Turning Off Potential Customers
After all, you invest lots of time and effort in creating and marketing products to potential customers. You even have a sales track record proving customers do want what you have to offer.
But, when you look at your analytics, there are more log-on clicks than buy button sales.
Maybe you think they are not your intended audience or ready to be members of your tribe. Or, maybe they’re potential customers you’re unintentionally turning off.
So, how do you get their finger closer to the buy button?
#1 Marketing Copy
Marketing copy is more than an eye-catching title, persuasive language patterns, a list of compelling benefits and glowing testimonials.
The best of the best copywriters will tell you that the essence of good copywriting includes coherence and authenticity.
Coherence brings clarity and persuasion by consistently connecting particular words, phrases, and images to key ideas.
Authenticity is that inherent honest, persuasive voice that conveys belief, passion, and enthusiasm.
#2 Marketing Strategy
Coherence and authenticity need to be present in the marketing copy, throughout the sales funnel, and in the final product.
If at any point a potential customer suspects there’s a mismatch to coherence or authenticity, it becomes a lot easier to just click “delete.”
The Pink Bra Dilemma and Potential Customers
Like you, I get more than my fair share of emails after signing up for a free webinar. Some time ago, I was enticed by a free 300-page e-book by respected marketer Ben Angel.
However, the title, Sleeping Your Way to the Top in Business – the ultimate guide to attracting and seducing more customers, was an unexpected turn-off. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting marketing info to be packaged in such a titillating manner.
Before I go further, I want to clarify that Ben is a highly respected marketer, and I recommend checking out his Amazon–featured books Click – the new science of influence and Flee 9 to 5 Get 6-7 Figures and Do What You Love.
His free offer with a title and cover image sends a confusing message to potential customers, like me.
We all know that sex sells.
Sleeping Your Way to the Top in Business is a clever eye-catching title reinforced by an image of a pink bra in flight on a contrasting black background.
However, when marketing to potential customers, titles and images can have unintended consequences. It’s what I call The Pink Bra Dilemma.
Some potential customers may see it as sexism, others may think it’s an out-dated (so old school Playboy) ploy and still, others may be confused and find themselves asking …
Have I mistakenly fallen into the men’s only marketing arena?
Is this for women marketers where they’ll find secret, updated persuasion techniques gleaned from Hollywood casting couches or corporate hide-away beds?
Or, does the cover image of a pink bra in flight infer a marketing manual for the lingerie trade?
Despite the fact that this e-book contains good marketing information, there’s an obvious dilemma.
First, there’s a coherence disconnect between content and provocative title and image.
Second, there’s an authenticity disconnect when your Amazon profile reads “…Australia’s leading personal branding, lifestyle, and marketing authority.” How many potential customers are lost by the messaging?
In today's market, every potential customer counts. Click To Tweet
Potential customers have lots of options, and they want to be able to like and trust you on a deeper level. They’re looking for your product to be coherent and authentic. If they don’t find, they’re free to move on and click someone else’s buy button.
Recommendation For Avoiding The Pink Bra Dilemma
- Make coherence and authenticity key elements in everything you do online
- Recheck your marketing strategy and materials for coherence and authenticity
- Make sure words, phrases and images don’t send unintended meanings
- Take the time to find your own authentic voice as a marketer and leverage its use
Have you been turned off by the way a product offer has been made? Please share your story so we all can learn and become better marketers.
Note: This post was originally published in 2015. I’ve updated it by editing for greater clarity. I thought it would be a good idea to revisit this topic in light of current events and changing attitudes. I like to believe we have become more sensitive to media messages but the vast network of social media still leaves a lot open to interpretation. While this may be an extreme example, it’s intended to raise awareness of what can turn potential customers off.
I would find that marketing unappealing too. As a woman, I feel like we have enough challenges that we don’t need to add marketing pieces about “sleeping our way to the top” to the list. So I’d shut down when I heard that message altogether. He could be the best there is, and I would not be interested. And that proves your point. The way we market and segment matters. Our word choices matter. Could he have captured my interest another way? Absolutely. But now, if I recalled his name, I’d be unlikely to seek his services.
That’s what I mean, Jennifer. Every potential customer is important. You, and who knows how many others will not be his customer. And, it’s such a small thing to change when you have great content to offer.
I tend to get drawn into that kind of marketing. I love the Thug Kitchen Cookbook. The name caught my eye. I’ve also republished a blog after the Trump/Bush incident. The blog was on Sexual Addiction and I renamed it “Is Trump a Sex Addict?” The article was from a diagnostic and treatment perspective. A professional woman I know from a FB group responded by letting me know it was inappropriate and unfriended me. I think if it gets your attention, its meant to be. If not, move on.
You raise an interesting point, Candess. As a professional therapist, you should be allowed to raise the issue and discuss it accordingly. Whatever her reasons, she had a strong reaction and was unwilling to consider the issue. Using titles to attract attention are necessary for this noisy media that we participate in. At the same time, no one likes being disappointed if title and copy say one thing and content is something else. It’s a good rule of thumb to be coherent and authentic so readers can depend on what they think they are getting.
