• Bad Marketing Ideas
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A Sense of Urgency

This is what you get after you drink a few too many cans of soda. It is not part of an honorable marketing campaign! But I think I have heard this bad advice in nearly every single internet marketing guide that I have ever seen.

They tell you that you have to give your customer a "sense of urgency" to compel them to purchase. The problem is that they do not mean that you should hold a sale with a limited time offer - they mean you should only give the APPEARANCE of having done so! BAD IDEA!

I have seen marketers that send out an email saying that only XX number of copies of this or that will be sold, or that this particular deal will absolutely positively end on a certain date. Then a few days later they will come back and say, Oh, we miscounted! There are XX number left. Or "so many people wanted this who didn't get it that we extended the sale for a few more days". And their credibility just plummeted. All those people who rushed to buy because it was only available for a limited time now feel cheated. They were lied to, and they know it!

How about the little piece of software that creates a "deadline" date for you on your page. Know what it is? It is a script that inserts todays date, so you can write your sales copy to say, "Hurry! This sale ends at midnight on (insert script here so it will give them todays date no matter what day they see it on)" Now, anyone who cannot see that THAT tactic is dishonest is deceiving themselves! When you practice dishonest marketing, your customers DO figure it out!

You know, the first time, you almost believe them. The third and fourth time you don't even listen anymore. Unless you want to be lumped together with dishonest marketers, forget about giving your customers a sense of urgency, and give them an honest deal instead. They will appreciate you more for it, and they'll trust you next time.

Sales and limited offers are perfectly legit. Dishonesty to fake them is not. If you are going to hold a sale, with a deadline, then keep your word. If there are a limited number of items available, then don't make exceptions. And don't resort to low tactics to fake time sensitivity.

You can go through life trying to scam more people all the time, or you can do it the better way, and earn your customer's trust, and keep it so they'll come back over and over. It is far less expensive to get repeat sales from existing customers than to keep getting new ones. Keep it honest and smart, and they'll come back again and again. And THAT's Smart Marketing.

Don't believe me? McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and Dell never resort to such tactics, and neither does any other major reputable company with a long history of financial success.