Nov
10
Deceptive Marketing Techniques: Which Ones Are You Using?
The other day, in what was arguably the worst excuse for a blog post in history, we talked about the definition of marketing. (OK, we didn’t. We talked about sex. But we sort of talked about marketing.) I got a request in the comments for a similar post on deceptive marketing techniques.
I wanted to make it funny, but the more I looked into it, the more unfunny it became. I put out a request on Twitter for thoughts on deceptive marketing practices, either definition or examples. Here are some of the replies I got back. First, some definitions:
A deceptive marketing practice is when you lead someone to believe something false. @PaceSmith
Deceptive Marketing=bullshitting people w. beautiful blabla that does not hold up to a reality check.Punishment=burning in SEO hell @fabiankruse
IMO deceptive marketing is over promising, lying, omitting deceptively, mis-characterizing as perceived by receiver. @tombragg
Clear enough, right? Don’t be an asshole and you’re good. Now what about techniques?
Amazon.com publicized a rebate offer before it was in effect, hidden in very fine print, didn’t make it right, lost me 4ever @darxyanne
$5 for the product… $95 for the shipping. @CatherineCaine
I always think of the bait and switch, i.e. surprise shit sandwiches. Promise one awesome thing, deliver a different, crappy thing. @acbowen
Product photos that resemble the actual product in the same degree to which I resemble a Harrier VTOL aircraft. @CatherineCaine
Deceptive marketing – Kids eat free! Since when does little Timmy pick up the check? @viruseye
false scarcity (we only have 30 of these dvds printed) when really they have them POD @MarieForleo (she’s referring to Print On Demand)
Whatever it’s called when a company like Radio Shack renames themselves the shack ‘cuz they think it’s cool. @gloreebe88
I immediately think of any commercial for weight loss products with those completely unrealistic before & after photos @amysnotdeadyet
Pretending to be someone I already know to gain access for no other reason than to sell me something I didn’t ask you about! @c_baltzley
Companies that put “job listings” on Monster.com, etc…that while legit companies, aren’t “jobs” as they require you to PAY $7500. @WilliamRPerry
Using testimonials from one service to “start up” another one. @GeeksDreamGirl
I was doing fine until I got to the last one. Because that one? I would totally do that. I would use the reviews of the last book to sell the next book. I would use reviews of my marketing consulting to sell a boot camp I was running. And I wouldn’t feel one bit ashamed that I wasn’t putting a big red disclaimer that said, “This person is referring to a totally different product!” either.
“This book was amazing”? No, of course not.
“Naomi is the hottest thing since rye toast and I want her to have my babies”? Hell yeah.
And I got to thinking, if it’s confusing to me, how the hell does it feel to everybody who didn’t come out of the womb rewriting crappy slogans?
The Definition of Deceptive
Once upon a time, we wrote a post called All Customers Are Liars. (If you ever want to lose a lot of subscribers in a very short time, I recommend you link to that post saying how much you liked it.) Everybody in marketing loved it. Everybody who has ever bought anything in their life hated it. Them’s the breaks, I guess.
(If you haven’t read it, you probably should go do that now, before we go on. It’s cool. We’ll still be here when you get back.)
The deception in marketing police would generally say that doing anything to deceive, or anything that might deceive, is “deceptive marketing”. They have my buy-in on number one. Number two is where it gets tricky.
Let’s imagine you and I are having a conversation at an in-person event. We talk about dogs. You give me your business card. As soon as I’m out of your sight, I make sure to write down on the back of your card that your Labradoodle’s name is Lucifer. When I get home, I log that information into my HighRise database so I won’t forget. In six months, when I send you a link to the fascinating article in the Times about Labradoodles, I make sure to ask after Lucifer.
Is that good networking or deception? Like I fucking remember your dog’s name. I wrote it down so I could increase our “personal connection” and sell you something later.
Let’s imagine somebody new follows me on Twitter, and I send them an automatic direct message. Let’s imagine I’m not a TOTAL dirtbag about it and try to make the DM sound a little more personal than some “thanks for the follow I look forward to your tweets” shit. I make it sweet and funny and friendly and unique.
Is that good social media strategy or deception? According to the deception police, this is actually WORSE than a salesy DM because at least a salesy DM looks automated. This one was created with the intent to make you think something that wasn’t true.
Let’s imagine I am particularly adept at writing newsletters. I am so good at writing copy, in fact, that I often get emails asking if the communication was a part of the regular newsletter rotation or an email custom written for the receiver.
Is that good copy or deception? Let’s face it, the entire reason the [firstnamefix] field exists in your newsletter software is to make people think it’s specifically tailored to them, even if only for long enough to get them to open the email. How many people are going to click on the affiliate link in one of these bad boys because they think I went to the trouble of recommending something specifically for them?
A few other deceptive marketing techniques for your examination and eventual slaughter in the comments section:
An email subject line with spelling or grammar errors has a higher open rate than one with perfect grammar. Because the general assumption on the part of a reader is that if it was a professional sales email, you’d have done a better job proofreading it.
Prefacing your subject line with “Re:” nearly guarantees you an open. We see the “re” and we think we’re in the middle of an email conversation.
Using a prospect’s name in the PS converts better than using their name anywhere else in the copy. Because we think that if you were going to get all fake close and personal with us, you’d have done it by now. (Aside: this only really works with a hot list.)
Some contact form software shows the entire path a visitor took on your website before they got to your contact page. So the business owner knows EXACTLY what you were interested in. Why did they enable that feature? Because they wanted to custom tailor a pitch to exactly the sort of stuff you like. So you’ll think, “Holy crap, this is completely perfect!” and never know why.
With each and every one of these techniques, you’re being deceived. Actively deceived. Somebody spent a lot of time and money learning how to deceive you like that. It’s subtle deceit perpetrated by highly skilled individuals who know exactly what, statistically, will make you buy their stuff.
I don’t use HighRise. (Although I do frequently recommend it.) I don’t use the first name field in my Aweber broadcasts. (If you get an email from me using your first name, it’s because I sent it manually or because you just bought something.) I sure as hell don’t send auto DMs, which are pretty much the most deceptive pieces of shit I’ve ever seen.
But I’ll certainly use personal recommendations that resulted from previous products on my sales pages. I’ll certainly pimp the shit out of my subject lines to make you really, really want to open the emails. And I will gleefully only sell 1000 of something because I know it gets you out of your “maybe later” funk for long enough to click BUY NOW. I won’t tell you I only HAVE 1000, but I’ll inform you that’s all I’m selling.
What do you think? Are some kinds of deceptive OK where others aren’t? Should we stop using techniques that boost conversion because they might deceive people?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could just create awesome products and services, post a description about them on a crappy looking site, and have people throw wads of cash at us?
That would be awesome, but that is not reality when selling online, offline, or somewhere in between the sheets.
