MARKETERS: Why I Ignore Every E-mail You Send and Every Page You Write

The Beginning

This isn't a love letter. It won't start with "Fellow Marketer..." or "Dear Friend..." or any of the ten regurgitated, barely changed, slightly insulting phrases I see on a daily basis. This isn't a money-motivated, buy-from-me, "only ten ebooks left at this price" piece of copy. I'm not selling anything and I don't care what you think about me at the end.

My motivation is a little different. Quite frankly, the internet is polluted with your hype. It's crap. Sure, it converts, but it gets annoying. You and I both know that javascript timer only fools the people who probably won't succeed with your "Guru Program" anyway. And that brightly colored text you CSS'd into every H1? It's even more frustrating.

Every time I see anything even resembling a traditional landing page, I immediately click the back button. Don't even get me started on your marketing e-mails - I don't open those if I see your name on them.

The Middle

The problem, friend (see how insulting it is?), is the fact that you provide NO value, NO substance, and then expect me to believe you're really a guru. Have you ever noticed that in bigger cities it's nearly impossible to give away free money?

I had a 'job' at one point giving away free public transit passes in a major US city with no catch. People were so used to getting screwed, they didn't want to touch me with a ten-foot pole. There's just so little trust left in the world.

If I sign up for that free eBook you offer, and then get nothing but spam from you, I'm going to park your sender address in my spam box - permanently - and never check it again.

And please, please stop using the same subject lines that every other marketer uses. "I'm sorry, ^name" worked three years ago.

A Better End

So how do you get your most difficult customer to buy from you? It's easier than you think, but your greed will never let you do it.

Give me information. Without charge.


No, seriously.


If you're really an expert, chances are you've got a surplus of information, right? So why not give me SOME of that information? Prove yourself to me. If you're not giving away free stuff in every e-mail, you're not marketing, you're fishing.

I want to buy from you - I really do. I just don't believe the hype.

 

Excellent post, truer words have never been spoken, it took me a while to come to that realization, but when I did, my conversions exploded!

 

WritersBeware,

I will both agree and disagree with some of your points. There are 2 parallel worlds on the NET, serious B2B and B2C structures and niche FMCG (including digital goods). The marketing technique that you are mentioning has a psychological background, some basics of NLP + some hypnotising strategies. But, and this is important “but”, it is aimed at the customer who is ready to “take the bate”. It works maybe in 0.1 to 0.3% but works. You are simply not one of their customers, also in shear number of visitors, the income trickle-feeds producers’ account.

I do B2B chemical and pharma e-Commerce for living. And here we are talking about completely different world. I am not interested in social bookmarking, backlinks, sales pitches, etc. etc. But, if I write a book on the subject (and it is not like 10-12 pages on a “get wealthy now”) I would not be able to market it on a “landing page” simply because my audience, like you, hits the back button straight away.

The whole idea is to find a working “cross strategy” that has elements of both worlds, which, I think, could be an interesting solution for many Internet user and merchants-to-be.

ExpertC

 

expertC:

What you're referring to as FMCG, or Fast Moving Consumer Goods, have nothing to do with digital goods. The two concepts aren't even close.

FMCG are low profit, high volume products (i.e. Beer, cigarettes, and gasoline being sold by a convenience store). Digital products have a significantly high profit margin relative to the cost of producing the product and may sell at either high or low volume based on marketing efforts. A $7 eBook still has a ton of markup behind it. A $7 pack of cigarettes is mostly manufacturer's cost to retailer, logistics, and taxes.

As far as psychological factors are concerned, the only psychology involved is trust building and proof of credentials, the basis of any sales book written on the planet. If I don't like you and I don't trust you, I'm not buying.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming and hypnosis have nothing to do with it.

NLP was invented by a book author and a linguist in the 1970's as a way to speed up the process of psychotherapy. The point here is this: psychotherapy has never been fast. Humans are complex creatures.

