Getting Real: Don’t Be Fake in Your Marketing

Marketing

Published on March 14th, 2013 | by Lena Martin

0

Getting Real: Don’t be Fake in Your Marketing

The world of marketing is brutal. The best marketers are cutthroat, dishonest, and guiltless, people who will do anything and everything to drive home a sale, and if you want to succeed, you are going to have to be just like them. At least, that’s what most people think anyways—mistakenly so. Contrary to this notion of the “evil marketers”, the most accomplished entrepreneurs aren’t two-faced or deceitful. Good advertising is sincere advertising, especially if you want to build relationships on a foundation stronger than lies and distrust. Here are a few tips.

Be honest.

First and foremost, it’s time to can the duplicity and start exercising life’s best policy. You can’t be both sincere and dishonest at the same time, and if you’re smart you would choose to be the former. To say the least, customers do not enjoy being lied to. These days, especially, people are more wary and are less likely to be duped by bogus marketing spiels. And even if you did manage to fool someone into buying on false pretences, sooner or later you’d be found out and it would shatter any possibility of the customer returning. Don’t play customers for fools, because they’re not.

Take of your marketer’s shoes and put on your customer’s.

One thing that would help you become a great marketer is actually being a good customer yourself. Being able to look at the situation from both points of view helps you empathize with a customer and know what steps to take in order to keep a customer happy. Aside from this, you’d know exactly what people really look for in ads and you can craft your ads to be enticing without relying on veiled promises that never deliver.  The best marketers are also the nicest and most understanding customers, and that’s not really very surprising. Don’t be a customer from hell.

Stop talking and listen.

People hate salesmen who just won’t stop talking. It’s one thing to have a practiced speech readied up, but it’s another thing to be entirely non-receptive to anything the customer says. Sincerity is gauged by how much people think you are listening and not just inching your hands closer to the customer’s pockets. The irony in this is that if you take the time to just listen and not say anything, then you are able to better tell the customer that you do care that they get what they want, and that you are going to do everything to make that happen. A willing ear is just as good, if not better, than a glib tongue.

When people look to buy something, they look for people they can trust and who can understand where they are coming from. Sincerity goes a long way to winning customers over, but more than that it helps build your reputation as a brand that really takes care of its people. In this world, genuine objects are worth far more than cheap knock-offs, so there’s really no reason not to be sincere.