People that are producing really amazing products have to put in the time optimizing their sales pages, worrying about SEO, and multivariate testing because that is what needs to be done to cut through all the crap. Is it deceptive? Yes at times, but it is not deceptive in a way to harm our customers. If you are doing something great, then you have to put your best foot forward and show people that you have something of value. If you don’t, then someone that has less valuable products will and it might burn your potential customers to the point they will never buy anything similar again.
Does it feel dirty? Yes, but that goes away when you are getting checks from people while they tell you how much your products and services changed their life. If you do that, does it matter if you have to manipulate them a little to get them there?
OK, I haven’t had a lot of coffee yet. (Well, I haven’t had ANY coffee yet, really) but I’m going to try commenting. Wish me luck.
You’re right. If I could just say, “Hey, Marketing School is out!” life would be a lot more fun. It would be nice to never have to wonder, “Is this too far? Is this going to be too pushy?”
It’d also be really nice to not have to wonder how many emails I was going to get from people who didn’t hear about what I was offering because I was trying to be subtle.
Fine line indeed.
Deliberately selling something that is either crap or not right for the people you’re selling to and making yourself inaccessible to communication about it, that is deceptive.
Not thinking about what your customers need, only what you need, that is probably going to be misleading.
Helping people decide to buy your good stuff while having excellent customer service and a no-nonsense money back guarantee system, that is not deceptive.
Definitely a good point. If we could only stop people from accusing me of phrasing my guarantee the way I do in order to lull people into comfort. :) Can’t have everything, I guess.
I often engage in “deceptive learning practices” in my little pond of teaching and training. (I haven’t been convicted yet, but there are some outstanding warrants.
That’s because my customers arrive with their antenna up, ready to react negatively at the first sign that I’m going to do some of the “school” stuff that they just hate. So I have to spend some time having fun, loosening things up, and getting them in a proper frame of mind to take in the new concepts and ideas that we’re supposed to pour into their little skulls full of mush.
I don’t apologize for that, and neither should you. As long as what you’re doing is presenting a solution to a problem (or filling a need) that the customer has, anyone who thinks every single advertising/marketing claim is literally and completely accurate must have just stepped out of the Tardis.
People expect to suspend disbelief as we spin our stories and tell our tales, showing them how they’re going to fit their fat butts into those size 7 jeans.
I was actually thinking about that after I scheduled this post. What about humor? Are we funny because we’re funny, or are we funny because we know it’s disarming? What if we’re funny because we’re funny AND we know it’s disarming? Do we have to stop being funny as soon as we know?
Humor can be manipulative or kind in its disarming nature.
When talking about a touchy subject, a little humor can lighten the mood and break the tension, providing some relief to those involved.
When consciously manipulating someone and taking them for all they are worth, humor can equally break the tension and make someone feel like everything is all right.
By the way, did you know you can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish?
Yeah… couple of years ago the Lucky Jeans sales chica sold me a pair of jeans… “Hey try these on! They will look great on you!” Waist size _supposedly_ 29 inches. Uh huh… Hey, I can still sort of get into a 32… but 29? Not friggin hardly.
I bought ‘em.
They look pretty good. And they aren’t even too uncomfortable, at least after I’ve worn them all day.
That prompts me to share a billion-dollar idea for whoever wants to do it. Open a women’s clothing store called “Size 7″. Every piece of clothing has a tag that says “Size 7″ in it. They’re actually available in every size, but the labels all say the same thing.
Big, mucky grey area.
I remember the name of a customer’s dog because I like dogs, and if I’ve taken the time to have that much of a conversation, then it’s genuine interest, not a database marketing stunt. But the customer wouldn’t necessarily know if it was.
Advertising maestro Terry O’Reilly says he hates telemarketers because they don’t give anything back. He makes a good point.
So where does the line get drawn? I guess it depends on who’s holding the pencil. I’d rather err on the side of transparency. I may not get rich that way, but I’ll sleep better.
I think you’re exactly right. I don’t remember dog names, but I do remember kids’ names. I don’t do it to sell ebooks, but it sure might look that way to some.
If you have a good product, but way too bad marketing, people will just get annoyed and you are doomed. The same for bad products with bad marketing.
If you have good marketing for a good product, there is no problem for me. I then won’t even discuss the deceptive forms it might take, because as you point out, every selling pitch can be deceptive in some way.
The problem is wanting to sell penis enlargement and belly reduction pills and stuff like that to make some fast cash – and the marketing that comes with it. So in the end, maybe there’s just evil products, but no evil marketing…
“Maybe there’s just eviil products, not evil marketing…”
Interesting!
Because you’re right. When somebody I like and respect pulls a marketing stunt on me, I never mind. Because I might want what they’re selling. Or I know they’re doing it for my own good — to cut through the crap and let me know, “Hey, this is something good here. Look alive, lady!”
When somebody I don’t like or respect does it, whole ‘nother ball game.
We are actively being marketed to, decepted, lied, cheated to, taken for a ride, being sold a dummy, being taken the piss out of (can’t think of any more phrases offhand) everyday by all manner of companies and services, and you know what? It works. We are all consumers at the end of the day and in today’s now economey everyone wants that stuff you are selling NOW dammit. Just make the sales pitch a little bit more right for me than that other sales pitch and bob’s yer uncle – kerching.
If you don’t like the sales pitch you don’t have to buy the stuff, whether it’s personalised or not.
It’s really amazing, when you think about it, how many people change their moral stance on what is and what is not okay depending on whether or not they want the product.
When Coach sells me a lifestyle to sell me a purse, I’m all over it. When H&M does the same thing I’m up in arms. Hmmm…
If we don’t use deceptive marketing techniques, then we’re forced to come to grips with the reality that we’re really just not that special – and we’ve got a big bag of nothin’.
I totally have issues with this. I think there’s a radical difference, not just on a scale but like on a totally different order of existence, between persuasion and deception.
With persuasion, there’s a sincere belief and effort to make things better, to help. If the offer doesn’t fit someone, you’re happy for them not to buy it. If they need it, you’re happy to help them make the choice that’s right for them.
With deception, it’s all about personal gain, there’s no caring for the other person and what they need.
This is a critical distinction. If all one looks at are “strategies” then there’s no difference between a Zen master who slaps a student with a bamboo stick to wake them up in their meditation practice, and a torturer who is whipping a prisoner with a bamboo stick in an attempt to degrade, injure, humiliate and control the prisoner.
I don’t call those tactics “deceptive.” I call an intent to deceive because if people knew the truth they wouldn’t respond “deceptive.”
I was going to write this comment, but Mark beat me to it.
There’s a radical difference between the “I’m going to use the psychological tactics I know to sell you excellent products that you probably need” crowd (i.e. you) and the “Shit sandwich! Surprise!” crowd.
The “excellent products” crowd knows that they’ve got something worthwhile to sell.
The “shit sandwich” crowd knows they DON’T.
So that when each crowd uses various marketing tactics to push their product, one is doing it because they know their awesome stuff will reach more of the people who need it, and the other is doing it because if they don’t dupe people, nobody will ever buy their crap.
