For as long as I can remember now the name Carbon Copy Pro has been synonymous with Wealth Masters International. Wealth Masters International being business and Carbon Copy Pro a marketing platform to promote it with.

Despite being two separate entities, the two companies have shared a long and presumably prosperous relationship. This week however the relationship is set to end with the announcement from Wealth Masters International that they will stop taking orders from Carbon Copy Pro systems from the 10th of December.

In Carbon Copy Pro’s place, WMI is set to launch it’s own marketing system – uninspiringly called ‘WMI Marketing’.

WMI marketing no doubt will seek to replace the functionality of Carbon Copy Pro and in it’s place act as a fully fledged replacement. Although WMI Marketing hasn’t been released yet, WMI has released a feature list.

Here’s a snapshot of what WMI consultants can expect from the new system;

1. New Contact Management System

The most detailed lead system to date, identifying the lead’s IP address and detailed information about your prospect.

Things like IP addresses are already easily obtainable when a lead opts in to a capture page. Hell, when someone leaves a comment on a blog I can see their IP address so this functionality is definitely nothing new.

I am kind of curious though as to how knowing the IP address of a potential lead helps you to market to them however. Beyond perhaps verifying their location there doesn’t seem to be much use in knowing a prospective leads IP address?

I hope the other ‘detailed information about your prospect‘ isn’t more useless information like what browser they use, what OS they are running etc. etc.

2. New Internet marketing sales funnels

No information has been provided about this feature yet but there’s not too much to reinvent here. Prospect arrives at your capture page and then decides whether they want to give you their details or not.

3. Video-based training from conversion experts

Learn how to close solid prospects and the best strategies for geo-targeted marketing in your local area, and how to quickly convert prospects to customers.

I’m not singling out WMI here but Jesus Christ I’ve seen some pretty bad MLM marketing videos in my time. I don’t know who started the myth that anyone with a video camera and internet connection can bang out effective marketing videos but it’s simply not true.

The basic principles of video production and presentation do still apply, and moreso because you’re trying to bloody market something! If WMI’s conversion experts can cut down the amount of poorly produced amateurish MLM marketing videos I have to sit through then kudos to them.

4. Free educational courses

Become certified in SEO, affiliate marketing and Direct Sales, with letters of endorsement and recommendations by industry experts.

Certified in SEO? What’s that supposed to mean?

SEO stands for ‘search engine optimisation’ and is the process of optimising web content for search engines, with the ultimate goal of ranking higher for specific search queries.

I wasn’t aware there was a certification standard for this process. Kind of hard to achieve seeing as SEO itself is a dynamic field that’s constantly changing.

Similarly I’ve got no idea how WMI plan to certify its consultants in affiliate marketing or direct sales either. Both have no industry standards to measure any type of certification against.

And as for recommendations from industry experts… they’re obviously not going to be worth the paper they’re printed on.

Hi, I’m (some industry expert) and I fully certify and recommend (insert WMI consultant name here) in the fields of SEO, affiliate marketing and direct sales.

Signed,

(some industry expert)

WMI recently hired Ryan Nelson, who’s apparently big news in SEO. Maybe he’s the ‘industry expert‘ who will be certifying WMI consultants?

Personally I can’t think of a better way to trash your reputation than having people running amok on the internet claiming their certified in SEO, affiliate marketing and direct sales citing your name as accreditation.

5. Email software

Included free, with a higher deliverability rate than Aweber that will also allow you to upload your current AWeber lists and contacts into the system.

Now this should be standard and is actually useful. AWeber is quite well known and established as an Email management system for marketers and business owners so it will be quite the challenge for WMI to compete directly against it.

No idea what ‘a higher deliverability rate‘ is though. Are there email boxes AWeber can’t deliver to for some reason?

6. Weekly calls

Weekly calls with traditional, or “ground game”, marketing experts as well as SEO and Internet marketing professionals.

Weekly calls with marketing and SEO experts makes sense seeing as both industries are dynamically changing over time (SEO more so then internet marketing).

WMI however state that WMI Marketing will be ‘empowering all of our Consultants to increase their bottom line‘. No doubt there’s a heck of a lot of WMI consultants out there who have no idea about SEO or internet marketing and thus I’d call into question the effectiveness of these weekly calls.

Weekly calls from SEO and internet marketing experts is all very well but if you’ve got no idea what they’re talking about then the point is kind of lost. And if they dumb it down to much then there’s not really all that much differentiating the advice from the countless articles on the basics of internet marketing and SEO available on the internet already.

In my opinion either outcome isn’t really desirable.

7. Landing Pages for multiple WMI funnels

These will include customizable funnels and follow-up email auto responders.

Standard stuff here. You create the capture page and the funnel system is handled by WMI Marketing. Customisable follow up emails are industry standard so we’re not breaking any new ground there either.

A lot of the stuff in WMI Marketing isn’t ‘new’ per say but that’s not to say it’s not of some use. As the saying goes ‘if it’s not broken don’t fix it’ and I imagine this was in the minds of WMI when they set about creating WMI Marketing.

 

At the end of the day with the launch of WMI Marketing what we’re seeing here is WMI itself wanting a larger slice of the marketing budgets of its consultants. Why settle for affiliate commissions from a third party marketing platform (such as Carbon Copy Pro) when you can take 100% of the profit with your own inhouse system?

This is even more attractive when you can effectively force 100% marketshare by requiring your consultants use your marketing platform. WMI are effectively doing this  by restricting payments from third party marketing systems and stipulating that ‘the use of the WMI name, brand and product line CANNOT be used as leverage (points) with another, non-WMI program‘.

In other words, WMI consultants don’t have a choice.

Along with the launch of the inhouse affiliate programs WMI Health and Nutrition and Opes Partners, I believe that the launch of WMI Marketing is part of a greater strategy by WMI to move away from its traditional model of providing third party solutions to its consultants.

Why have your consultants spend their dollars elsewhere when you can provide a complete training –> marketing –> product solution?

Makes sense if you ask me but at the same time it does bring WMI closer to becoming just another everyday MLM company. 2011 should be an interesting year for WMI, it’ll be interesting to see how all this plays out.