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... then baffle them with bullshit.

I have no idea where that saying came from but Steve uses it a lot and sometimes even applies it to what he's doing ... usually with some success. But even Steve admits that there's a limit to how often you can baffle others with bullshit because sometimes you simply go too far and the people you're trying to sell to will realize what you're doing and then your sale is gone. Today, when someone tried it on us, was one of those times when it really didn't work ... in fact it was so obvious that we felt really annoyed that we had been taken to be such fools.

A client forwarded us an email from someone who wanted our client to spend some money advertising on their site and our client wanted to know whether he should do so or not. There was no doubt that the deal looked good and the sales pitch wasn't too outlandish but when we began to ask questions via email that's when the bullshit really did start to be produced.

We already knew that this guy had failed with a previous site ... that sort of information is freely available on the Web if you know where to look for it. We also knew that despite his claims of traffic the new site he wanted our client to advertise on was getting hardly anything at all and we also spotted the fact that he wasn't even getting a mention in Google for his own domain name.

So when he told us that he had already been advertising the site in America's biggest newspaper we just laughed and told our client to walk away ... which he promptly did.

It would have been a totally different story if he had gone a little lighter on the bullshit and been a bit more upfront about where he was going to get his traffic from. We might have suggested that our client give some thought to advertising on his site but once he overdid the bullshit that was it.

So how often do you go too far with your advertising and cross the line between baffling them with bullshit and just plain turning them off? There's no doubt that it is a fine line but these days more and more surfers know exactly where that line is when it comes to the sales pitch that your using for your sponsor. Sadly they've been conned too often by great promises that are just not backed up by what they find once they've parted with their money and hit the member's area. And when they don't believe you what chance have you got of making a sale?

When was the last time you even looked at the sales pitch you use for various sponsors to see if you are over-doing the hype?

Perhaps we've reached the stage in online marketing for adult products where it's time to drop the hype almost completely. Perhaps we might find that we make even more sales if we simply tell it like it really is. I know that's a radical thought but you never know, we really could be at that point where something close to the truth is going to be more appealing to your surfers than overdone bullshit.

Why don't you give it a try and see if it does work? Instead of really piling on the bullshit perhaps it's time to stress the benefits of joining a site and replace the hype with text that will bring those benefits down to a personal level that might appeal to each individual. Quite often something different in the way of marketing will really appeal to your surfers and let's face it, if you try something like this then it will be different and it will stand out and be seen by the people who hit your site looking for their daily porn fix.

If you don't know how to bring it down to the personal level then stop and think about what might stand out to you if you were a porn surfer visiting your sites. Put yourself inside their head and think about what might catch their eye and might appeal to them ... and a personal non-bullshit level.

Yes I know, it can be hard to do that but if you want to become a serious marketer in this business ... or in mainstream ... then that's the level you need to bring your marketing down to. Give your surfers something personal and something that's not loaded with bullshit and you may see your sales go up.

And let's face it, that's were we all want to see our sales figures going because, once you cut through all the bullshit, most affiliates aren't doing as well as they would like to.