This is plain marketing. I have seen gurus who taught this concept you are sharing here. The objective is to lure people in. While you gather a lot of people, they are not the right target market anyway. After that, you have to filter who are really interested with what you are offering.
As you know, you can lure a lot of people in but if you don’t have the authentic content customers won’t return for more. In the same respect, others will judge copy and image as deceptive and will be turned off early.
Exactly. Plus the internet has gotten to the point where we’re looking for excuses to delete or spam it out. Authenticity and even professionalism are appreciated and valued. My customers are even asking for more “real” looking people, not so pretty and perfect. Thanks.
How interesting, Cathy to have your customers requesting “real” looking people. That says a lot about how they are becoming more aware and looking for authenticity.
I appreciate this example, Joyce. I, too, would be quite put off by the sexism and manipulative nature of the “Call to Action”! You are quite right that people need to watch out for potential ‘turn offs’ (to continue his metaphor!) when they get into creative messaging. I am sure that his marketing ploy reads quite differently post-Harvey Weinstein than it did when he first wrote it!
Good observation, Reba. In this post-Weinstein reveal which is starting to include other men, sexuality as a marketing attractor is losing its power. This gives women marketers an opportunity to really promote customer authenticity.
I have a copy of that book by Ben, Joyce, and I admit that had I not known of him before, I would not have signed up for the same webinar or downloaded the book.
I love your 4 tips and every now and then revisit my own copy on my website to check if the message is congruent with what I am trying to convey.
Even then, I get emails from job hunters sending me their resume and asking for a placement and I believe that sometimes people see only what they want to see and not what is in front of them. Can’t win them all!
What a coincidence Vatsala that you had access to Ben’s material. I wanted to be very clear that it was not the content, but the title and cover image that was a turn-off and incongruent with what I thought he was presenting. Yes, some people only see what they want to see or think what they see. It’s mystifying that it happens even when you try to make things as clear as possible. All, we can do is to do our best.
Such an interesting topic.
I once wrote a blog article about sexual energy. About our innate masculine and feminine life force and even the traits of how each come thru us. Open and strong sexual energy contributes toward our vitality, creativity and sense of well-being.
While our sexual desires may be a natural part of who we are and even where we come from, our ability to express our sexuality is often learned.
That blog got misinterpreted and one person even commented that I was using “sex” to gain attention. Humph, She totally missed the point but allowed me to learn that it is a tricky topic to speak on and that many are continually seduced in the way marketing has been for years and years.
We like to believe that readers are reading our content for its value. But, at times they are reading into it their own beliefs and biases. And sex is one of those topics that comes with a lot of bises. Those in the public eye will tell you they are amazed by people who so completely misunderstand their intent. Don’t feel bad, you got only one complaint. That means everyone else who read your blog article understood your intentions.
I can see why you were put off by that, Joyce. People often don’t take the time to read beyond the heading to discover what you are trying to say. I once did a post with a heading about why I refuse to work with disabled people. Of course, I do work with them (and love it), but the heading was designed to spark people’s interest. Mostly, all it did was attract a whole bunch of negative comments from people who had clearly not even read the first sentence of the post. It taught me an important lesson about being coherent and authentic.
The idea of an attention-getting title is something that’s always been recommended as a way to get readers to click open. However, what they don’t tell you is when it strikes an emotional chord, you can lose as many readers as you gain. And, as you found, many are biased enough to comment and not read to find out your original intent. One thing, about an online presence, is that it’s always a learning process.
Loved this! I struggled for a while last year with my marketing content because even though my target audience is women 35 to 55+ I began seeing more men pop up in my subscriber base. The funny thing is, the men are far more likely to email me with questions and stories and I wanted to encourage that … hum, what to do, what to do. I agree with you that every customer is important, but from a marketing standpoint, the reality is there is no such audience as “everybody” so I spent some time analyzing the look and copy on my blog. Anyone who’s been there knows it has a bold look and that’s intentional. Eventually, I made peace with the fact that I gladly welcome men to the community, but my core message is aimed at strong, independent women.
Yes, there is no everybody audience, but maybe the men who are attracted to you are looking for resilience as well. Just a thought.
Hi, Great article. We all know the huge corporations use marketing campaigns that are aimed at seducing us…in every way possible. Food, clothes, vacation, cars, it’s crazy. Of course, the online marketing arena copies this long time trend and now we are left with way too much “pretty and deceiving advertising” images. I think we owe it to ourselves and our tribe to stay super real and authentic. It’s refreshing!
I so agree, Nathalie. There’s still a lot of old-school advertising and promotion concepts out there. At the same time, I think readers are becoming more aware. The more time you spend on the Internet, you see the same-old-same-old and it loses its attraction factor. If you develop a reputation for being real and authentic, then you have that “know, like, and trust” factor built in. Thanks for commenting.