PPC Classroom For Free … Fascinating … Here’s My Take

by Paul Colligan on February 24, 2009

In about 20 minutes, they’re giving away PPC Classroom for free. That’s the DVD, the 9-module course, even a ticket to the event in Vegas.

If you grab a history search here at the Blog, you’ll see I grabbed the course when it was a) at version 1 and b) a $1,200 program. Here’s one posting on the topic. Heck, here’s the PPC Classroom review I did at YouTube that has been viewed some 1600+ times.

But today he gives it away for free. You know how I feel about people giving away the farm. You know what I think about people undervaluing their content.

Is that what Anik is doing?

Or, … is it bigger than that?

The business reason given for this launch strategy – there is more money for Anik in the back-end of the monthly continuity program. It’s plain and simple: give the razor away for free friends, and charge for the blades.

But, and this is important, the razor/blades thing only works if the razor/blades are something that people are looking for, want, and will continue to consume.

This is round 3 for Anik and the gang at PPC Classroom. They know what they’re doing, they know what works, and they have a pretty good idea of what is going to work in the future.

This is going to be so much fun to watch.

Personally, in about 13 minutes, I’ll be walking through the process myself to examine this model for myself – for the third time. Learning from masters, should always be this easy. Will I buy any of the additional offerings? We’ll see what’s in there.

In addition, I’m going to have to spend some time pondering a model where the original product is free – and all the money is made in the back-end. Anik isn’t the only one who’s been doing it / had success with it. He’s just the one launching today.

Your take? I’d love to hear it.

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  • josephting
    This is PPC Classroom 2.0 right? Right now, PPC Classroom 3.0 is launching very very soon. =)
  • Well, I just got PPC and it was purely out of desperation to be able to make money. Unfortunately, about a year ago I signed with a company that was the help build a successful web site, Ummmmm. Well I have a site, but successful it is not and now realize the "niche" I was talked into really is not right for me. Soooo, I need all the information I can get. Still a bit of a newbie and want to make this work.
  • ppc classroom is still pretty good. I've done most of the material and started to use the taught procedures in my business. I joined when there was a cost involved and still a monthly cost. I have noticed that my monthly fees are lower then what is now advertised, and the material is definitely good and plentiful.
  • PPC stands for PayPerClick.
    The sponsored links on the right side and sometimes at the top of the Google page are included in this method. You choose your promoted keywords and pay for each visitor.
    You can get into it by an AdwordCampain. Type this term into Google and learn more if you are interested.

    oliveR
  • Gonna follow this from here to see how it all shakes out. Thanks for the updates and opinions!
  • The only thing they want you to do is agree to give them a 30 day trial, get busy with other projects and offers, and forget that you agreed to pay $97 a month. When you finally realize that they are sucking $97 a month from your account, 3 to ? months later you have paid well over the asking price for something you got very little value from. They and all the others offering these "deals" are banking on you being overwhelmed by the tons of other IM deals out there. Too bad Internet Marketers have, for the most part, the morals of a thief! They really believe that most people are stupid, jumping at the chance to exploit them to get wealthy. I hope that the marketers here are not that greedy and immoral.
  • I am participating in this offer because someone else is offering a bonus that I really want to access. Hopefully I will learn something this product too.

    I see where it could upset current clients who have invested cash into this product, as noted above, if you are making the money they claim is possible, then who cares. You have already made your money back. Why snivel, continue making money and enjoy it.
  • Mark R
    Replying to Barry - my point is that as a paying monthly member, they are giving away for free all the webinars from previous months, and I have paid for these monthly to attend. With NMIC we get real value because previous products are locked out of bounds for new members, but new members to ppc classroom get access to webinars that were for monthly paying members from months ago.
    This was originally a $497 course, and thse people may well be thinking like me - I've been shafted instead of being rewarded for being the market leaders and giving these guys a go.

    I also think that we are actually paying for the freebies others are getting, becuase the profits from the course are not being put back into it to make it better for existing members - the profits are being used to cover the cost of sending $10 dvds worldwide in their bid to bring many more people into their upsells. I also think that as a result their time planning the course teachings each month will drop because they'll have to be dealing with all the customer support issues with atracting suh a large membership - so the number of people in the tteleseminars will be large and that will lower the changes fo my questions being answered etc

    I hope that kinda explains why my response was considering cancelling. However, partly I posted this to start a discussion about this type of marketing too :)
  • William Clifford
    What is ppc?
  • All internet marketers use "freebies" to market their products, or affiliate products. There could be a lively debate about HOW this tactic is used: whether it is "discounting", and therefore inferring the product can't sell on its own as a stand-alone product, or is it simply adding value to what may or may not be a good product.

