Why marketing feels sleazy
If you’re a purpose-led business then I’m going to go out on a limb.
Many of the marketing tips you see make you feel slightly uncomfortable.
‘Good marketing’ seems pretty overwhelming.
You’ve got a gut feeling that your customers won’t respond well to what the Gospels of the Marketing Gurus exalt as ‘Marketing 101’.
If that’s you, I’ve got some good news.
Image by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash
Most of the marketing tips I see make me feel pretty uncomfortable. And I’ve been working in marketing for 20 years.
Overwhelm often arises from trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Trying to use traditional marketing in an ethical set-up? There’s a square peg in a round hole, right there.
If you think your conscious customers will be turned off by multiple sales posts and cynical ‘influencer marketing’, then you’re probably right. Which goes to show that you’re better at this marketing thing than you thought you were.
Purpose-driven versus profit-driven
There’s an assumption that purpose-driven marketers use the same techniques as everyone else. The only difference, on the surface, is that purpose-driven marketers put those skills to use for brands that do good things.
The reality isn’t quite that simple.
Traditional marketing is profit-driven. It’s designed to make you buy more. To make you add more stuff to your basket. To convince you that you need things you didn’t know you needed. To make sure that the maximum sales are squeezed out of every order. It’s designed to treat people as consumers, for the sake of profit. It’s not designed to meet the needs of people.
It’s a way of doing things that rarely sits comfortably with an ethical business owner, let alone people trying to make ethical purchasing decisions.
Purpose-driven marketing is a different ball game. The goal posts have moved; the end result is different. The parameters of what’s acceptable and desirable change when we’re driven by purpose.
1. Why traditional marketing feels icky
Scarcity. Flash sales. BOGOFs. ‘Free’ delivery if you add a little more to your basket.
“Look at what other people bought!” and “Tell your friends what you bought!”
Visual shenanigans, with mood-inducing imagery and carefully placed ‘Don’t miss out!’ buttons.
Prices at $999 - it’s less than a thousand bucks!
It’s all psychological trickery - manipulation, even.
When people morph into consumers - vessels to increase your margins - then it’s easy to see why marketing feels uncomfortable.
And that’s without getting into the ethical implications of this humans-as-consumers ideology. It brushes over the uncomfortable reality that consumers are, in fact, people. A woman searches for pregnancy tests on Google? Then let’s use that data to target The Consumer’s social feeds with ads for baby products! OK, the pregnancy may not have been planned, the test may be negative, and that individual - that person - may have a traumatic miscarriage... but forget that and look at the big picture: those ads have an ROI of £2.04!
2. Why traditional marketing is overwhelming
There’s a lot to pack into a traditional marketing strategy.
Trying to convince someone they want something they don’t need.
Persuading someone on a budget that they’ll feel better if they spend a few more pounds.
Always aiming for more - having evermore challenging targets, for more sales, more value per sale, greater margins, more consumers.
Attempting to make people do something they didn’t intend to do.
Continually trying to create new demand, rather than respond to existing demand.
Acknowledging that enough is never enough.
Traditional marketing pushes the limits of what’s possible, in the name of growth.
If you want to maximise every single opportunity for profit? Then yes, you probably do need to post on Insta 14 times a day, show up on Clubhouse without fail, create the perfect tone of voice, spend gazillions on SEO and develop a cross-channel, multi-layered sales funnel that you fine-tune, ad infinitum.
For years, I told people “Marketing isn’t a dark art”.
These days, I caution: “Marketing doesn’t have to be a dark art”.
Profit-driven marketing has gone so far. Consumer psychology is a massive industry. Tracking people across their digital and physical lives is normal. Billions are spent on ‘UI’ and ‘UX’ - heat maps and A/B testing to ensure that the User Interface squeezes every last transaction out of every ‘touchpoint’; and the User Experience is so slick that it’s virtually impossible to come away without hitting the ‘Buy Now!’ button.
That’s moving beyond the realms of good marketing, into something entirely different.
All that tech, all that design, all that psychology, all that sophisticated manipulation, all that time, to squeeze every last ‘efficiency’ from every last tool? No wonder marketing appears overwhelming.
And yet it doesn’t have to be like that.
Creating demand that doesn’t exist - that does call for complex, difficult, overwhelming approaches.
Engaging with people who want to engage, raising awareness of services and products that people need, and will find valuable? That’s not overwhelming. That’s not a dark art. That’s just a basic business function.
Sure, doing it effectively means learning some new skills and gaining some new knowledge. And yes, you have to put in the work.
But if you can get your head around public liability insurance, if you can make sure your orders are shipped efficiently, if you can keep the books in order? Then you can do purpose-driven marketing.
3. Ethical customers aren’t consumers
Conscious customers aren’t your everyday consumer. They’re wonderful, and daunting. They’re principled and passionate - keen to support you and keen to hold you to account. Their admiration can make your business; their scorn can break it.
They care about our planet, they care about people. And if you and I are uncomfortable with the tricks of consumerism? So are they.
Which is why much of what is taken as a given in traditional marketing doesn’t apply to ethical businesses.
Your customers are your partners, not your consumers. Consumer marketing isn’t going to cut it.
And that, in a nutshell, is why ethical marketing needs its own approach. An approach that gets us heard, that helps us build relationships. But not one that puts profit above the planet, or people.
Ethical Business Marketing - our eight week, bells and whistles marketing course for ethical businesses - starts on 20 September.