Ouch. I know that sounds like harsh headline, but creepy marketers are EVERYWHERE.
You see them every day.
They’re the guys who relentlessly send you hyped-up offers.
They think upselling means holding back essential components, until you spend more money.
They’re the guys who brag about making tens of thousands of dollars a month, but only sell ‘make money’ products.
They reek of desperation.
Yup, creepy marketers have no chill.
In the dating scene, they’re the equivalent of the people who proclaim their love for you during a first date. Yikes, right?
But at the other end of spectrum there’s another type of marketer, the pathetic guy, he has too much chill.
He’s the guy who insists you should work for free, purely for the fun of it.
He’s the guy who tells you to just create loads of content and not to worry about making sales.
In the dating scene, these are the people stuck in the friend-zone.
They’re great at giving gifts and making you feel good, but they suck at making a move.
Chances are, in your email inbox right now you’re dealing, or worse, listening to, one of these guys.
They are the most common type of marketers; the ones who don’t really know what they’re doing.
And in either case, they ain’t getting action.
But you’ll find the rest of us somewhere in the middle, caught between those two extremes. But we know the right moves and we know how to jive.
We create content, we deliver value, but we also know our worth and expect to feed ourselves.
So along with all the awesome stuff we give out, we also point the way towards even more valuable content.
This is the right balance, between being creepy and pathetic.
The right balance
The best marketers understand this stuff is just like any other human relationship.
We have to make sure that a prospect understands why our products is desirable, and they need it. It’s our job to make that info crystal clear.
Then we have to establish trust, so when we tell a prospect that our product CAN solve their problem, they believe us.
Think of it the same way your relationship evolves with a romantic partner.
Ryan Deiss explains it really well. He’s not the first to liken a business relationship to a romantic relationship, but his analogy is the best I’ve seen.
Imagine all the parts of a successful sales funnel, from lead magnet to the return path.
Now imagine the romantic relationship equivalent. It might look something like this:
- Lead Magnet – ask for her phone number
- Tripwire – start dating
- Core product – in a relationship
- Profit booster – getting married
- Return path – weekly date nights
Just like a romantic relationship, we don’t dive in straight away with the heavy stuff.
But we don’t sit around waiting for things to happen, either.
We don’t start asking our prospects to invest $1,500 in a monthly coaching program straight away.
We warm them up. Show them how we can benefit them, and ask them to take small risks.
Trust is built up over time, but the good news is it doesn’t take months, like dating does.
The trust to go from subscribing to your email list, to dropping $1,500 on a coaching program CAN happen fast.
Sometimes it happens in minutes, if your funnel is configured right.
But for most prospects, there will be at least a few days in between the steps.
The truth is, marketers who get the balance right are in the minority.
Which is great because we get the best of both worlds; we get to become a force for good in people’s lives while making a living from something we enjoy.
Sure, it takes a little longer to do things this way. But the end result is a stronger businesses that stands the test of time.