Hypnosis doesn't work unless the reader WANTS to be sold, I agree, but they have to be aware of the hypnosis taking place. In this case, they have already made a conscious decision to seek out your product, and the only tools you need are the foundation of sales: building trust and proof of credentials. They'll buy from whoever has the best perceived value.

There are only a few things one needs when selling anything:

• A trust of the salesperson
• A feeling of camaraderie with the salesperson
• A salesperson who can overcome objections that are generally money-driven

 

WritersBeware,

FMCG and digital goods are not the same, it’s obvious. That is why I put it in brackets. What I was talking about was an actual technique used for sale of FMCG and digital produce. In many cases the strategy is very close.

I would disagree on your point on NLP, if you check statements in “sales pitches” you would notice that basics of NLP are implemented to the letter. In fact, the psychological moment of convincing by creating a feel-good point while on the site is working in many cases. But I do think that the discussion of NLP implementations in sales and marketing is not within a scope of the webmasters forum

I would agree with your position on sales person qualities. But in the digital world there is actually no live sales person in front of you. So tricks are slightly different. It is also different because real-live salesperson could work with dozens of potential clients, when in digital world we are talking thousands.

 

Forgot to mention about the "hypnotic effect": In fact classical hypnosis is more permissive, meanwhile Ericksonian could be indirect. Just thoughts…

 

Absolutely brilliant. Thanks for this.

 

Very well said thanks for post..

 

Good post,

I actually implemented "the bottom line" into my subscription last week - the only time I'm sending out a broadcast to my subscribers is when I'm sending them something they NEED, for free that is not found anywhere else for less than a bill (seriously). No catch, no upsell, just one marketer trying to move the bar up cause this crap is getting out of hand.

Once again, great post~!

P.S I started off impartial but liked ya by the end.
P.P.S Really, there are alot of 'Gurus' that need to read this.

 

Marketing is not fishing, one must supply good service or products on can be trusted, not just supply no value thing or information!

 

Guys, the response to this has been humbling. Thanks so much for your feedback - I appreciate all of your thoughts.

 

we really appreciate your thoughts on this one too and it is well said everything is overused.

 

does that mean offering 'free products' to your subscribers is 'fishing' then again you say we offer 'no value'

that seems contradicting, offering 'free products' [and yes not just offering but actually delivering them] is something that is 'of value', because like you said it is hardly impossible to get anything 'free' so the comparison does not suit very well

and yes you are very right in all you have said, and the sour and hard truth is that those marketers and 'guru' who do 'exactly' as you say are the ones who actually make 'money' on the internet, the rest or the 'dream marketer' which you and we all look after to or want to know is only our imagination and almost no successful internet 'guru' will deny that 'fooling the fools' is the best way to make money on the net.I am saying this because its true, no hard feeling

thanks for your post, it inspired me to start a list and provide free items 'of value'

 

sameer-sj:

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. Perhaps you could clarify?

If you're indicating that I was saying offering free products is "fishing", I'm not. What I'm saying is, prove to me you know what you're talking about so I feel comfortable buying your product. This is important in a sales e-mail, but if you're only sending out sales e-mails, it defeats the purpose. Be my friend first, make me like you, then sell me.

If I don't like you, and I don't trust you, why would I buy from you? I can guarantee you're not selling anything I can't get somewhere else, unless you own Merck or another pharm giant. Even then, give it a few years and I'll buy from someone else anyway.

 

I agree, marketers need to change their tactic. For my email lists I hardly ever send out a post usually once every 3 month, and even that its usually at a great benefit to my subscribers.

 

Target audience is important, you are very obviously not the target audience of these landing pages.

Don't get me wrong, I find them annoying as you do and as soon as I see I am on one (which is usually instantly) I also hit the back button, BUT that is not to say that they don't work - in fact they do work very well.

There is considerable money to be made, I am informed by people whom I trust (I have never done it myself, though just starting to give one or two a try), in this sort of landing page.