The differences are:
1. Actually giving a damn about people
2. Having a product that’s going to provide a lot of value.
How about when you suspect you don’t have a great product?
There are lots of things that I talk to people about that I think I’m just competent to speak on, but they think I’m a genius. I’ve just spent more time on the issue than they have, and I’m good at research. Something that I actually do feel confident about, it doesn’t even feel like I’m working hard to describe it to someone. Does that make it worthless?
That’s the trap of under-selling yourself. It start with too-low pricing, and compounds with half-hearted promotion. That’s the “icky” feeling people get when promoting themselves. “Why would anyone pay $47 for this? It only took me a week to write it.” Or, “How can I charge someone $200 per hour for consulting? I’m just telling them things they could have looked up for themselves online.”
First, thank you for your very, very good points.
I would guess that you and I agree that it’s about intent and purpose. Why do we apply scarcity, especially when sending communication to certain groups (like fans)? Because we know, from prior experience, that they WANT to be told. They’re grateful that we said, “Hey, this is urgent, so listen up” and we know that because they email us to tell us.
When I have sales, there are some people who I will email personally to tell them, because I know they’re busy and they’ll want to know. “Hey Mark, I know you’re slammed and probably have no time to read newsletters right now, but Marketing School is available and I know you expressed interest in it last year.” Why? Because you want to know.
But somebody else doing the same thing to peddle crap? It would seem that the popular opinion is that doing it under those circumstances is totally different. And we won’t even get into the definition of crap.
The problem is that while there is a hell of a lot of talk about what constitutes deception, there isn’t much that couldn’t be described as deception by somebody looking for it.
Jamie and I got to talking the other day about things (deception or otherwise) that could be described as marketing tactics or just being a really nice guy. A certain marketing hater that comes here every now and again offers a professional service at a pay what you can rate because they find marketing so abhorent that even setting a price violates their principles.
Jamie said, “And saying it’s PWYC isn’t a tactic? A tactic to make people pay MORE than they would have otherwise because they don’t want to look like a cheap ass? A tactic to make you look like a nice guy? A tactic to get good press?”
Certain things are inherently deceitful. But it’s hard to find anything that’s inherently honest. Maybe it’s executed in an honest way by you or me or Jon Fields or Chris Guillebeau, but that doesn’t make it always honest.
The issue I’m trying to raise here is that, if people go around looking for the perfect way to sell something that could never, ever smack of deceit or trickery, well, they’re gonna be looking for a long time.
Oh yeah, absolutely. If you’re talking about perspective, people can find whatever they want wherever they look. Someone was really upset at us for cancelling our retreat, and I took about a week to catch up on my email- a couple of times- and he accused me of being out of integrity. I spent time, foolishly in retrospect, being honest and transparent about our situation and what we were trying to do to fix it- and he took that to be further proof of our lack of integrity. Sheesh!
So folks can find whatever they are looking for.
However, I’m not convinced that any particular tactic is honest or dishonest- because the tact comes down to a simple action. If the information is false, then it’s dishonest. But the mechanism of the action? It’s just what it is.
So that’s my two cents. Time to go write a persuasive promotional email.
love
If I intend to do good, but say don’t take adequate safety measures, I can still be sued or put in jail if my customers die from using my product. Good intent is not enough.
And I assume I am the “marketing hater” you refer to, who used to offer my services as a pay whatever you want rate. I found that clients paid my full rate or nothing at all, so now after that experiment I just charge a rate and offer pro bono or sliding scale to clients in need.
And I’m not just a marketing hater, I’m also your customer (purchased OBS)!
Zen teachers historically have been extremely violent with students, including killing them through harsh beatings at times. Zen in the West has a long history of physical abuse, power and money trips, and inappropriate sexual conduct with students. See: http://www.terebess.hu/english/lachs.html
Taking your metaphor of the Zen teacher and the torturer in this larger context, they start looking the same. James Arthur Ray effectively tortured and killed several workshop participants in the name of spirituality, and Zen masters have done it in the name of Zen. Abuse is abuse.
Duff, man, you know I respect you. And every religion and culture has a history of physical abuse. I know this is your particular drum that you beat, about manipulation, mind control, and abusive gurus. It’s a good thing to be aware of.
But that wasn’t the point I was making. I was talking about intent. If a spiritual teacher has the intent to torture someone with a bamboo cane, of course it looks the same. But if spiritual teacher lightly “thwacks” a student who has fallen asleep drooling over her/his beads, waking the student up- then it’s a completely different thing.
Of course you can say that sleep deprivation is another form of torture. Can we just say that sometimes these things are done in healthy ways that actually support the student, and not every time these various approaches are used that it’s a case of torture or abuse? Just so we don’t have to beat this same drum every single time it comes up?
If we’re talking about a real live case history, instead of a generalization, and you think it’s abusive, then heck ya, let’s dig in and examine it.
But hey, sometimes things are okay. Sometimes people are okay. Sometimes we’re safe.
Personally I’m opposed to all beatings of spiritual students, whether light taps or strong smacks (and they range within contemporary Zen traditions).
The reason I bring it up is that any teacher accused of abuse says “I didn’t intend to harm,” including Mr. James Ray. Similarly, no deceptive marketer would say “I intended to steal money from people by lying.”
How do you then measure intent? What if you actually do intend to do good but end up being deceptive or otherwise cause harm?
Also, if you search the rest of these comments for my name, you’ll see (I hope) that I am not simply harping on one side of this complex issue.
The line for me is: Would I be willing to tell the customer what I did to get the sale?
Would I tell them I wrote down Lucifer’s name and breed so I could remember to send him something he might be interested in? Sure. And the customer probably wouldn’t be that surprised.
Would I tell them I auto-followed? Sure, why not? I don’t actually do it, because I don’t think it accomplishes anything worthwhile, but I’m not offended when someone does it to me.
Would I tell them I intentionally mis-spelled the subject line? No, probably not. That would be embarrassing.
Split testing? Keywords in page titles? AdWords with targeted landing pages? Absolutely.
To me it really is that simple. If I wouldn’t admit it to the person I’m doing it to, I probably shouldn’t be doing it.
I’ll reply to both of your comments here so I don’t send the nesting function into a spaghetti plate full of insane.
This is a very good idea. My advance discount list knows exactly what I do because I tell them. I come out with a product, give them a discount on it, and make it good for 4 days. Every time. Email on day one through three, two emails on day four. They know I’m doing it. Hell, I teach them how to do it.
The misspelling? No way. Exactly.
On your other point (about suspecting your offering is crap) is a tough one as well. When Johnny started offering Wordpress and theme installs, we got crazy mail from people saying he was taking advantage of customers. How DARE he charge $100 for something that ANYBODY could do themselves?! It was a hard time for Johnny and me because he was still really new at that point and I wanted to explain to him that just because 5 people think it’s stupid doesn’t mean there aren’t 50 people thinking, “Oh, thank GOD!” It’s hard to explain that without sounding like I’m talking out of my ass, because it’s a lot easier to listen to the angry people than your sales figures.