    My general rule is "No Discounting". I learned this long ago. Adding value is okay. What is not okay is angering customers. That's the balancing act. Reading comments here, if you paid $1,200 a few months ago for what is now being given away for Free to new customers as an inducement to buy, they're going to be pretty pissed off...perhaps rightfully so. If there are almost 7,000 of them, as the publishers claim, even a small percentage of that number is a lot of potentially disgruntled customers.

    The other issue is that this may be a good course for "newbies", but imo there is nothing really new here that has not already been disclosed in other programs or already known by experienced PPC pros "doing" this stuff and maybe not "teaching" it. Again, just my opinion, not putting down the program. If you want to learn, go buy it. I recommend it, and I'm not an affiliate. But I do empathize with the prior customers.

    Also, Amit's "see my home" video was warm, nice, but far from the type "affiliate lifestyle" promos we typically see. Maybe I'm just older and forgot what it was like to be 20-something living like this. Guess I'm jaded because when I was in my 20's I was living on Park Ave in NYC making $100k. 30+ years ago, that was real money!

    Elliot K
  • It's like the Acai Berry health scams.. you get the 1st bottle free... but in the background agree to billing. So it's not really "free" per se. I find that type of marketing to be dishonest even though if you read it clearly, there's no hidden fees.

    Furthermore.. if I paid for this and 2 years later it was totally free. I'd be pissed. Everybody is looking to gather new customers. Big biz to small biz. But what about your current customers?

    You get the best deals when you sign up for a new internet service.. You get $50 Adwords credit for a new account. You get the free toaster for the new Bank account.

    But if you are a 5 year customer? You get nothing.

    I was told that you never ever give away your paid bread and butter product for free. I think that was good advice then and it's good advice now.
  • Quickly...I am confused about Mark R's view on devaluing the product because he paid for it and now it's free and he is canceling. Mark, is PPC NOT working for you? It would seem that if the product is working and you are making the cash these two say you can make....what difference does it make how they marketing it in the future????

    Second....I just "bought" the product and the thing that turns me off the most is that the upsells give you the opinion that the main product is NOT good enough in and of itself and that the only way you can REALLY make it is with the upsells.
    If that is the case.....well....the main product is pretty much worthless and I will be canceling my subscriptions before the billings kick in....we shall see.

    Barry
  • I handle the marketing for a company that uses 1-yard concrete mixers to sell ready-mix. In this model, consumers are given the use of the mixing trailer for free when they purchase the concrete from the retailer. This system has worked effectively for over 15-years to distribute concrete from hundreds of locations.
    Razor blades and concrete distribution have used the idea successfully... Time will tell if this is a smart move for PPC Classroom.
  • The bottom line is, without split testing both ways there is no real way of knowing which would give greater reward. Having a "free" club full of people who you can sell products to or giving away the products in the hope people will join your "paid for" club.

    A club can update and always be "the lastest thing" where as a product will need to be updated. Having said that, free updates for life may be part of the membership deal. My opinion, for what it is worth, is having a club/list of people hungry for your products is a good thing. Maybe the guys at Stomper Net could shed some light on how many who received Stopming The Search Engines 2 still receive their net effect magazine 3 months later.
  • Jon Mills
    I went to sign up and the site wasn't secure where you enter the credit card info. Bush league!
  • Mark R
    As a current ppc classroom member, paying every month, I think that it is unfair to current customers that they are giving away a course I paid for. It reduces the value of the product I paid for, and that reduces the effect of any first to market advantage that I had paid for access to. Sure, I am happy that they are giving the course away, but this heavily devalues my investment because it was only a few months ago I paid for it.

    If you were in a queue an exclusive top restaurant, and as soon as you had ordered your expensive meal and were being given quality attention by the staff, and you were just sitting down to eat it, when suddenly the manager announcd to the next person in the queue that all meals were free ... and the hoards arrived, and the staff were too busy dealing with them to give you any answers to your questions, how would it feel?

    I'll be cancelling my monthly membership of ppc classroom today. I think their attention to their paying customers is likely to go downhill.
  • I sometimes find it stings to invest in a product and then only to have it given away for free another day. I don't see the customer loyalty here but I do see the residual income.
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