Now I am no expert in things like FMCG (in fact I had never heard the phrase until your interesting debate), but it seems to me there is an argument for relating them as such. You talk about mark up vs creation costs, but other costs become a factor - especially when counting in cost of driving traffic via ppc/time spent on SEO, cost of landing page (which if you get a top guy to do it can cost thousands of bucks).

Not saying it is like that, just an argument that struck me when reading your posts.

You say give you free information and then you'll buy. But that takes considerable time and effort, and will most likely require constant free information updates inthe form of a blog or newsletter, meaning continual work. What if you were able to create a salespage that, whilst selling to less, still managed to convert a decent profit WITHOUT THE NEED FOR ADDITIONAL WORK.

See where I'm going with that?

Now lets be honest, the conversion rates of these pages are far from enviable, even the best of them. But once you have a profitable traffic stream working for you then there is no work and its just up and to the next project - giving multiple streams of income for little work.

What you suggest will bring in large conversions - but the time and effort required to position yourself as a market leader could also be used to build numerous sales funnels with landing pages.

Both are viable business models, in fact both get used quite extensively, but I don't think one is any more viable than the other.

 

Why? Marketers should change their money making marketing strategies because some people don't like it?

I can't see any argument that suggests people should move away from a working business model in anything that has been said in this thread. IF, for whatever reason, the business model isn't working then they should walk away anyway.

 

Wall Major,

Comparing FMCG to a landing page is like comparing Cigarettes to Airplanes. If you're in the market selling either, you probably know there's a little bit of a difference between the two.

I agree with you concerning the "set it and forget it" philosophy. Why not combine the two? Hire people to run the site, then check back every once in a while.

That being said, there is no such thing as entirely passive income. If you're a billionaire and your money is managed by a mutual fund manager, you still have to find a good manager and check back every once in a while. It may only take 10 hours a year, but it's still not completely passive. If you're receiving royalties and you're intelligent, you're probably checking in as to how much you're receiving and if it's accurate.

I'm not saying change your marketing strategies entirely, just tweak them. And I definitely didn't imply that you walk away from a working business model. If Boeing did that every time they found a problem with their planes, Airbus would be "sitting pretty". Instead, they tweak their marketing strategy, their technology, their whatever, until it works.

And if a business model isn't working, automatically walking away "for whatever reason" is a terrible business move. First, one should study what went wrong, what could go right, and if it's fixable. Then, and only then, can you make an informed decision.

 

Fair points, as I say I know nothing about FMCG and to be honest I am only just starting to immerse myself in the marketing industry, rather than dabbling as I was doing before (I have plenty of business experience, only in different fields).

Also agree about walking away from a failing business plan, I had assumed someone would have tried fixing it and only walked away after examining all options (obviously I should have explained that).

But this is about target markets. What you say is 'tweaking it' to get both, or tweaking it to get you. Well that is far from tweaking - my suggestion is that the business plan you laid out at the start of this, positioning ones self as a market leading expert by giving away free information is a long distance from the landing pages/splash pages created by marketers who use that stratergy. I don't see how looking to combine the two will do much more than either fall between two targets and hit none, or simply be favoring one or the other anyway.

If people are targetting YOU as a customer (which is what the thread is about I presume) then do you consider tweaking their business model from landing pages a likely success? Or will it need a complete overhaul?

People do target you via methods you describe - what you are railing against is the fact that you have come across marketing that is not designed for you, and been subjected to it far too often.

But if it is working in making them money should they be bothered? Should a car insurance company who places an advert on TV be bothered that someone who doesnt own a car is fed up with seeing their advert?

I'm sorry, I see your frustration, I do - because I hate coming across those landing pages when I am looking for information as well. But it is a business model that works and I really don't see why it should be changed to chase a different market sector

 

Let me slip a little humor in this thread and share with you guys a parody of the internet sales pitch.