Re: “How DARE he charge $100 for something that ANYBODY could do themselves?!”
That’s like asking why ANYBODY would go to JiffyLube when they could change the oil themselves!
EXACTLY! :)
Charging $100 for a WP install might be just fine…unless there is an entire industry that exists around installing WP and it costs $20, and the $100 installs are exactly the same and sold with deceptive marketing!
That doesn’t appear to be what JBT is doing, but *is* what the overpriced field of $47 ebooks does appear to be doing.
The ‘asking after Lucifer’ thing makes me uncomfortable, personally. (Although if they really did have a dog called Lucifer, I’d definitely remember it, and probably love them forever for it.)
An example of a similar thing: a blogger (who I admire a lot, I mean no disrespect to him by mentioning this) says that he always sends a short individual message when you subscribe to his list. So, you subscribe to his list, and you get a little message, which he has clearly taken a moment out of his day to write. That’s surprising, it’s going to make you feel special. Because who would send an individual message to every single person who subscribes to their list? That would be crazy.
Or, the person you had that chat with at the convention last year emails you and asks after your dog. Wow! They remembered you and your dog after all that time? You must have really made an impression on them.
Odds are, then, that you’re going to think there was something about you that made the blogger or the conference attendee single you out, that they were thinking of you in particular, reaching out to you in particular over other people.
But if you later realise that that wasn’t about you at all, that it was just part of their marketing process, you’re probably going to feel kinda foolish and embarrassed for ‘falling’ for it, and kinda hurt. Like you’ve been led on. It never feels good to think someone likes you and then find they were pretending.
So for me, anything that is designed to feel like a personal connection when it isn’t, is manipulative. That’s not to say there can be no personal connection in marketing – good businesses have tons of personal connection. I’m all about the personal connection. But you shouldn’t be giving the impression of more than really exists. That’s just the marketing equivalent of playing fast and loose with people’s hearts.
I really have a very different point of view than this. As I taught last week in our own class on systems and structures, your business is separate from you, and it deserves it’s own brain. For a business to be successful and help the people it can help, it will have many, many more relationships than an individual can hold in their own head.
Heck, my personal circle of intimate friends is about 20, and I still write down their birthdays. Is that manipulative?
My business, your business, can’t do what it’s supposed to do in the world on 20 relationships, or 200. Your business will, if it’s successful at all, build relationships with potentially 1000’s of people.
It’s okay with me if the business needs to write things down to remember. If someone’s writing it down from a sincere caring, then the act of putting it in the database, and then looking it up later is an act of kindness and caring.
I think there’s a clear line between Amazon using prior purchase information to make suggestions and some sleazy used-car salesperson writing down my pugs’ names to pretend that he really cares about my little furry fart-factories.
That’s what I object to. And I don’t care if you put it in your Rolodex(TM), add it to my listing in ACT!, or grab it off my blog just before you call me. You’re forging a relationship (pun fully intended and executed flawlessly) with me. And I resent the hell out of it.
But I hope they keep doing it. It really helps me identify the types of jerks I don’t want to buy used cars from.
I think it’s still contextual. If the used car salesman brings up my pugs but isn’t pushy in selling me more car than I need, then perhaps it is appropriate.
Communication ethics are always in context.
I think this goes towards Fabian’s point, above. Maybe (with exceptions) it’s not really the tactics that are deceptive, but either the way in which they’re used, or the people who use them.
I just have to point out that Naomi doesn’t usually have comments turned on, and we ALL know that she never responds. So it’s pretty obvious to me that you’ve hired an intern to write these responses.
That doesn’t make me appreciate it any less, though. It’s the thought that counts.
I saw you making this claim in a tweet the other day. What’s up with the suspicion and the negativity? Why are you spending time publicizing this claim? I don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve.
Whoops — forgot to have the tag turned on, sorry. It stems from an exchange the other day from a few of us who all love and admire the Goddess Who Is Naomi. She’s become so prolific lately you’d think she was twins.
Of course it’s her doing all the writing. And the cursing. Until Jack learns to type.
Oh, sarcasm! No, I didn’t read it that way at all. Thought you were just being a dick. (PS: Notice how I was more polite while disagreeing with you?)
Oh shit, I just noticed you really are a Dick. I’m ROFL-ing myself here.
I would call this the context in which a technique is used.
In addition, we are all using “techniques” of communication unconsciously all the time. Sometimes learning about deceptive marketing can be a way to avoid doing it unconsciously.
I’ve made a serious effort over the last few years to remember people’s names. It’s a trick – I do exercises like going around the room in my head naming everybody I know – and I don’t think it’s any different to writing down “Steve likes badminton.” It’s just remembering things on paper instead of in your head, and my head isn’t big enough for everything I want to remember.
It’s no different to doing research on a company you want to work for so that you can ask intelligent questions in the meeting or interview.
If someone bothers to remember or write down or record somewhere that I play guitar or do NaNo or keep a list of what I’ve bought in the past and make sensible recommendations based on those, it shows they care about how I feel, even if they’re doing it to manipulate me into buying something. Someone who makes me feel loved, or that they’ve being paying attention to me, scores way more highly than someone who barely bothers to read my message before sending me an irrelevant reply.
Just because you have a system for applying a personal touch doesn’t make it any less personal.
“Just because you have a system for applying a personal touch doesn’t make it any less personal.”
Beautifully said. Have nothing intelligent to add to that.
It makes me think a little of the VERY big boys who make a point of personally responding to every email. Nice, right? Except maybe not nice, because how personal is something really, when they’re doing it to 1000 different strangers every single day? Personal and special or standard operating procedure? Tough to say, sometimes.
Clinton had a knack for remembering everyone’s names, and so did George W.
You kind of expect a politician to be charismatic and learn such things, and perhaps even a salesman. Whether it “is” manipulative again seems to be contextual.
What if you additionally learned how to elicit someone’s “falling in love strategy” and anchored it to yourself using techniques from NLP? Anyone who’s attended Tony Robbins’ basic seminar is capable of doing this.
I personally find this technique unethical in all contexts except perhaps when your dating someone who you think is a good fit whom you’d like to have an intimate relationship with. But some salesmen are willing to use such techniques, as are some spiritual teachers and personal developmen gurus.
What’s the alternative to NOT mentioning your past rave reviews on other products when you launch a new one? Acting like you’ve never written a successful course or e-book? Of course not.
If you’re launching Marketing School Redux and you have positive feedback from the first course there, that’s establishing credibility. The reviewers didn’t think the first round sucked – and that should be obvious, because if it did, no one would have bought it and you wouldn’t be writing a second one.
If sharing positive testimonials from other/previous products was deceptive, no one would have sections highlighting those comments on their website. By that logic, I’m supposed to disregard their past performance because it doesn’t apply to MY project that they haven’t even started yet?
