Digital Marketing Offers Scams or something more? - Evaluate the latest received

▶

Hello! I wanted to share a slightly different post to talk about digital marketing, focusing on my experience with the Academy.

For several years, I have tried to build a small digital business (the Academy), and this year I have completed all my services within it, moving from a Minimum Viable Product to a functional application. Since I maintain everything myself (material and the website), my focus for the next year (2025) will be on marketing (advertising, strategies, audience growth, etc.).

This means I will need to hire external services. The simplest thing is to search online, since it's a digital service, and it's right here that I received an interesting proposal.

The Context: Evaluating Marketing Services

I want to comment on an offer I received on December 1, 2024, from the company Bluehackers.

Important Clarification: I have not worked with them, and I am not stating that they are scammers. What I have researched indicates that they are a company that offers what it promises. However, I want to evaluate them so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you have arguments to measure the seriousness of a digital marketing proposal.

1. The First Filter: Valuable Free Content

For me, the first step to measure if a marketing company is worthwhile is to see if they themselves apply the "30% free content" rule.

• The 30% Rule: In marketing, it is said that you should offer 30% of the material you sell (courses, books) for free. This allows the public to get to know you, evaluate your quality and teaching method. I apply it: I upload daily videos to YouTube and offer free courses in my Academy.

Contrast with Referrals (Romuald Fons): If you search for someone like Romuald Fons (a well-known SEO in Spain), you will see that he has a lot of free, interesting material on YouTube. You can watch that content and decide if you are interested in hiring his paid services.

Bluehackers: They practically offer no valuable free content. Their YouTube channel is extremely small (I have six times more subscribers) and only has "success stories" videos (customer testimonials). This is not added value; it is simply a form of self-selling. Their philosophy does not seem to align with what a marketing company should do.

2. Evaluating the Email Offer

They contacted me without me soliciting it ("fishing for customers"), which already subtracts value compared to if I had gone looking for them, for example, like I look for Romuald Fons' services.

A. The Exorbitant Proposal

In the email, they tell me they can take my course "First steps with Forge2D and Flame with Flutter" (which I sell for about $10-$15 on Udemy) and convert it into a "High Ticket" program where I invoice a minimum of $2,000 per sale.

Doubt: The figure of $2,000 (200 times the current price) sounds too good. As the saying goes: "When something sounds too good..."

B. Presentation Errors

• Careless Writing: The email had grammatical and formatting errors (incorrect use of capital letters). This is not corporate.
• The Founder's Signature: The email was signed by the "Founder, Marcos Razzetti." I find it absurd that the CEO/founder is dedicated to sending generic emails to cold clients. Either he has nothing more important to do, or it is a fake signature (which is also incorrect).

C. Generic Message and Lack of Product Knowledge

The course they selected for this offer ("Forge2D and Flame with Flutter") is extremely niche and specialized (mobile developers $\rightarrow$ Flutter developers interested in 2D games users of Flame/Forge2D).

It is a proven fact that the most specialized courses (like Livewire or Inertia) always sell less than the basic courses (like base Laravel), due to this pyramid.

It causes me great suspicion that they focus on this specific course, instead of a more general one (like CodeIgniter). Conclusion: It is very likely that they have no idea what the course is about and it is a generic message.

D. The Proof of the Generic Message

A few days after the first email, I received exactly the same email format (same grammatical and formatting errors), but asking about my Laravel course.

This confirms that they are sending automated messages without personalizing or analyzing the creator's product.

3. The Problem of Costs and Audience

The service they offer (even without specifying what it is) is over $1,000 (comparable to the cost of training from references like Romuald Fons).

A. The Paradox of 1,000 Enrollments
Romuald Fons, with an audience of more than 1.5 million subscribers and a great reputation, launched a $1,000 course and only obtained 1,000 enrollments (generating $1 million).

If such a large and professional figure only obtains 1,000 enrollments, it is hard for me to believe that a small marketing company can guarantee a similar or larger volume of sales at that price, with a much smaller audience and authority.

B. Price Credibility

If I decided to sell a course for $2,000 (as Bluehackers suggests), people wouldn't buy it because I don't have the same level of recognition or reputation. The price must be consistent with the authority.

On Udemy, people buy the best-rated course with the most reviews (for example, those by Fernando Herrera). It is logical that a course with three stars and seven reviews does not get more sales than the best-rated one. The same thing happens here: a company with little free content and little authority will hardly generate high-ticket sales.

