Last week I stumbled across a marketing ‘push’ by an internet marketer that kinda/sorta disturbed me. Do we become so enslaved to the ‘Almighty Conversion Rate” that we find ourselves turning to deceptive marketing tactics?

Is Seth Godin right? Are all marketers really liars? (hey I still have to read that book yet!).

I tend to think that if your customer or visitor or newsletter list *perceives* themselves as being tricked or deceived — or — an attempt to deceive was made at their expense, you lose.

Last night I read the following paragraph in the lastest book I’m reading from my ‘must-read list’ and it really spoke to me (on more levels than just copywriting):

Honesty is fundamental to any copywriting, but particularly so online. Being honest is not about avoiding being caught on the wrong side of the truth. It’s about the basic integrity of the intentions of the writer. Some copywriters might feel tempted to think along the lines of, “You know, I think I can persuade more people to buy this product if I add a little extra gloss to the message.” When you do that, you cross over to the side of the weasel. Being a weasel means skirting the truth to make your story sound more convincing. Weasels leave out important facts and are dishonest by exclusion. Weasels tend to look down on their audiences and consider them to be of lesser intelligence. Weasels depend on fooling people. It’s easy to become a weasel, and there may even be a short-term advantage. But as soon as you start thinking that way, you become cynical about marketing and cynical about copywriting. And cynics never write great copy.

Source:
Net Words
Creating High-Impact Online Copy
Nick Usborne

The paragraph I quoted above speaks in terms of copywriting. When you become weasel-ish, you become cynical about marketing and don’t write good copy.

But there is obviously a much bigger price to pay than crappy copy. The tenuous marketer => customer/visitor relationship is betrayed.

I may not have been all-that-impressed with last week’s marketing method I observed, but I certainly did learn something from it.