Jamie and I were talking about that this morning about sending emails to the SEO School buyers letting them know about the discount on Marketing School. Some people wrote back angrily asking to be taken off my list. (And I’m like, honey, if you were on my “list”, you’d be getting a shit ton more email than THIS!”) If I send the email, I’m trying to push you to buy something. Maybe I’m betraying your trust because you let me into your inbox a year ago to buy something and not one damn thing more.
But what if I didn’t send the email? Am I hiding the discount and hoping you don’t notice?
You bitch! How dare you offer me a discount because I bought one of your products before! Thoughtful marketers must be burned at the stake while we throw mayonnaise sandwiches at them!
Seriously, that’s just totally lame. Why on earth would people get pissy that you’re offering them a discount? Jeez. You just cannot please everyone, girl.
Some of those tactics aren’t so bad. The one you said you would do (testimonials) is a pretty common, and smart, practice. You have to leverage your successes.
But what about the RadioShack comment? It’s not deceptive to rebrand. Every adaptive company has a finger on the brand pulse and considers rebranding all the time.
And what’s wrong with “kids eat free”? The kids did actually eat free, right? No trickery there.
I swear, the term “marketing” must scare the crap out of some people. Not every marketing tactic is meant to deceive you. Just because they’re designed to push your emotional buttons doesn’t mean they’re always trying to trick you.
Weirdly, I am most bothered by the intentional misspelling or grammatical error in subject line.
My first reaction upon reading something like that is: “Does NO ONE proofread anymore???”.
Second reaction: “Damned if I’m going to buy something from someone that stupid or careless!”
And that’s the hardest part, isn’t it? People, especially newcomers to the marketing scene, are very perplexed by this. If they know a misspelling (am I even spelling THAT right? Yikes) will up their numbers but they know a certain (smaller) percentage will be turned off by it, what to do? I mean, I know what *I* do, but it’s definitely a decision that has to be made by each business, and it’s a really hard one.
Jon Fields was talking about this in his sales page post yesterday. (http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/rage-against-the-sales-letter/) A lot of very vocal people say they hate long sales pages. A lot more people buy from them. The question a lot of marketers are asking themselves is, do they deliberately hijack sales to keep the loudest people happy? And what about the loudest people who say they don’t like long sales pages but still buy from them anyway?
It’s a hell of a hard question to answer.
The misspelling bugs me as well- not that my typing is perfect always, but it is one of the things that an old boss of mine told me to do to get more people to click on Craigslist ads- this is a high end building we are talking about, people expect management to be able to spell.
Reading this post and the comments, a couple of things stand out.
First, the tweet about using an old testimonials to launch a new service. My interpretation of this was different than what it seems the majority took away from it.
I didn’t read it as Naomi takes a testimonial from an old ebook to launch a new ebook. But rather that she takes an old ebook testimonial to launch a massage therapy service.
That would be deceptive.
The second thing has more to do about the recipients of marketing tactics.
I’m befuddled by this whole idea that someone selling me anything could constitute a “personal connection.”
Amazon tracks my purchase to get me to buy more stuff, not because we’re best buds or that they even give a crap about me at all. It’s called target marketing.
The only reason my name gets put on printed or digital sales letters is because the technology exists to do it.
Even if the seller has a genuine belief that their product will make your life better, and goes to great pain to insure that only the customers by the product, there is still not a personal connection.
Hell, for me whether your selling me something or not, or I know you electronically or in RL, unless we have had a real conversation that reaches below those surface amenities that get us through most social interactions, we have not had a personal connection. (This usually means we’ve discussed religion and politics and are still speaking.) :)
What if the testimonial said “Naomi is an honest and trustworthy businessperson. I had a problem downloading her ebook and she was very helpful in getting my problem solved fast.”
In other words, what if the testimonial was clearly for her previous profession? Trustworthiness is often generalizable between business ventures.
I get all of this and everything, but I feel like there’s this underlying assumption that all consumers are idiots….ok, some may be….but most are not. Doesn’t someone have to be deceived in order for you to deceive them?
You know what, I don’t mind long sales letters. I know that the person is trying to sell me something. I know they’re putting in all sorts of tactics to get me to buy and click on a button. I think the large majority of people realize this. What’s deceptive is if the product doesn’t live up to the hype.
Same with the networking example. If that same person who I had not spoke with for over a year sent me some e-mail and referenced my dog’s name, I wouldn’t think ‘gee, that person is great, they totally remember me and my dog’s name.’ I would think, ‘wow, that person actually took the time to put some sort of information about me in a system that would later jog their memory when they contacted me again.’ I don’t think of that as deception…I think of that as caring. As someone who is so focused on their business and customers that they have a system in place for remembering random shit about a conversation that happened over a year ago. I appreciate that.
I think we can keep it quite simple here.
Be yourself. Provide value to your customers. CARE about your customers. Sell the hell out your products to your customers and use whatever marketing tactics you want.
If your customers trust you and you have people you care about and trust promoting your products, then you’re all good.
I know it’s not all puppy dogs and rainbows out there. There are bad people who do bad marketing…but, they usually get weeded out pretty quick. Their marketing is good, but their products suck and they don’t care. Sooner or later they’ll be kicked to the curb.
Who will kick the deceptive marketers to the curb if the deceived think of themselves as suckers for being deceived?
Manipulators take advantage of this fact of cognitive dissonance to continue their shell games.
However you play it, there are probably gonna be folk who take something as “deceptive”. I got a (very sweet!) email today from someone who’d subscribed by email to the Aliventures feed, and got the double-opt-in email. You can customise that in Feedburner and — quite probably with “what would Naomi do?” in mind — I did.
He thought I’d written the message *just to him*. I had tried to make it a bit less bland than the usual ones. I also tried to make it sound like ME, not some Feedburner copywriter. So where’s the line between being yourself (ie. human and warm even in the bits of writing that people expect to be purely functional) and being deceptive?
I’m not gonna lose sleep over this or anything, but it has made me think a bit.
Do you think that there are any tactics that are *actually* deceptive?
Fascinating…no, I really mean that.
Newbie Opinion…
I’m new to this online marketing stuff..so new, no launch just yet.
But I’m an old hand at small town Storefront Mktg…you know, where people can walk in, find you, look you in the eye and give you their beefs or bouquets. For now, that experience is my guide.
keywords, site copy, delivery systems…hey, in the ‘old’ days I used radio…while it’s not a pure comparison there are overlaps…keywords, copy, delivery systems…I still put it out their…You get one of two things…Opinion (good=$ bad=-$) or Apathy…
Will it hurt my bottom line…how would I know? Below the bottom line is me…a newbie looking in the mirror.
It’s so murky that I hate to stride in with A Definitive Opinion, but I think a lot of tactics are made sleazy or acceptable by the previous relationship.
It’s the difference between asking your buddy for a $20 loan, or running up to a complete stranger and asking them. If you’ve interacted with someone and they’ve made some move to indicate they value your opinion (joining the newsletter, Twitter-following, etc) then you can use persuasive stuff. But if they don’t know you from a bar of soap, “persuasive” often ends up looking like “desperate and pushy”.
