Anti-patterns

Ok, here are tricks that don't deserve a special article in anti-patterns section, but still funny to mention. Caveat, reading those may make you extremely cynical of salesmanship and Internet marketing, even though it's not that easy. Some gurus would say that this is a negativity, if you follow them, skip this page. For the rest, read and decide yourself, if you want to use those or not.

This page is arranged as a dictionary: typical phrase and the translation to a layman's English.

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"Are you an action taker?" -- Where, the heck, is your credit card?

Summary:

In a nutshell, "Pile the Stuff" is a sales anti-pattern when "Pile-the-Value" pattern is taken to an extreme and incorrectly.

Name of the pattern:

Pile the Stuff (there are also some less politically correct names for it)

When NOT to use this pattern:

Ever, unless you have some a very special market. Yes, that special meaning of "very special".

How to avoid this anti-pattern:

• Keep bonuses relevant.
• Keep bonuses quality.
• Keep number of bonuses reasonable.
  

Summary:

"Bridge" page is essentially the page that links straight to affiliate link without providing any additional value. It's directly named by Google AdWords policy

Name of the pattern:

Bridge page

When NOT to use the pattern:

Whenever you care about search engine rank or the cost of PPC campaign pointing to this page.

How to use the pattern:

Summary:

In a sales message, whether it's a sales letter, squeeze page or phone conversation, you ask the prospect for an immediate action in a form: "Are you an action taker or a procrastinator (tire kicker)?"

Name:

Action taker vs. procrastinator.

When (not) to use:

Summary:

Verify link and basics. (Anti-pattern is not verifying them).

When (not) to use:

When you are publishing any content, let it be minisite, blog or squeeze page.

Details:

This is a content pattern, more specifically, content publishing patterns (or rather anti-pattern). If you fall to this trap, you'll never see a sale no matter how well you pitch.