5 Ways A Marketer Can Hurt Their Reputation

In this business, a HUGE part of what we do comes down to interpersonal relations. This goes beyond blog posts, our list sizes and marketing strategy. I’ve said before that this is ultimately a people business and it will always remain true.

If relationships aren’t kindled and maintained properly, business suffers. It really comes down to the good ol’ Golden Rule: Treat others how you yourself would want to be treated.

Some marketers forget this. In an effort to form a big launch or squeeze every last dollar, they forget that it comes down to real people first.

I promoted something on this blog and to my list which ended up bothering me. It didn’t bother me because of the product. The product is actually pretty damn good and I believe in it (otherwise I’d never promote it). However, what ended up bothering me was the PR aspect of things and the marketing tactics being used.

I wanted to write a post today only to pass on some advice to everybody, and to anybody looking to launch something. You can learn something from every launch.

Never Use False Scarcity

Almost anybody with any marketing sense knows the power of scarcity. It is used all the time and there is nothing wrong with it. However, it has to be completely valid and real. The moment (and I mean, quite literally, THE moment) that somebody realizes it is fake, you’re done. Your trust goes out the window.

Here’s how I saw scarcity being falsely used:

• Promised price increase used for marketing and it wasn’t followed through with on time.
• A statement of only the next X orders getting it at a certain price. Yet the number never changed. It is obviously fake.

There is nothing more harming to a marketer’s reputation than fake scarcity. It might work for all the people who arrive on the sales page for the very first time. But, think about the people who come back a day or two later and nothing changed. There are only two conclusions to that: (1) The number is a lie, or (2) nobody is buying. Either way, it makes the marketer look bad.

I always tell people that, yes!, you need to employ scarcity in your marketing. Just do it honestly and follow through on your word. If you say the price is going up at a certain time, then you need to move heaven and earth to make sure that happens. Especially when you have affiliates promote on that basis.

Oh, The Exit Pop

I know, for most of us, you hear the word “exit pop” and you immediately cringe. I sure as hell don’t like them either.

That said, you need to also understand the position of the marketer. Exit pops usually DO work. They’ve been tested and they do serve to increase conversion. It usually routes to a page which downsells by offering a cheaper alternative. And it can be quite effective….

IF the offer actually changes for the cheaper price. With the product I’m referring to, the price decreased but the offer stayed the same. That is until I advised to change it and take something away.

It is desperation marketing. By using tactics like that, the marketer comes across as desperate to extract money. Because if the product is worth one price, yet it is being offered for another price just because you decided to leave the page… well, which is it?

Don’t Dismiss Complaints

It is true that some readers just like to complain. Again, part of being in the people business is that sometimes you deal with antagonistic, pissed people. However, one usually learns to tell the difference between valid issues and people just being weird.

When I, as an affiliate, get a few complaints about a product I promoted, I don’t like it when the response is that my reader is just being difficult or high-maintenance. If one of my readers complains about the marketing tactics being used, I don’t like it when the response is that my reader is problematic. It comes across as if this person views any customer who doesn’t just buy and leave as a nuisance. People are people, not just faceless entities with wallets.

Complaints do come about any product. I’ve never launched anything in my life that satisfied everybody. However, complaints usually happen for a reason. The proper thing to do is evaluate the complaint and decide the proper action. Perhaps it is completely valid and you need to change something. Perhaps it isn’t a valid complaint. As an affiliate, I pass on a complaint in order to help. I don’t pass on just anything. I’ve been in this business long enough to be able to filter these things.

Don’t let ego get in the way. Ego is the worse thing a person in the people business can wield.

Don’t Overly Depend On Others

I am a fan of outsourcing. It is smart business. But, one of my rules of outsourcing is that I never outsource something that I can’t control. Because if that outsourcer screws something up or disappears, it is MY reputation on the line.

In my opinion, a good manager should know how to conduct the roles of all the people beneath him. Either that, or have things organized such that no particular cogwheels bring down the whole factory. I want to be able to jump in there and do it myself if I must. The outsourcer might be better at it than I am, but at least I can control it.

Many marketers end up releasing things that others created. It is smart unless you end up being dependent on the person who made it. Otherwise, something will (inevitably) happen after launch and all you can do about it is send an email and wait. What if the outsourcer is gone? Sleeping? Something else? You just sit there between a rock and a hard place.

It is about reputation. It is a lot harder to build a solid reputation than it is to screw it up.

Respect Affiliates

If you’re going to do a JV launch (meaning a launch with affiliates), you have to take really good care of your affiliates and all the people they refer. It is a huge pile of work. This is why some of the “gurus” out there actually hire full-time affiliate managers. Managing affiliates is a lot of work. You have to treat your affiliates like your top customers, because they need to be sold on it, too.

This means answer all emails from affiliates (I happen to know that some emails from other affiliates went unanswered). It means swiftly dealing with concerns of referrals. It means doing things exactly when you said you would. It means treating your affiliate’s readers as if they were YOUR readers.

When an affiliate sends an email to their list, essentially vouching for you, they are putting their reputation on the line for YOUR sake. The moment you don’t follow through with something (regardless of the “why”) without a proactive explanation, it backfires. Because then you have affiliates getting annoyed, and these are affiliates with influence. That’s not smart. People talk. People blog, too (like this post).

When I did my last launch of Blog Masters, I hit an enormous snafu with 1ShoppingCart’s system that directly impacted affiliate commissions being properly credited. The moment I realized it was happening, believe me, I was on it like flies on shit. I proactively contacted every single affiliate personally and told them to fix the link on their end. I visited all their sites to make sure it was set up right. I then, proactively, contacted every single customer and got it right from the horse’s mouth who referred them. This was one of those nightmares you have during a JV launch. But, I dealt with it by overly proactive communication. I was even ready to hire my VA to CALL everybody who didn’t answer me via email. It sucks, but you take responsibility.

It is a big deal when affiliates vouch for you. And if something happens, you need to deal with it as if your reputation is on the line. Because it is.

Final Words

It is possible that some reading this post may know what I’m talking about. I am deliberately not naming names. I am not upset, because I genuinely feel as if everybody who bought the product I promoted got a great deal and an awesome product. The product is SOLID and I look forward to seeing how it evolves moving forward.

Lessons were learned, however. And these lessons are valid for everybody, which is why this post was written.

Everybody messes things up sometimes. Even the “gurus”. But, if one doesn’t learn from it, what’s the point?