Catherine
Some folks who use deceptive selling like Tony Robbins in particular, set up a long relationship first before going for the jugular. Length of relationship isn’t necessarily a factor in determining ethical sales.
There’s so much grey area, and it’s all very individual, but here’s the thing that I wonder: if the connection we made in our conversation about pets was genuine, then how is it deceptive to go out of your way to remember the details so you can thoughtfully reference them later?
My nuanced, carefully honed response to your question: It depends.
Personally, fwiw, I have no issue with the whole Lucifer thing. Example: a massage place I went to a couple of years ago just sent me a card for my birthday, with a €20 voucher. They did it last year too. I’m aware that nobody there is “genuinely” glad it’s my birthday, but it makes me feel that they’re thoughtful of their customers. Are there really people out there who would get that card and think “wow, they remembered!”? Perhaps the issue is fuzzier with an ittybiz as opposed to a company with employees and premises and so forth. But I still wouldn’t call it deceptive.
Two further remarks:
1. An email subject line with spelling or grammar errors has a higher open rate than one with perfect grammar.
This? Makes me cry.
2. What if we’re funny because we’re funny AND we know it’s disarming? Do we have to stop being funny as soon as we know?
Heh. My reaction when I found out that up to 20% of my blog traffic comes through the comments I make on Havi’s site: “Oh em gee, now you have to stop commenting so often, in case you’re only doing it for the traffic,” said my inner … um … what’s the opposite of a cheerleader? A booleader? Fortunately, I’m chipping away at that set of attitudes and was able to reject the conclusion. But that’s basically where I’m starting from, internally. I hope this means that it’ll be a looooooong time before I have to worry that my marketing efforts are too aggressive.
Naomi – Hey Would I like to meet your Daddy! He certainly provoked some deep conversation on the matter, ai? Completely fascinating exchange.
My charge to ponder =
Hell No – Humour makes the world go round! I think sarcasm does too, Drew (:
Whoops: it was this quote: What about humor? Are we funny because we’re funny, or are we funny because we know it’s disarming? What if we’re funny because we’re funny AND we know it’s disarming? Do we have to stop being funny as soon as we know?
Back to our old friend Lucifer, the most popular fictional Labradoddle in the known world. Like Drew, and a number of others, I would have no problem finding out that someone had done this to me. In fact, I would probably have said something like “Dude, that’s an awesome idea! I’m totally stealing that.”.
Then we have Kate, and I suspect also a number of others, who find out that Lucifer was just a notation in your HighRise account, and feel a little dirty.
This is exactly why deceptive marketing is so hard to pin down. Each of your customers have their equally valid expectations of how you will or will not act towards them. The problem is, these expectations differ significantly from person to person. Even more difficult is that there is no way of discovering exactly what all these expectations are.
Some people are going to find a certain action a good marketing move, while others will believe the exact same action is evidence that you are obviously the spawn of Satan.
This is why Drew’s rule from his earlier comment really works for me. If you can tell someone exactly what you did, with no shame or embarrasment, you are fine. Doesn’t mean your customers will necessarily like it, and they WILL vote with their dollars. But at least you’ll be able to sleep at night.
What if I just naturally have a great memory for dog names and didn’t write it down in HighRise?
What if I trained my memory—in general (not specifically for sales pitches)?
What if I didn’t write it down, but specifically trained my memory to remember customer details for sales pitches? (Many mnemonic courses advertise specifically to salespeople.)
What if I have a terrible memory and thus write everything down?
The problem with the “no shame” criteria for non-deceptive marketing is the sociopathic personality, who by definition is ruthlessly self-centered and lacks shame, as well as empathy.
The main deceptive marketing and sales tactics are practiced by those who meet the criteria for sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder.
Even more slippery still….
Your point is well made, someone who is sociopathic and lacks empathy is going to do whatever they like with little or no concern as to how their customers feel.
However, since such a person does what they like with little concern towards the approval of others, I doubt that they are out there reading posts like this to find out if their marketing techniques are considered “fair” by others.
I think the shame test is more targeted towards the 99% of the people who are not sociopaths and want to make sure they are not breaking any kind of marketing taboo.
Okay, so I’m all late to the game here, but my view is similar to Mark’s for most cases.
Of course, we’ve been talking about how any description can be read into an action – but to make a moral assessment, you have to know about someone’s motives and/or character. I tried to make this point today over on PF (MARKETING PLOY!), but I don’t know if I used enough curse words and “you’s” to get people to read it. If only I had used more trigger words to get people to read the post…wait a second…
Drew’s test works pretty well for this and most other moral questions. Can I tell others about it with integrity? Did I respect them as a person whose interests and needs are morally on par with my own? Did I provide value? Answering yes to these questions goes a long way to cover your bases.
I’ll write more of this nonsense on PF when I don’t have wine in hand.
You do *not* need to know motives or character to make a moral—nor legal—assessment. Since you can never know motives or character completely, you can never make moral judgments on your ethical system.
Mine is simpler—something bad happened due to the actions of person X. Therefore, they are morally, ethically, and legally culpable.
There’s substantial disagreement from legal scholars and ethicists on this point, Duff – you know that.
Furthermore:
“Since we can never know the universe completely, we can never make scientific judgments in physics.”
Tying causal responsibility to moral culpability is also problematic. Lastly, moral questions and legal questions are distinct issues.
So, while you’re answer may be simpler, it’s also very problematic.
Normative schemas that ignore either intention or consequences have the advantage of being simpler, but they are also easy to give counter-examples to that don’t track our moral intuitions.
And again, the “integrity” or “shamelessness” test fails in the primary case of deceptive sales, that of the sociopath.
re: the integrity case. There are multiple ways to look at this. Sure, if we’re thinking about cases involving sociopaths, most ethical generalisms will fail. That comes with being a sociopath.
If we bracket those cases, then those answer work reasonably well.
So, I’m making your point: context matters.
I’m officially replying to myself.
@Charlie: Proofread your comments, dammit! WTF?
I moved to Idaho Falls in February of 2009. On my birthday, I got a thing in the mail from the local pizza buffet joint (Craigo’s).
It was a “Happy Birthday! Come in and enjoy a free buffet on us!” card. I knew they’d probably bought my name off some database related to my move. But, honestly, I didn’t give a flying trapeze circus fuck. I thought it was awesome that I got free pizza AND a drink!
I know that without whatever database they used, I’d have never gotten the free food. And, the place totally rocked.
I’ve been back several times. The real kicker is, my wife’s birthday is 2 months later. Guess what SHE got in the mail? :)
I sell credit card machines for a living right now, and part of the process is I have to ask the person’s birthday to put on the application. I’m building a database of that info before I send the apps in so I can know when my customers have birthdays coming up. I figure I’ll send a birthday card, or even just drop in and say “Happy Birthday!” since most of them are local.
It works, and it helps us to fulfill our OBLIGATION as marketers to build a business that provides value to our customers!
