;
A few months ago I had a bit of a heated email argument with a fairly well-known marketing guru whose newsletter I subscribed to.
I won’t mention names as the point of this post isn’t about criticising others – it’s about something I believe to be vital to succeed in business development: authenticity.
The argument started when I received an email from the guru sent from a hospital waiting room in a few moments he had spare waiting for his wife to give birth. His email said he had to be quick (for obvious reasons) but wanted to make an offer on one of his new products.
Nothing wrong with that, per se. In fact I believe it’s good thing to share insights into your personal life with your community. It deepens your relationships – rather like the way you’d share personal information, ideas and hopes with a close business partner or one of your best clients. Your very best business relationships go beyond purely business.
The problem was that I received the same email 3 times over a 3 month period.
I emailed the guy, and he said he’d had a problem with his email system. OK, fair enough. No one has perfect grasp of their technology. I’m prepared to believe it was a genuine mistake that multiple copies were sent out.
But then I noticed that the emails were actually all a little different. They had slightly different headlines.
In other words, he’d been split testing the headlines.
Now split testing headlines is a good marketing practice in normal circumstances. But when your email is supposed to be something you rattled out quickly when in a hospital waiting room it actually leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouth.
Far from being the spur of the moment message it purported to be, this was a calculated marketing tactic. And it left me feeling manipulated.
Here’s the deal: had this been a normal marketing email then, of course I’d have been perfectly cool with headlines or anything else being tested, optimised or whatever. Why shouldn’t the marketer try to maximise the response they get?
But this was an email that purported to be a spur of the moment outpouring. His email personalised things – brought me into his world. It made me feel closer, as if I was sharing his experience.
For me then to discover that the email had been a calculated construction left me feeling used.
And that’s the thing. The most powerful marketing & sales approaches are the ones that bring us closer to our clients, that deepen our relationships.
But they must be genuine.
Deepening a relationship can’t be one-sided. You can’t pretend to open up to someone, but really put a tight filter on what you say. You can’t encourage a client to be frank and honest with you if you’re not going to be frank and honest with them.
If you do try to manipulate, you’ll be found out. It may not be as obvious as a split-test headline on a supposedly personal message: but people will discover your manipulation.
If you can’t be genuine – then stick to more impersonal forms of business development: advertising, factual messages, value propositions.
But if you want to build deep. long lasting relationships with clients, you must, must be authentic.
Follow Ian on 
Connect on 
Connect on 
Blog updates via 
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Ian,
A good point well made.
I responded to an advert yesterday and it offered me a free telephone conference series, and then as soon as I had registered to receive the details of the series – I was offered the whole lot as pdf and mp3 files to be downloaded for a mere $XX.
Ok its a valid proposition, it would have been easier than scheduling time to call in etc… BUT I still felt tricked and think that the whole event was in poor taste. That’s because what I was offered was something for free, which we all know is a reason to give your contact details and you may be offered something later, but the way this was done was typical Bait And Switch – a technique that loses credibility straight away.
Phil
Ian,
I cringed when I read this story. It really is too sad.
There are a couple best practices here:
1. Sharing parts of your personal life to help build the relationship. This is a great way to show your prospects and clients that you too are a real person. Let’s be honest people buy people and the relationship is necessary for the first sale and especially follow on sales.
2. Split testing – a necessary element to improving your marketing and sales. You should always be testing to get the best results.
However, even with these best practices in place, as you note, if you aren’t authentic all will be for naught. You can follow all the best practices in the world and still lose the relationship when you aren’t honest. It takes years to build the relationship and credibility, and only one email to lose it all.
Thanks for sharing.
Erica
It’s truly amazing how far someone will go to make a sale. What’s troubling, beyond the blatantly unethical behavior, is that it makes you wonder how a person like that would behave if the matter was really important.
Mike
I agree completely. By not being authentic we (the reader or prospective client) get a feeling that the writer is trying to pull a fast one on us.
However, some people would argue stating “Isnt Marketing all about getting eyeballs and Sales”. Very often some folks may get carried away with the notion of “Any Publicity is Good Publicity”.
But ultimately, IMHO, genuineness is (and should be) the underpinning of any campaign.
Thanks for sharing your insights.
I dunno Phil. Maybe I’m misinterpreting what happened, but for me “Bait & Switch” is where the attractive product or service originally offered to entice you in is then said to be unavailable – and they offer you something more expensive, etc.
In this case, it feels like you still could have taken the free option – they were just offering you an upgrade to a better (paid) product. I’ve not got much against that if done subtly.
Ian
Ian
The distinction you make is fine but it sounds to me like the offer to Phil was about a subtle as a bunch of fives to the mouth.
I know Des, but even if not subtle, if it’s an additional or upgrade option where you can still take the free option then it’s not bait & switch – whetehr we like the way it’s done.
Remember, bait & switch is actually illegal in the US and EU – so it’s important to be sure somethign really is B&S before labelling it as such.
Interestingly, also illegal (certainly in the EU) is the false “available only for a limited time” claim which I still see used a lot.
Ian
Dear All,
I agree with all here. And the thing is, once bitten, twice shy…
However, I am not sure whether this is a case of poor authenticity, as much as of lack of integrity.
How do you define authenticity?
Kim George says: Authenticity = loving who you are…
Warmest