WarriorForum WSO Offers - Good Or Bad?
The Warrior Forum WSO (warrior Special Offers) offers seem to have taken a massive leap in popularity over the last 6+ months, but are they the "Crystal Meth" of the internet marketing world..?
I've been promoting more WSO's over the last few months, partly because there have been some really good ones, possibly because there are now SO many to chose from; partly because it's so quick and easy (my natural laziness sneaking in); and partly to see how well it works as a business model, especially as there has been such a backlash against Clickbank products because of the high number of crap stuff sold through them earlier this year.
I'll come back to my thoughts on whether WSO's are good or bad in a moment, first I want to cover something that I discovered about the "warriorplus" affiliate system last weekend.
If you're not aware, "warriorplus" is a platform used for many WSO's to allow affiliates to promote them, although you do have to pay a subscription fee each month to have the "privilege", unlock most affiliate programs.
In order to promote any WSO on warriorplus you must first request permission from the owner/publisher of the WSO and then wait to receive confirmation that your request has been "approved".
The confirmation comes in via email, and you're then good to go.
So last week I requested, and was approved for a particular WSO. It was on a topic that I'm not that interested in learning more about myself, as I've been doing it successfully myself for years, and have even written an ebook of my own on the topic (which I will get around to releasing one day, laziness again!).
But I did want to get a copy to review it before telling my email subscribers about it, so I bought a copy through my own affiliate link.
I didn't think the owner would be too concerned on the basis that, if I liked it, I would tell my (19k+) subscribers about it and bring him some new business.
It turns out I was wrong...
I checked it out and whilst it wasn't "ground breaking", it contained good solid information that I knew many of my subscribers would find useful, so on Friday I scheduled an email to go out on Sunday morning.
I had my kids staying for the weekend so I didn't get around to checking my email until late on Sunday and when I did I discovered a whole pile of emails from subscribers who had read the email, clicked on the link and ended up on a page telling them the link was "invalid"...
I logged in to warriorplus to see what was going on and discovered the owner of the WSO had rescinded my permission!
No warning, no "PM" in the WF (WarriorForum), no attempt to get in touch at all as far as I can tell, he'd just gone ahead and shut me down.
So I had to replace the dead link with a different WSO that I had intended to promote a few days later, which obviously didn't "fit" with the email I'd written, so was never going to convert well.
The obvious immediate results for me (and my business) were: -
- a bunch of unhappy/confused subscribers
- I effectively looked like a “Muppet” for not checking the link before I hit send, although it had been working when I had checked when I was setting up the email
- a loss of revenue/profits for the day
But on top of that I now feel more than a little hesitant to promote WSO's from marketers that I don't personally know and trust, not just this particular “Muppet”, who (imho) seems to be a classic example of the old saying "I'll cut of my own nose to spite my face"...
I posted a question in the thread for the WSO asking why the permission had been withdrawn, and obviously the WF being what it is, he managed to have the post removed (rather than posting a response), I guess because it may have appeared "negative" and hurt his conversions...
I also sent him a PM ("personal message" in the WF, to which I did receive a response: -
So I get it, he's had a few other people buy through their own link, so he's pissed off and to make sure that they can't actually promote HIS WSO for him, he decides to pull their permission.
hmm, ok, I'm not sure that's actually the smart move, whilst I obviously lost out on some sales, SO DID HE, AND what about the long term view here...
what's the odds on me EVER promoting one of his products again..?
If, on the other hand, he'd got in touch and asked whether I was actually going to send an email, he might have realised that losing one commission on a review copy might actually be not a bad thing after all.
My guess is he just wasn't in a "happy place" at the time, and I suspect if he ever tried out Clickbank ("hoplink hijack" central) he'd spend a LOT of time in the same frame of mind! lol!
Here's the screenshot from AWeber to show the email going out at 9:44am EST on Sunday 18th Sept to 19,985 (without duplicates) of my email subscribers, which was taken Sunday night, the same day the email went out, so the clicks he would have got ended up being quite a bit more than that: -
Forgetting what I think of this individual (can you say "Muppet") in the circumstance, there's also the worrying fact that any WSO's that I set up as scheduled emails to be sent out at a future date could have the same "permission withdrawn" problem, which makes me think twice about how I work with WSO's in the future.
So, back to the original question: are WSO offers good for your internet marketing business or not?
I'm starting to think that they are not.
There are some great ones at absolute bargain prices, but it seems to make the "bright shiny object syndrome" that many newbie and struggling internet marketers have, to go after the latest "new thing", buy it, and then not do anything with it, even worse...
Although the only "hard evidence" I have to back this up is the number of WSO's sitting on my own hard disk that I haven't done anything with, many even un-opened/read, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone...
With WSO's people can get their "shiny object" fix quick and easy, but because they're so cheap they don't bother reading, using or acting upon them, in the long term hurting their own chance of success with online marketing.
Summary: For my own business, I'm going to back off from promoting as many WSO's as I have over the last couple of months and go back to concentrating on the core products and services I use in my own business, so I know from my own experience that they work.
as always your feedback and thoughts are very welcome! 
**Note: If you want to do your own WSO then make sure you get it right: WSO Profits Blueprint
[this post: http://mattgarrett.com/warriorforum-wso-offers-good-or-bad/]
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Source: Matt Garrett & Original Post: askmatt@gmail.com (MattGarrett.com)
