Marketers! Quit Abusing Your Customers!
Lately, I’ve been reading a Marketing Rebellion by Mark Schaefer.
It’s a book that’s going to make a lot of marketers uncomfortable.
Marketing Rebellion is very researched based. Marks goes through a lot of evidence to support his thesis and some of it is kind of shocking. So far, I’m about halfway through the book and I’ve come up with a few conclusions.
Click play to hear my thoughts!
Death to the Sales Funnel
One of the primary takeaways is that traditional sales funnel tactics are dying. An excerpt from Mark’s book says we’re over-reliant on automation in search of the marketing easy button. He goes on to say that it’s unlikely that lazy marketing will continue to work.
A common marketing tactic (we’re guilty of it too) is to offer “free” content, in exchange for an email address or phone number, but consumers have had enough. They no longer need to trade their email address for content because it’s already available on numerous other platforms like Youtube or through podcasts.
While you’re holding out on the goods, potential customers are going to your competitors because they’re freely giving away all the stuff.
Are you sick of pop-ups asking for your email address? Me too. And so are our potential clients. They don’t want to be pushed into signing up for a webinar or handing over their information for a PDF.
So why do we bother with that approach? A lot of marketers will say that like, four percent of visitors will sign up. But the fact is, we’re creating a poor website experience for 100 percent of people.
Respect your customers. Treat them the way you’d want to be treated. Give them a nice experience and they’ll come back. Fill their social media feeds with value – not sales pitches – and you’re going to see success because people will grow to know, like and trust you more and more.
Customers are no longer loyal to companies
Here’s an uncomfortable statistic from Mark’s book: 87 percent of customers shop around because there is no emotional connection to brands.
People don’t trust companies. They don’t trust brands. They certainly don’t trust ads. People trust each other.
Mark said it’s essential to provide value and earn trust through human impressions so that customers can carry our stories forward.
At UMI, we focus on the people. We work with executives and thoughtful entrepreneurs and we connect them with the media. That’s where the magic is done. We don’t focus on the business itself, but the people behind it. We work to help them build a reputation so that customers will begin getting to know, like and trust them.
What to know what else I’ve taken away from Mark’s awesome book? Watch the video above. Be sure to subscribe to our Youtube Channel and turn on notifications so you never miss out on my tips and tricks to help you grow your authority.
To learn more about Mark’s book, click here.