4. The Last Straw: An Additional Fraudulent Proposal

As a reminder to be alert, a few months ago I received another proposal from a person in Nigeria who contacted me via Udemy:

• Proposal: Pay $50 and give a FREE coupon to 1,000 of their supposed "real students" for my Laravel Livewire course (a niche and outdated course at the time).
• The Absurdity: Basically, they were asking me: "Give your course for free to 1,000 people and PAY ME $50 for doing the favor."
• Conclusion: It is an assault on the wallet and an example of the bad practices seen on these platforms.

Final Reflection and Evaluation Criteria

So far, I have only found negative points in Bluehackers' offer: there is no valuable content, the email is generic, and the price proposal is not credible. Furthermore, they still haven't clearly told me what service they offer (strategies, advertising, etc.); they have only talked about invoicing.

• Criteria you should apply when looking for marketing services:
• Value Content: Does the company apply its own rules? Does it offer free content that demonstrates its expertise?
• Professionalism: Is the email personalized? Are there writing errors? Is the signature credible?
• Transparency: Is the service clear and the cost public, or is it generic?
• Authority/Cost: Does the company's reputation justify the high-ticket price?

Second Part of the Analysis

▶

I wanted to address a couple of additional points about my analysis of Bluehackers and the hiring of digital marketing services in general.

My intention is to offer a constructive critique to help evaluate the transparency of any digital service where there is no face-to-face interaction. It is crucial to determine if the little information they offer aligns with what you expect.

The Imperative Tone in the Email

There is a specific phrase in the email that I found very annoying and reflects a total disconnect with the customer:

"If you are satisfied with your course's invoicing, reply 'satisfied' to stop receiving these emails."

1. The Difference between Relationship and Imposition
This is rude because it establishes a dynamic of subordination that is unacceptable, especially since I did not request the email or have a pre-existing relationship with the company.

Pre-existing Relationship (Bank/Udemy Example): A bank or a platform (like Udemy) *does* have the right to require you to provide information or take actions (like replying or sending documents). This is because a relationship already exists (client-company) and they need to comply with legal criteria or keep the account active.

Unknown Party (Bluehackers): An unknown party cannot request or order a response in an imperative tone. They are placing themselves in a position of superiority, indicating what the client has to do.

2. Aggressive Marketing Strategy

At best, this is an "aggressive strategy for dummies" or "aggressive foolishness." Its only purpose is to force communication, assuming the recipient is a subordinate who will comply with the order (either out of interest or wanting to stop receiving emails). I deeply dislike this approach of "trampling" the customer.

Lack of Professionalism in Execution

My experience after initiating communication revealed organization problems:

• Failure to Keep to Schedules: We agreed on a call for a Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. (because they had the availability, and I couldn't on Monday), but they called me on the same Monday at 10:00 a.m. (when I indicated I was unavailable). Then, they called me on the same Monday at 5:00 p.m. due to a "problem." This demonstrates a lack of organization.
• Content of the Call: The first call was "informative type" and supposedly they were not going to sell me anything, but they did try to sell me their service. This is doubly negative: they did not offer value and they lied about the purpose of the call.
• The Missing Call: The second call (agreed upon for December 26 at 10:00 a.m.) did not happen. They called me almost 5 hours later (at 3:44 p.m.). At that time, I no longer answer calls.

Refusal to Document the Service

After the communication problems, I asked them to send me a document or a page that clearly detailed what on earth they were selling me, since the information by phone is not useful to me (I only retain 20% of what is spoken) and I need to analyze things in writing.

• Verbal Insistence: Their response was: "Let's agree on another call to tell you more about our services."
• My Concern: This is unacceptable. If an investment of more than $1,000 is going to be made, the details of the service must be in writing. A $10 Udemy course gives you more details than this. It is an indication that the company wants to walk all over you and prevent you from calmly analyzing their proposal.

The High Price Guillotine

My biggest concern and the deciding factor is the plan to increase the price of all my products.

I am sure they will force me to raise the price of my courses (e.g., from $8 to $2,000 in the Academy, or stop participating in Udemy offers).

Negative Consequences:

• Blind Trust: I must trust their strategies 100% without clear information.
• Risk of Failure: If their strategies do not work, I lose traffic, I earn nothing for months, and I will have paid for their expensive service.
• Affected Reputation: If I raise the Laravel course (70 hours) to $200 or $300, and a customer considers it expensive, that negatively affects my ratings and positioning on platforms like Udemy.
• Double Loss: If I refuse to raise the prices, I lose the investment, I lose time, and they will blame me (based on their arrogant tone) for not following their instructions, which could void the guarantee.
• For me, this opaqueness and the imposed treatment, added to the high investment and the risk of burning my market, are enough not to work with them in the short, medium, or long term.