Ugly Marketing Sells
I have just returned from a family holiday in Florida (we thought we should ‘do' Disney before the boys got too old to marvel at it) and while there is much that I admire and love about the USA (school buses, turning right on red, and happy hour included), I must confess that I do NOT love the ‘in your face' commercialism that pervades. America is of course the grand-daddy of marketing and the art is well researched and developed - I have no doubt that the reason that they pursue the loud and bright and direct (whatever the media) is that it works. It seems that, much as I am turned off by it, he/she who shouts loudest does sell more!
American methods are of course not confined to their shores. On my return I had several pieces of post from a self-styled marketing guru in the UK inviting me to a ‘not to be missed' seminar for entrepreneurs, ‘guaranteed' to make me richer just by attending. One of the letters was 8 pages long - and no, I did NOT read it! (Although I did scan it in amazement that he could stretch his message out over so many pages, and in the interests of research of course.) And on the whole I did not believe it and was not tempted to stump up £1500 to attend. I say on the whole, because it is hard to maintain your initial dismissive attitude in the face of letters, CDs and postcards telling me how mad I am to resist! My curiosity was aroused and I started to think well, what if I am wrong? Maybe this is worth looking at? What if I am missing out? But the truth is I know I would hate it - the evangelical sell is not for me.
However, it must be right for enough people to make it worth this company expensively contacting me time after time (there are emails too by the way). I have only myself to blame of course because I put myself on his mailing list. And I should admit that I am being a marketing snob, and that I realise that I am clearly not representative of all the people that could be in the market for this service, and that for some, maybe many, this works. And that maybe he does deliver wisdom that leads to riches. In which case I will stay poor!
I was reminded then of a blog that I read just before we departed talking about the use of long copy on the internet. The message was the same; it seems crazy but long (often ugly) copy works:
'Long copy isn't new to the web. Decades ago, successful direct mail copywriters like Gary Bencivenga and Gene Schwartz noticed that "the more you told, the more you sold."
In other words, the more relevant, compelling information they could cram into a piece of physical mail, the more likely it was that the customer would buy. Bencivenga in particular liked to push things to almost absurd extremes with direct mail pieces called "magalogs," which were sometimes nearly as long as the books they were designed to sell.'
The blog (which you can read in full at the Copyblogger site) actually goes on to say that the internet is moving on from the long and ugly, to providing the depth and breadth of information in more sophisticated ways (while a more recent blog seemingly contradictorily talks about short attention spans and the need to make your point quickly). But for me the important lesson here is not to make an assumption that my personal views and preferences are any kind of guide to those of others. In the end it comes back to the basic rule: know the customers you are targeting and test as much as you can - assume nothing without evidence!
I'd love to know what works for you - leave a (short) comment on the blog!