Thought provoking, indeed.
Enough so that I found some of my thoughts shifting around as I read through the comments.
Here’s the thing I ended up with: It’s all in the eye of the beholder – which could be either the person doing the marketing, or the person receiving it.
Without naming names, I know someone who was highly annoyed at one of the commenter’s marketing emails. It’s not that he thought the marketing was deceptive; it was that it was too good at creating a perceived need in my friend. He didn’t buy, but he was irritated because he felt the marketing copy created a sense of perceived or false need.
I know the person who wrote the email, and I know the person who received it, and I understand both perspectives.
All I can do in my own marketing is to keep checking in with myself. So whether it’s a casual conversation, or a full-on marketing campaign, I make sure I’m in my own integrity with what I’m doing.
Am I being completely up front about what my product or service can do for someone? (That means, I’m not over-stating OR under-stating its value.)
Am I providing real value in my marketing – enough descriptive content that someone can walk away without buying, and still feel a sense of hope and perhaps renewed confidence (and maybe even a new idea or two) about solving the problem on their own?
After that, I just have to recognize that I can’t please everyone. If I piss a few people off whilst serving a few more by giving them exactly what they need – hey, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Yes, I may be startled when someone gets ticked off because I marketed a woman’s group program to a mixed-gender list, but I haven’t got the time or energy to invest in making up stories about how he shouldn’t've done it – or how I should have promoted the program differently.
As I said: it’s in the eye of the beholder.
What a great conversation. How fun to read this and realize that I like how I market things! (Which is not to say I can’t learn more!)
I liked your balanced perspective.
I would also ask what happens when the beholders differ in their opinions?
Beholders are responsible for their own reactions.
While I have over the course of my career as an SGML/XMLgeek been associated with sales and marketing from time to time (i.e. sales engineer a/k/a demo doll and as a consultant) I have always disavowed any knowledge of sales and marketing beyond the 1 semester required in college. For the longest time I didn’t even get the difference between sales and marketing. I hated sales, and pretty much all salespeople – especially the ones I worked with on a daily basis. I knew that they were nice to me because their paycheck depended on my technical wizardry and the ability to translate how our product offering could solve the prospect’s problem.
Then we bought the restaurant. And there were lots of things we did because we knew how we liked to be treated – like greeting them at the door, trying to remember their favorite item on the menu, even their names – especially their kids’ names – where they were from, where their kids went to school, what sports they played. I wasn’t going to go out drinking with any of them and never expected to be invited into their homes, but we were certainly building relationships.
And then, in an attempt to grow our business which depended heavily on tourist traffic, I tried to come up with more ways to reach potential customers before they actually arrived in town so that we would be the first place they’d think of for breakfast or lunch or a to-go box for their hike. Before I knew it, I was learning all about marketing and sales from our own beloved Goddess of Marketing Naomi, and Sonia Simone, and Brian Clark, and they were selling a methodology I could believe in. I also ran across some others of the hard-sell yellow-highlighter longer-than-a-novella ilk. While at first I was turned off immediately, the more I read, the more I began to understand the mechanics behind those ugly sales letters as well as the relationship-building approach.
All this is to say that while the typical consumer knows that we would like them to buy something from us, even something as obvious as writing down the names of someone’s kids, or pets, or their favorite breakfast might seem deceitful to them. If they’re not a marketer themselves (and who commenting here does not engage in marketing and/or sales?) the methodologies we use are foreign to them, and therefore they may be put off by them.
And if I only met you once, and haven’t contacted you for a year, and mention any of the above – that’s sleazy. But if I drop you a line once every three or four months and mention your kids or your vacation or the name of your labradoodle, that’s relationship-building.
At least that’s what Naomi taught me. I hope I learned it right.
@Jamie: It’s the usual error. People form their opinions based on what they would do in a similar situation. When there’s an asymmetry (for instance, I keep in touch with 20 people, you keep in touch with 2,000) I make assumptions about what you can hold in your head and what you mean when you say “You’re important to me” or “I care about you.”
You expect that the 2,000-contact person means the same thing you do, even though you only have 20 contacts. So it’s natural to feel upset or deceived because your expectations weren’t met.
Now as for the question of whose responsibility in communication it is to clarify these assumptions… is the burden of communication on the 20-person or the 2,000-person, or shared by both?
I could write a whole book on that. (;
Since Pace is totally too non-spammy to do this, I figured I’d do it for her: http://usualerror.com/ .
Best relationship book I’ve ever read (and the consulting was great too!). Don’t kill me, Pace.
Oh, and congrats on the wedding! I hope everything went well; I’m sure Naomi will fill me in after she next talks to you.
Now that I’ve commented on just about every other comment, I’ll say that in general, I don’t think that IttyBiz specifically teaches or practices marketing techniques that I’d call especially deceptive.
Sales is deceptive to some extent almost by definition, as is dating, weddings, politics, church, formal events, casual events, and all human communication.
As a customer of IttyBiz, I’ve found myself unsubscribing from emails though, and bored with most of the blog posts recently—although this one perked my interests.
Ethics in communication are contextual, slippery, and ongoing. Keep on doing the best you can.
The “the conscious capitalist” movement is equally if not more guilty than ordinary deceptive marketers are.
This is because the movement portrays itself as separate, “smarter” and more “ethical” than the deceptive marketers, but still participates by using different, but equally manipulative and harmful rhetorical techniques.
Posts like this one are attempts at positioning yourself as different from those mainstream marketers so you can continue to participate in the inherent violence of manipulative marketing.
A good example of this is split testing marketing materials to see which ones impact potential customers more effectively. While a “conscious marketer” puts on a show of caring about your customers to their faces, you treat them as if they are sub-human, robots to be manipulated into your sales funnels.
If any actual social change is desired, other revolutionary political actions must be employed. Not sales pitches disguised as social movements.
By re-framing your businesses as social movements, you are preventing any social change from actually occurring.
Mark Silver, Naomi Dunford, Charlie Gilkey, Clay Collins, Jonathan Mead, Tim Brownson, Pace Smith, and Chris Guillebeau are all guilty of this.
My take on it would be that even conscientious capitalists need to make a living. I’m a fan of most of the folk you mention there (I’ve bought products by several of them) and I have *never* felt manipulated or pressured into buying. Charlie Gilkey, in particular, has an explicit policy of NOT pushing stuff down people’s throats — so much so that I think most of his blog readers didn’t even realise when he brought out email triage.
What other “revolutionary political actions” do you recommend as a serious alternative? I used to be far more left-wing and idealist than I am now, simply because I’ve realised that working within a less-than-perfect system is often a better way to genuinely impact people for the better, rather than standing outside railing about it. (I don’t mean that to come across as a criticism of you; it’s aimed at a younger me!)
