To be a successful marketer you need creativity, initiative and confidence, but some businesses take it to a whole new level with sneaky marketing tactics that are not only irritating, but are downright patronising. Here is a list of the top ten most annoying marketing ploys that I have encountered over time. Make sure your business is not using them!
- Limited edition products or limited time special offers which are actually repeated regularly.
- Vagueness over prices or basic product information. Often found in service based businesses – potential customers don’t want to have to make an effort to find out what something is going to cost, they are more likely to leave your website and find another one with clear information.
- Presumptive marketing tactics. Acting like the customer has already agreed to purchase something is more likely to alienate them than close the sale. This seems to be a favourite of telemarketers, particularly those with raffle tickets to sell – if the customer hasn’t agreed to buy something, don’t try to tell them they have.
- Over inflating the original value of something to make it look like the customer is getting a better discount. You often see signs, particularly from daily deal websites with something along the lines of €save 90% on the original price of $750€ which sounds like a fantastic discount until you consider that there is no way the original product would be worth $750.
- Creating €benefits’ from obvious inherent product features to draw attention away from less desirable ones. Food marketers particularly like to use this one.
- Special offers that aren’t really special. Taking a tiny percentage off the purchase price and calling it a special offer is extremely misleading, yet it is a trick used successfully by retailers everywhere. If you call something a special offer, make sure that there is a significant discount.
- Fake product reviews. With the popularity of online product review sites, many businesses are now paying for fake reviews to help promote their product or service. Purchasing fake Facebook followers is another way that sneaky businesses make themselves look more popular than they are.
- Using vague or misleading terms such as €organic’ and €natural’. This is particularly common in beauty products, but there can be little or no difference between the ingredients in the €natural’ products and standard ones.
- Street marketing. Pressuring people in the street, particularly shopping centres, is popular with charity fundraisers and can be very irritating.
- Loyalty cards and schemes. These can be very misleading, promising big discounts, but often they have complicated rules or fail to live up to expectations.
To grow a business successfully, and build your brand over the long term, you need to focus on meeting the needs of your audience and positioning yourself as trustworthy. Engaging in suspect marketing practices may provide a certain amount of short-term gain, but without engaging with your customers and providing a product or service that genuinely meets their needs, your long-term outlook will suffer.