Hey Jasper,

Yeah, I can imagine that does suck. It's a bit shocking to be honest. Without knowing who the artist is or reading the squeeze page you posted, the guy/girl sounds like a bit of a jerk.

The idea behind the strategy is fairly simple and used across many many markets. Find something people are interested in, offer value related to that subject, and then offer a link to additional related value, which is your product.

The only thing I might say is that it sounds like you actually copied his post, while I think that his/her reaction is pretty lame, that would be copyright infringement and I suppose someone might have the right to be upset about that. The training module you are referring to in MMM teaches you to create unique content. Make sure you do that going forward. But even still, I can't imagine having that reaction if someone used something I wrote and then linked to something else. In fact it happens to me all the time.

Sorry to hear you had to deal with that, I can understand that it's a real bummer. I've never seen or heard about anything like it. My guess is that the fact that you used his/her content (assuming that is the case)( set this particular person off. In my opinion he/she's pretty out of line.

The more I read from this guy the harder it is for me to track with where he's coming from at all. Maybe there is a language barrier, not sure. He fires off one of the most insulting emails I've ever read and then says it's nothing personal. Furthermore, the attacks he is making, and even the email he is quoting is completely inaccurate based on what I read on your actual landing page (sent to me via email). You are not misleading people to think that they are downloading the artist in question's music at all.

I can appreciate the fact that you are sticking up for this guy, but he really does come off as a jerk. At least in my opinion.

It really kind of upsets me to see you having to deal with something like this, after all, it's my advice you're following. I just re-read your landing page and as far as I can tell, you did not violate any copyrights, you simply wrote a flattering article and then said if you like this guy's music you might also like your music (as someone who was inspired by him). This guy is off base.

One thing to point out... there are ZERO marketers out there who don't get some negative feedback from time to time. In fact it's often the most successful marketers that get the most negative feedback. That's the thing with "direct response marketing". It's designed to solicit a response. When you stick your neck out, some people aren't going to like it. But the alternative is to be passive which won't get you anywhere accept by fluke.

Everyone who engages in direct response marketing is going to get some negative feedback. You can't listen to it. All you can do is listen to your own ethical code, obey copyright and trademark laws (Disclaimer: check with a lawyer because I'm not one), and pay attention to results. I've had people send a nasty email or two about the way I market with MMM, I've also had an affiliate email me with a quote from one of his subscribers about how what I was doing seemed "spammy", but the reality is I just don't care! Those people were never going to be customers, I believe in what I'm doing, and at the end of the day I have one of the most successful music marketing products out there because I market the way that I do. The other reality is that I have about 300 positive emails for every negative one, actual life and career changing testimonials. But somehow the negative ones seem to stick so much more than the positive ones, which is why I'm writing all this. Some people are just negative and pride themselves on criticizing others. It's actually a pretty predictable percentage of people out there.

And while I know that you are aware of this, at the end of the day you were paying about 5 cents a click and getting a 35% conversion rate. That's fantastic!

Bottom line, if someone complains, stop basing your advertising on them and move on. But I really sense that this guy lives in a pretty negative space to be reacting like that. But that's just my opinion. I obviously don't know him.

If you want to be cautious you might try avoiding smaller artists that are not used to seeing campaigns based on them like that, and you might also avoid piggy backing on active news. I think it's really great and affective way to go, but it may get the occasional negative reaction. Or, throw caution to the wind and just keep doing the same thing but with different artists.

Getting back on track with the campaign itself, that price per click is awesome. You might try combining the landing page and the squeeze page to some extent and seeing if it boosts your conversion rate. If you were able to hold the conversion rate and not lose people to the second step, you might be able to drop your subscriber cost to less than 20 cents. It would be worth playing with at any rate.

That's great to hear that you are already seeing some sales as well. Shows it's working. I'm still perplexed at the reaction. I've done a lot of advertising like this, as have many of my colleagues and I've never seen a reaction like this. All I can think is that perhaps you've touched on a bit of a sensitive, holier than thou, audience.

It's not a real bait and switch if you deliver relevant content about an artist. Think about it like this... Imagine if Rolling Stone had written an article about Bob Dylan, and then advertised the key point of the article on Facebook and then linked back to their article about it. It wouldn't be a bait and switch if they were making the money on the advertising, or a call to action at the end of the article.

The only thing that I can think after reading your landing page is that the call to action is a bit seamless with the article. I personally think that's really well done, but if it's getting a negative reaction you might want to try restating your content so the piggy backing is a complete bit of content and your call to action is stated separately, perhaps leaving the other artist out of the call to action itself.

Going back to my example in MMM, I asked a trivia question in the add, answered it on the landing page, and then after I answered it I directed readers to some additional content. It's a bit cleaner and might help you avoid this kind of thing in the future, though I suspect this is isolated.

Nonetheless, the positive reaction, and the sale shows that things are working.

But with all of that said, if ever the owner of the brand tells you to stop you need to stop, it's akin to a cease and desist.

Congrats on the sale.

Steve Rodgers said:

Yeah Jasper Congrats on the sign-ups and sales.

Like I mentioned earlier.  There is going to be a calibration period while you hone the skill.  When I first started advertising, without knowing much about direct- response, I found it hard to do things without a bait & switch.

That's actually a good point which people don't really talk about for some reason. In private I've talked about this with other big name marketers and everyone sort of feels the same way. When you first start off you end up largely copying others. After a while you start to develop your own style and tone. Then eventually you're successful enough that you don't even care about maximum conversion rates or any of that and you just right purely from a creative place, knowing that your audience is big enough and loyal enough that what you are doing will work regardless. That is when things really become powerful because you know all this voodoo marketing stuff, but you don't operate from a place of fear. I'm only just starting to get there myself. The more I don't care, or just have fun with the stuff I've put out there, the better it seems to do.

...But before I drift to far off course... As Steve said, there is definitely a period of calibration where you learn what works best for you and your audience.

Greg Parke said:

Ok, I just checked this out on my wifes computer, and the right side of the page is cut off there too, so it's not just my computer. Any one else having this problem? Not a big deal since it is only in this thread, but it might be a problem if it starts to happen in other threads

Looking fine here. Try a different browser and see what happens. If anyone else is experiencing this be sure to let me know.