Another angle here … if someone’s produced a product which they’ve worked really hard on, and which they believe will genuinely change the customer’s life, isn’t it their DUTY to encourage people to buy it? Split-testing sales pages, for instance, could just be a way to make sure you’ve answered potential customer’s questions. I’d rather land on a good, clear sales page than a confusing, rambling one. (And sometimes I’ve bought a product despite a crappy sales page, and I’ve been really glad I did — how many great products have I missed out on because someone DIDN’T optimise their sales page?)
Wow. I could respond to several points, but the phrase “the inherent violence of manipulative marketing” shows you have so little sense of perspective that it would be a waste of my time.
There is real violence in the world. What Naomi and the others you mention do … that isn’t it.
w00t! I’ve finally been included in the camp of people worth criticising! I’ve been waiting for my time.
I find it odd that you keep accusing many of us of the systemic violence that comes with corporate capitalism, even though the aims of our businesses actually run counter to that systemic violence in many cases.
Of course, you can’t see this, because from what I can tell, the very fact that we’re involved in commerce commits us of “manipulative and harmful rhetorical techniques.” It would also be nice to have you specify how we’re being manipulative in a bad way or harmful in an non-justifiable way. Just because we’re using fire doesn’t mean we’re burning people.
“If any actual social change is desired, other revolutionary political actions must be employed. Not sales pitches disguised as social movement.”
Yet we need money to be able to separate ourselves from the system in a way that allows us to pursue other goals. Money is an enabler in that way, Eric, and though you’ve continually replied that you don’t need to give an alternative to criticize, I’ve yet to see anything from you that would suggest a more effective, holistic way for individuals to promote social change.
In the meantime, I’ll do what I can with what I have to help people add value to the world. I’m able to do that now to a degree that I never was as an academic or government agent, and I know I wouldn’t be able to do as much in the corporate environment. Non-profits use many of the same techniques I already use, so that’s no recourse either.
My favorite deceptive marketing technique is claiming to not use deceptive marketing techniques.
For me deceptive is “building trust” only to sell (and saying “who are you again?” after the sale) rather than actually wanting to build trust and a relationship with customers.
That’s a tough question, Naomi. I think there’s a difference between, er, *theoretical* virtue and *applied* virtue.
In the theoretical sense, of course the kind of kindness that we expect is the pure kind – the kind that is not attached to any other motive or purpose except to simply be kind. Emerson says that “the only reward for virtue is virtue”.
However, in the applied sense, all virtues that we do have strings attached to them. As I remember there was one episode from the popular television series “Friends”, where Joey was able to defeat Phoebe in an argument about doing good and being a good person because he made her realize that she was doing good only so that she would be called a good person.
I think strings attached are OK, and also unavoidable. It is inherent in everything we do. The question is, is it the *right* strings attached? Does a mother love her son purely because, or because she wants to be a good mother and expect some love reciprocated by her son?
When we learn to except which is the line between theoretical and applied virtue, I think we will be more resilient and graceful in knowing why we are doing what it is that we are doing.
Does this make any sense?
Cheers,
P.S: Sorry if I’m just reiterating points by other friends here, I only read through some of the other comments.
P.S.S: Here’s another clinch. I’m only commenting on your blog because I can attach my name and URL link on it. Is that deceptive communication? What if these comments could only be posted anonymous without any credit? Do you think people would comment as much?
P.S.S.S: I just realized that you HAVE been deceiving me! What’s all this talk about MARKETING!? I subscribed because I thought this site was about SEX and LAS VEGAS!
I like Mark’s point that deceptive techniques are about selling no matter what — whether the product will actually work for this person or not.
But tools are just tools. They aren’t inherently good or evil. Take scarcity, for example. A very persuasive tactic that I’m using right now. I’m offering a photo preservation kit for a few weeks only because my husband and kids are not willing to let me fill our house with big boxes for very long. That’s different from a script on a sales page that makes whatever day you land there the LAST POSSIBLE day to purchase before the price goes up.
I also wanted to say thanks to Naomi and Jamie (?!) and everyone who joined in because this discussion inspired me to finish a very old post of mine. It’s about getting away with selling out of state eggs as “local” and “farmer’s market fresh.” There’s color photo illustrations, even!
http://practicalarchivist.com/local-eggs-and-photo-boxes
I like rye toast.
I’m an acupuncturist licensed in 2008. When people actually ask me how long I’ve been doing “this” I stare at the sky for a moment and say “let’s see I think I’ve been working on people for about 5 years now”. Totally true, as of the first year in school we worked on people in the clinic.
If they asked me “how long have you had your license” I’d tell them one year. Nonetheless, why should I give them- up front- to doubt me when I’m just as good or better than others? There’s no reason.
There truly is no deception, as it were. We can decide from moment to moment what that is, but ultimately it is the customer who is always right. So, if they decide that you are fulfilling their needs, you have not deceived them. If on the other you don’t deliver, well that’s deceptive to them.
So the question is really how fulfilling can you be and to who? In the end, I can see why so many true marketers emphasize on adding value to the customer and being customer oriented. It’s ALL about them.
Make sure it’s all about them and I think the “deception” will never matter.
I’m extremely late to the party – looks like everyone’s passed out or stumbled home but…I wanted to throw something in here –
I market following the principle – Customers love to buy but hate to be sold. Find a needy market, fill the need, rinse and repeat. I make it fun to buy. I suspend disbelief. I create an experience. You don’t like it, then don’t buy it.
I’m a copywriter and my clients come to me convince customers to buy. The law and momma reading my copy keeps things real.
Ooo here I am posting a comment in a pile full of comments made by people with not just real names but pictures too. To talk about being deceptive no less. Well forgive me for my nom de plume.
If you put “Re:” in your subject, and I haven’t mailed you, or spoken with you about the subject before? That’s not just deceptive, that’s spam. Opt-in is FTW. So is decent intent and honesty about your goals in communication. Stopping communication when requested is also a key part of the whole being legal and civil thing too.
Sometimes, when I write public things, I intentionally mis-spell the things I speak about so that they don’t get swallowed in the vast machine.
If you give me your business card, I’m probably going to remember who you are. If we had any animated discussion about anything I care about, or something that you really care about, I probably will be able to recall details about the conversation other people would not be able to. I’ve had to develop that as a skill from a very young age for reasons too complex to easily explain to others. If you bother to write a thing down about me, I’m going to take that as meaning you cared enough about the interaction to bother with this much work. I may well remember that you call your Labrapoodle by the nickname of ‘Baal’ because you have a thing about the problems with the breed certification of your favorite pet and his full name was “His Satanic Ųberness, Ḝvil Lord of All Labrapoodles” just because you had to argue with them so much that you wanted to make it hard on them typographically… Heck, I might just recall something that odd well ahead of other things, and might want to note it just so I make sure to talk about -other things- with you. However, generally I don’t take too many of those sorts of notes because I don’t need them…
That’s not to say that if you aren’t acting painfully stupid that I won’t want to forget I met you either. Sometimes, we all do idiotic things, and it’s often polite to forget them if they’re aberrational & not harmful to others. If this wasn’t true, bars could never do business, and no business would ever happen that was much fun either.