are obviously creative, but all the sex kind of takes away from those really truly funny and even real moments.

It is everywhere!!

Like I said, I never thought myself a prude and I am not writing this from some Reverend Jeb place. I just wonder if marketers and writers only creative form of expression today is to inject sex into every freaking thing we do. It is not a moral outrage, it is a creative outrage.

Or, as a society, are we so dumb now that the only way to motivate us is through sex. Have we already transported ourselves into an Idiocracy world where Starbucks performs handjobs, and Fuddruckers is now called Buttf***ers.

Has the English language denegrated to such a low point that people no longer understand that Abbott and Costello are really funny?

(Deodorant?! Sex to sell Deoderant? Whatever happened to “Strong enough for a Man, but made for a woman.” SEE, it was effective, I still remember it!)

So, I have decided that one of these nights when I am watching a couple of sitcoms, I am going to keep track of the amount of Sex that occurs in the show and during the commercials.

Then the next question is, why did everyone get up in arms over a wardrobe malfunction in one moment of time, when they are seeing it at least x number of times in an evening?

Filed Under: marketing Tagged With: commercials, sex in marketing, television

www.ProBlogService.com

December 5, 2008 By Paul Lorinczi Leave a Comment

Hi Everyone,

Yes, this is a shameless promotion of my new business.

My company Indy Associates is winding down its operations to focus on a new business we started several months ago. Some of you may have received an email about “Professional Blog Service.”

In a nutshell, www.ProBlogService.com is a new service that provides ghost writing, promotion, and social networking management for companies that want to blog, but don’t have the time or resources to do it properly or effectively.

Why blog?

Traditional Search Engine Optimization has been going through changes over the past several years. In Internet Marketing, “shoppers use keywords, buyers use phrases.” Corporate blogging helps companies connect with the buyers in their market because GOOGLE wants “FRESH, HOT CONTENT”.

The challenge is, it takes a lot of work to keep up a corporate blog. Most companies don’t have the resources to do it. Nor, do they know how to do it right and make sure the activity is measured properly for an ROI. This is where we help.

Lloyds of Indiana is a local retailer that sells printing equipment, supplies, and binding machines through their webstore. We have been blogging for them and manage their social media profiles. We continue to grow their list of marketable prospects and have even converted sales off their MySpace page.

These guys were a local print shop for years. How many print shops have you seen go under in your local market? They changed their business to sell the supplies people need in their office, including high-end printers and corporate displays.

Blogging is helping them do this.

The cost is simple:

$135.00 per post – written, promoted, and managed through social network
$75.00 per post – written only.

So, if you have any friends or family that are complaining about their traditional marketing being expensive and unmeasurable, send them my way.

My office number is: 317-644-3034

####

(I am Paul Lorinczi and I approve this message)

Filed Under: Blog Marketing, eCommerce, internet marketing, marketing, Social Media Marketing

Interesting Book on Successful eCommerce

Is Fear Being Used to Hack People?

Outrage as marketing

SEX SEX SEX

SEX SEX SEX…

Today?

It is everywhere!!

Has the English language denegrated to such a low point that people no longer understand that Abbott and Costello are really funny?

Categories

Twitter Activity

Blogroll

Contributors

Need to blog but don't have the time to do it?

Professional Blog Service

SEX SEX SEX…

Today?

It is everywhere!!

Has the English language denegrated to such a low point that people no longer understand that Abbott and Costello are really funny?

Why blog?

Categories

Twitter Activity

Blogroll

Contributors

Tags

Need to blog but don't have the time to do it?