As more people hop on the internet marketing band wagon, consumers have become more wary of online scams. Most online scams run along the single most prevalent human problem, making money. The online world has for long been the home of hyped up marketing campaigns promising quick turnarounds. Humanity are largely believing and many scams have duped thousands of innocents who walked in believing that their break had come.

The Problem With Marketing Lingua
Although marketing as we currently know it seeks to develop an emotional buy in the reader, there is an inherent weakness in all marketing campaigns whether legitimate or fraudulent — language is limited. There is little other way to tell someone 'this product will change your life' than to tell them 'this product will change your life'. The problem with language being predominantly the same is no one can legislate against the language used in marketing a product to designate legal and fraudulent.

All successful campaigns without exception will appeal mostly to human emotion. The idea is to have people respond to the suggestion that the product or service will enhance thier life experience in some way. Since there is no particular language identifiable as the preserve of the honest and the other the preserve of the dishonest, online marketers are sometimes hard-pressed to find a way to separate their wares from fraudulent hype.

The Challenge of the Internet Marketer

As times progress, unfortunately, many online consumers find that the exciting solutions offered by the products they purchase do not live up to their promises. There are two sides to that coin. On the one hand, people do genuinely buy products that would work, if the there was full disclosure of the efficacy, or lack of it of the product. Consumers often pick products expecting them to do what they ought to do for themselves. This is common in self-help books as an example.

Too many people buy self-help books expecting some miracle potion to come out of the pages and change their world. The all important rider is silent — you will have to do a whole lot of work yourself for the lessons in this book to have any meaning in your life. There are thousands sucked in by marketing hype and end up disillusioned.

On the other hand, there are a significant number of fraudulent businesses, set up with the sole intention to defraud, using the exact same language a legitimate business would. It then begs the question, what really is a scam? Is it a legitimate business telling a half-truth just to get those sales going? Or, is it a business set up with the intention to defraud?

Can the Internet Marketer Help Draw the Line?
The real elephant in the room is to the internet marketer. Is there are way for a legitimate business to make any money with all those riders and disclaimers in their sales content? Maybe the time has come for there to be a more vigilant thought process when developing products and services for online sale. Is it possible to educate the reader to the degree that they make intelligent purchases with full understanding of their role in ensuring the efficacy of the product?

It probably is the place where blogs and well-planned websites will come to the rescue. If one can use their blog or website as an educative site, then the commercial online world will tend towards the place where there is a distinct difference between a fraudulent product and a genuine product. The real will come with clear parameters within which success is guaranteed. It is rare that a con-man/woman will take time to educate their victim.

Internet marketing in Africa, Kenya and worldwide has been facing series of challenges both for the practitioners and new comer and consumers. You made an important point in your last part of this article about educating the target market, because education is one of  the major things that separate the scam people and real as people don't have the time and brain to educate, besides if the have brain they won't be scamming people.

I think what people are looking for when it comes to online purchase isn't necessary best service but most trusted person.

Quote from: Christian Okoye on 2013-05-10 08:46
...separate the scam people and real as (scam) people don't have the time and brain to educate, besides if the have brain they won't be scamming people.

I think what people are looking for when it comes to online purchase isn't necessary best service but most trusted person.

Thanks for the addition. I agree that people mostly look for most trusted, much more than best service. This is why scams are messing the online environment because consumers do not know who to trust since we all sound the same. In Kenya, many people would rather buy an inferior service offline, than a superior service online. They are very afraid of being lied to.

As for the con-artists, its interesting you say the have no brain. Actually, they have a lot of brain, but they are spiritually/morally lazy. They prefer to make false presentations. All honest business people know that telling consumers the whole truth is often a moral/spiritual responsibility.

Have no brain here means that they have mis channeled their mental resources to wrong direction, because is better, rewarding and long lasting to build true business than become a scammer online.

Is equally important to mention the genesis of all these scammers we see online today.
Part from those who have natural tendency to scam and thief; many people when starting internet marketing business are being lied to that is easy to make money online, that they don't have to left a finger, that they're always hungry market, and that they can easily go free with it etc.
Many people that claim gurus and experts are not what they claim to be, and when they deceive these new comers to internet business by taken their money and offer low or no value, the new comers wrongly think this is how internet business works.

Quote from: Christian Okoye on 2013-05-10 13:53...many people when starting internet marketing business are being lied to that is easy to make money online, that they don't have to lift a finger, that they're always hungry market, and that they can easily go free with it etc.

Those are by far the most annoying lies you read and hear online. Online success like anywhere else takes work, work, work, and persistence. And there certainly is no easy or free money online any more than its there offline.

One needs to be financially intelligent, know how to build a business, work with a mentor, and stick to it until they succeed. As for scammers, their days are always numbered.

I think those liars are succeeding becuase what they tell new comers appeal to their ignorant. As they said that if not one factor or the other people don't like working and these liars capitalize on this to take these new webmasters to cleaner.

New webmasters/Online marketers should be careful as many in an attempt to get something for nothing end up spending something for nothing.

Sadly scammers time are numbered online to certain group of people (when people latter know how internet works) not new comers that enter internet for business on regular basis.

Unfortunately, webmasters that can tell new internet marketers the truth don't have time or care as they focus on their respective online businesses. For example unless a new online marketer join Cokoye and join conversation like this to learn, I don't go around the street preaching about internet marketing and how to make money online.
But these scammers do, in short many online marketers get to know online business through these scammers' adverts in the street.

Quote from: Christian Okoye on 2013-05-29 12:34
I think those liars are succeeding becuase what they tell new comers appeal to their ignorant. ... in short many online marketers get to know online business through these scammers' adverts in the street.

Oh goodness! Then it is up to the genuine people to also go offline and sell their business offline too and build a name for themselves. People will always be ignorant of things unless they realize they can make money from them. The internet is such a place.

Genuine people might not be patient enough to wait or follow the pace in which new webmaster response. That is usual way people respond to new products, specially when they're being told the truth. But fraudsters lie to them which they respond quickly this is the problem.