In the lead-up to Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday (did I leave anything out?), I figured this would be the perfect time to expose the shady tactics we marketers use to lure our unsuspecting prey.
Okay, I’m being a tad dramatic. The goal here is not to paint all marketers or all companies as unscrupulous leeches (that’s certainly not true), but to educate you on some of the tactics we may employ without your knowledge. By having informed consumers, we can level the playing field so everyone can win!
I’ve worked in marketing since 2012. (We writers must pay our bills somehow, folks.) Here are some marketing tactics we don’t want you to know about.
Keep an eye out for these while you’re shopping in the coming weeks.
#1 Time isn’t really running out.
Marketers know that creating a sense of urgency makes you way more likely to purchase. So we make you sweat.
Booking.com is a pro at creating a sense of urgency with the multiple call-outs all over its site when you look at hotel rooms:
Now, I’m not saying that they’re lying about the offer running out in 19 hours and 58 minutes (I have no idea if that’s true or not). But that’s a classic “create a sense of urgency” tactic in practice.
#2 We’re not really running out of stock.
Plenty of online retailers let you know when they’re out of or low on stock—a company can only manufacture so many shoes, blenders, or fidget spinners—but how the heck do you run out of a digital product?
In the digital product realm, online courses often “run out” or close to new registrations. Sure, it might be true that the rationale for opening and closing online courses is that the instructor wants to be able to spend their time on a small number of students.
But, other times, you may be falling prey to a sales tactic known as artificial scarcity. It’s exactly what it sounds like: We pretend there’s a limited amount of time or product left, but in reality, we just want to pressure you to buy.
This can be achieved in a myriad of murky ways, including, but not limited to:
Countdown timers
Have you ever put an item in your online shopping cart or landed on the registration page for a webinar and seen that big, scary timer ticking down the seconds until you lose that sweet deal FOREVER?
Yup—artificial scarcity at work. In reality, you could probably open up that same webpage on a different computer or in your browser’s Incognito Mode, and get the same offer with the countdown timer starting over.
Sales magically “extended” (they were planning to do that all along)
I’m an affiliate marketer, and one of the companies for whom I’m an affiliate emailed me weeks ahead of time to prep me for Black Friday. I won’t name the company, but here’s a word-for-word excerpt from their Black Friday sales guide:
“The sale will be initially announced as a 24-hour deal on Friday, November 23, to meet the popular Black Friday discount expectation. It will be then extended for the whole weekend following Black Friday.”
It goes on to state:
“You know that the discount will be active for 4 days, but conversions can be increased further, if you create a sense of urgency and advertise it as a 24-hour sale. You can later update the information that the sale is extended.”
So yes, the company is openly saying that want to dupe their customers into thinking that time is running out and that Black Friday is the LAST chance to get the deal—when in reality, the deal will be available through Cyber Monday. (I declined to advertise this deal for them because of this.)
#3 When you get an email with your name in it, no, we did not personally write that email to you.
I feel like most people understand this concept, but I occasionally get replies to my blog’s marketing emails that are like, “WOW, I can’t believe you took the time to write an email to me. THANK YOU SO MUCH!”
And I feel bad because I realize they have no idea that that email was scheduled in an email marketing software and went out to 1,000 other people at the same time.
Email marketing software is sophisticated enough that all we marketers have to do is insert something called a “merge tag” (e.g. [*FNAME]) into the email template, and the software will automatically pull your first name from the database (assuming you submitted your name when you signed up) and put it inside that email when it sends it to you.
So that email from the business that says, “Hey Samantha!” can also say “Hey Tom!” or “Hey Beth!” It doesn’t mean a human took the time to hammer out an email to you.
#4 Most business social media posts are automated with software—so don’t expect an instant reply.
Unless you work in social media, I feel like you may not realize this. Even individuals (like those Instagram influencers) who might seem like they’re constantly monitoring their account probably are not. They likely use software like Buffer, Schedugram, or Latergram, to post for them at set times.
Given that the software posted to the account and not an actual person, realize that response times are slow because there isn’t a human being sitting at their computer looking at their business Twitter account.
#5 The CEO of that big company might not have written that Forbes article with his name by it.
In a grey area of the writing biz known as ghostwriting, businesses hire writers to write articles for them, and then the business goes to a big outlet and publishes the article—with someone else’s name by it.
Sure, this probably isn’t a big surprise. Everyone knows presidents have speech writers (you did know that, right?). But it becomes grey area when it trickles down to “smaller” people. For example, is it okay for a blogger to have someone else write their book and then pretend that they wrote it themselves?
#6 That “live” webinar you signed up for? It’s pre-recorded. Oh, and we’re definitely gonna sell you something at the end.
Webinars are popular marketing tactics to get people to purchase. They’re highly effective because you get to see a real person, chat with them, interact with other attendees in the online chatroom…but, they’re just that: marketing tactics.
Anytime you sign up for a free webinar, you can expect to be sold something at the end. That’s how they work.
Further, many consumers (myself included) are upset at the sheer number of entrepreneurs who pretend a webinar is live when, in fact, it has been pre-recorded and scheduled in software to automatically play at various times of the day depending on when you signed up.
There have even been some reports in online entrepreneur communities that some businesses will even fake comments in the chatroom! Like, while they’re presenting, they’ll pretend their talking in response to Cindy’s comment, when there is no such comment you can see in the chatroom. This could also be the result of playing back a pre-recorded webinar while you are in a live chatroom with other attendees.
