Unlearning Advertising

By the time a child graduates from high school, they may have seen 360,000 ads. When we grow up and need to promote out interests, it’s really hard to not be affected by that.

When people  try to find the words that will convince strangers to become our customers, the familiar words that come to mind are from all those ads we’ve been exposed to. And they are the wrong words.

I moderate groups on LinkedIn with over 100,000 combined members, so I see a lot of people posting what I call "drive by" ad bombs. They make no attempt at engagement. It's basically a spam strategy. They know it will be ignored by nearly everyone, but if "just one" person pays attention and they get a sale, it's all worth it. There are two things they don't realize:

1. They missed an opportunity to make numerous sales because they don't know how to post for engagement.

2. I delete all those posts in the groups I moderate, so no customers ever see them.

When an entrepreneur is posting, the last thing they should do is go straight to a sales pitch based on ads designed to avoid substance. Entrepreneurs need to engage with their customers. They need to demonstrate their value, differentiate from other alternatives, and prove their trustworthiness. They should want their customer conversations to revolve around substance. Leading with advertising copy does more to hurt your credibility than it does to improve it.

Here are some examples of ad inspired copy so you see how harmful it can be:

• Do you need something [that I happen to sell and am about to tell you about]?

• I’m excited to announce that [I’m now offering…]

• Do you have this problem [that I just happen to sell a solution to?]

• I’d like to introduce you to [something so that I can sell it to you?]

Yeah, I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek. But only a little bit. When you start the first sentence sounding like an ad, it’s blatantly obvious what your motivation is. And that your trustworthiness is a bit suspect. Right from the beginning your making it harder to close the sale.

Entrepreneurs need to unlearn advertising. They need to learn how to engage with their customers in ways that reinforce the buyer’s decision making process in order to get better results.

Let's discuss this important topic:

Have you caught yourself writing copy that sounds like an ad and instead of engaging like a human?

What kinds of pitches do you find annoying?

What do you post to demonstrate your competence and trustworthiness?

Let's discuss unlearning advertising so we can get to customer conversations based on something real.