Just Say NO to Spammy Sales Lingo

As I dive deeper into formulating marketing plans and writing sales copy for upcoming Pygmy Nuthatch projects, I’m becoming more keenly aware of the fact that there’s a LOT of spammy sales lingo out there. Even people I generally respect in the world of business and creativity fall into this trap sometimes.

For example, I won’t name names but I just deleted an email out of my inbox that started with this:

Something must have went wrong… Because we still need you to confirm your address for your FREE 6-part video <Insert Product Name Here>.

No sir, nothing went wrong. You don’t need me to confirm anything. I never requested this from you in the first place. I don’t care if your 6-part video is free. I’m just not interested in your product. Sorry!

Now I get why people send stuff out like this. I get why people put up landing pages with this kind of spammy sales lingo. They work! So do popup email subscription forms that websites thrust in your face and make you click X to close. Over and over again studies show that email signup popups convert very well.

But the question is, at what cost? Sure you might convert 2%, 5%, even 10% of your audience. But what if you’re also turning off 5% or 10% of your audience? What if you’re pissing off some of the very same people you’re trying to attract? What if your disrespect for your audience’s intelligence and your disregard for good user experience is actually working against you?

I know that I could start employing tactics on this blog right now that would bring me more email subscribers. I know I could start using my mailing list in certain ways to convert leads into customers and make real money. But I’m just not willing to go there.

I’m not comfortable with compromising my values to make a quick buck. It’s just not worth it. There are other ways to make an honest living. I would rather grow my audience and subscriber base organically and honorably. I would rather be known as the guy who is respectful of his audiences’ time and attention and who prizes good user experience over annoying sales techniques. And if that hurts me in the pocketbook in the meantime, so be it.

What are you doing in the pursuit of success as an independent creator? I’m not here to judge. But I encourage you to think through the decisions you make for your marketing strategies and how the ramifications of your ideas will affect real people.