#7 We know a creepy amount of details about you. Like, if you’re not freaked out, you’re not paying attention.
In Mailchimp and ConvertKit, I can see your (approximate) location.
Here’s what Mailchimp says of that process:
When a subscriber signs up for your list with a Mailchimp hosted signup form, we collect their IP address. We send that to a geolocation service provider to estimate the subscriber’s location…
Email marketing software sometimes even attaches a photo (it pulls it from the profile pic you freely provide on Gravatar.com)
With Facebook ads, I can get weirdly specific on who I want to target.
I can target people who are likely to engage with conservative political content:
Or travelers who returned from a trip 1 week ago:
Or people who are away from their family right now:
I can even target people in Pakistan who prefer mid and high-value goods:
Now, how does Facebook know all this? Well, it knows if you’re likely to engage in conservative political content based on your Facebook activity, same goes for returning from a trip; I assume it knows if you’re away from family based on the city you put in your profile and the cities your known family members put in theirs; and lastly, Facebook gets data from third parties as well.
Creepy? To you, maybe. But we marketers bask in the glory of the highly targeted, highly profitable, Facebook ad.
#8 With almost every online product, if you wait to purchase—you’ll get a discount.
Okay, marketers definitely don’t want you to know this. There’s something known as cart abandonment or re-engagement campaigns which basically reward you for waiting.
You’ve definitely seen this. You go to your favorite online contacts seller, add some corrective lenses to your cart, then you go perusing Facebook and totally forget about your purchase.
An hour later, you get an email:
But because you’re a savvy shopper, you hold out for a special deal…and sure enough, the next day, you get this:
When you STILL don’t purchase, the next day, you get a third email—this time, it has a winky face because they are gettin’ pretty desperate:
But then you just get lazy and decide not to purchase. But that business is persistent:
So, as you can see, it’s best for you to just go ahead and wait a day or two before purchasing anything online. It’s likely you’ll get a coupon code as a reward. (Just make sure you put your email address into the shopping cart or register for an account if you want this to happen).
#9 When you sign up for something and get a “special offer,” that’s a sales tactic known as a “tripwire”—it triggers marketing campaigns that prime you for a BIGGER purchase later.
A “tripwire” can refer to a couple of things. First, it can refer to marketing campaigns (through reminder emails or retargeting ads) that try to get you to complete a purchase. Marketers are watching your every move. If we see that you clicked a product link but didn’t buy, you better bet your bottom dollar we’ll be emailing you and targeting you with Facebook ads to get you to come back and finish your purchase.
Second, it can refer to a “tripwire offer,” which is when a business tries to get you to make a smaller purchase first, say around $20. Why would they do this? Because we know that if you make a small purchase, you’re much more likely to make a big purchase later on. In sales and psychology, this is known as the “foot-in-the-door” technique.
Here it is in action: I went to a website for an online course that’s currently closed. But rather than miss out on a potential customer, they have an opt-in offer that gives me a free download in exchange for my email address (so they can send me marketing emails when the course is open again).
Well, after submitting my email address, not only did they send me the free download, but they also presented me with this “special one-time offer” complete with a timer that showed I had only 20 minutes to purchase!
There’s just one problem: An hour later, when I went back to that same site, but this time in Chrome’s Incognito Mode (so the site couldn’t track me and know that I’d been there before), and input my email address again in that same form: I get the same “special one-time offer.”
And again, it says I have only 20 minutes to get the deal. So, obviously, the deal isn’t special and it’s definitely not one-time.
#10 Sometimes, we try to trick you with the subject line so you’ll open our email 🙃
Your email inbox is a MESS, and we know it. We’re constantly competing for your attention. So how do we make sure we win? Well, we have a few tricks…
A) We add “RE:” or “FWD:” to the subject line so our marketing email looks like a casual conversation we’ve had before.
I HATE when marketers do this to me. Because when an email says something like, “RE: Tuesday afternoon,” my brain instantly thinks it’s an email from a friend who’s replying to the hangout plans I sent him. And marketers know that, which is why they put that in the subject line to get you to open it.
B) We add your first name to the subject line so it looks like it was meant just for you.
Remember the merge tags I taught you about above? Sometimes we put your first name in the subject line too to grab your attention.
C) We say something like, “Oops, wrong link!” to try to get you to open this second email.
Okay, SOMETIMES, marketers make an honest mistake and have to resend an email with the right link or whatever.
But…other times, it’s a marketing tactic they employ to get you to open the email. This happens because their email marketing software tells them that you didn’t open the first email (yep, they can see which emails you open, which links you click, etc.), and they know by having a shocker subject line like that, you’ll open up to find out what mistake they made.
The way to test this is to go back and open that first email, click the link they said was “wrong,” and see if it’s a working link. If so, you’ve just been lied to.
So what does this mean for you?
If you’re a marketer—have a hard look at your ethics.
In 2015, IpsosOTX conducted a survey of 1,005 Americans which found that—surprise!—people don’t trust the marketing and advertising industry. Heck, they trust CONGRESS more than marketers:
If you’re a consumer, be a conscious one.
I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that brands will do shady things sometimes to make more money. The key here is to be aware of these marketing techniques so you don’t get taken advantage of.
Or perhaps you’ll go rogue and refuse to perpetuate these acts by opting out of the culture of consumerism (screw you, Black Friday!).
Whatever the case, it’s up to you. I just hope I helped to shed some light on the unsavory side of marketing.
Happy shopping! :)
