I saw an ad from the website builder, Wix, today that might’ve been the most egregious hype-filled marketing I did ever done see.
Here’s how their ad opened:
“Wix just changed the web development game forever!!!!”
Of course, they’re referring to using AI to build your site. I’m sure this is a decent way for new bloggers and, uhhh, nobody else in the world to build their first site. Maybe. I don’t know. I learned a ton of professional skills by using Wordpress to build my first blog and website shortly after college.
The hidden benefit of this hype is that Wix is the only thing standing between you and building a multi-million blog off the back of good ol’ AI slop. Egregious ain’t the word.
I’ve been railing against the use of overhyped claims for a while now:
It’s the bottom rung of marketing creativity. It’s borderline anti-persuasive (the bigger the claims you make, the bigger the objections your target market will have). And it seems like the only type of marketing that exists on certain social media platforms (I’m lookin’ at you YouTube).
It also makes you seem untrustworthy and dishonest.
Does Wix really believe that an AI slop website is the one thing someone needs to launch a successful business?
Of course not.
If they did, they themselves would build an AI slop website and save a chunk of change in the process.
In fact, a website isn’t even important for a business’s success. A website is a lot like a logo: Wannabepreneurs convince themselves that these are two assets they must have for success, so instead of going out and finding customers, they waste their time on meaningless assets. Not saying a website or even a logo isn’t important: But it’s far down the totem pole when you’re just starting.
I didn’t have a “professional” website for years as I launched and grew my biz for example.
Any marketing that convinces you that you need to have an AI slop website or logo is naturally untrustworthy and dishonest.
Again, the bigger the claims you make, the bigger the objections your customers will have. It’s natural cause and effect.
That’s why one of the most persuasive things you can do in your marketing, as counterintuitive as it sounds, is to strip away the hype and oversized claims. Simply doing this makes you seem leagues more trustworthy and honest than most marketing your customers get barraged with.
But there’s something else you can do to layer on the persuasion even more:
Talk about their problems, not your claims.
When you understand your customers like the back of your hand, speaking about their symptoms not only engrosses them in your marketing, but it also primes them to make a buying decision—given that you “diagnose” their symptoms correctly.
Tis a powerful secret of persuasion.
Not only does it not cause the knee-jerk reaction of creating objections in your customers’ minds, but it also makes you seem more trustworthy and honest because you “get” them. You understand their deepest darkest desires. You understand how their symptoms actually sabotage their life or business or whatever it is that your product or service claims to do. And because you “get” them, they also believe that you can solve their problems.
In other words, it gets them to sell themselves on your solution, not berating them with hype and praying that their an S-type personality who is more gullible at falling for said hype.
Lotsa lessons to wrap your mind around here.
If’n you need help implementing some of this in your own email marketing strategy, hit reply, and let’s chat.
John
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