A deceptive e-mail marketing practice I’m way past sick of is when a supposed guru sends me a message of an upcoming sale or launch, and then a day or two later sends me another message saying, ‘Sorry, bad link,’ or, ‘typo’ or some BS like that.

An honest mistake it may be, from some. But it happens so often now that it clearly is a tactic for others. A deceitful tactic that annoys me anymore, it happens so frequently — and when a ‘guru’ does it numerous times, they lose my respect and therefore my $$$.

Because at the very least, what kind of an ‘expert’ doesn’t edit simple typos out of their own work before going public? Not one I’d quickly pay for advice from. Not the training I want, thanks.

An occasional mistake, hey, they’re human. But regular screw-ups, publicly? I’m outta here…

As an example — with no names being named — there’s one well-marketed, highly visible ‘expert’ selling products and services on writing for the web, copywriting, etc. I’d gladly pay for a couple of the courses, normally, as they sound perfect. But I have read dozens and dozens of posts and articles online from this ‘guru’ over the last decade — and have yet to find ONE without at least one typo in it.

Expert? At what? Maybe this ‘guru’ teaches that writing on the Web doesn’t really matter when it comes to typos. But a simple spellcheck each time would’ve earned this ‘expert’ hundreds of dollars from me by now.

To me, THAT’S deceitful. Claiming expertise at writing, but not caring enough to even attempt to edit yourself before going public… again and again and again and…

Strive On!
Everett

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.

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.

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.