Shame as a Business Model
I recently unsubscribed to a Facebook messenger mailing list about social media. The content wasn’t helpful to me and I didn’t get a lot out of it. I didn’t like the buzzing of my phone like I was getting a personal message only to see a person promoting their webinar to sell me their stuff.
So I unsubscribed by pressing the “Stop sending me these” button.
The reply said “Tacocat has gone off to cry.”
Seriously?
You didn’t give me useful content, but you sent it to me in an interruptive way, and then you went all emo pouty on me when I declined?
Shame as a business model shows that you don’t have helpful content to offer. If your leads are only sticking around out of guilt or pity for you, you’re sucking
Maybe I’m taking this too seriously, but marketing is all about feelings and psychology. This guilt stuff is a mistake.
True confidence as a feature
I learned a great way to think of myself from Seth Godin:
“You’ll pay a lot but you’ll get more than you paid for.”
Businesses with this mindset don’t sulk and pout when you leave them. My SEO and marketing services aren’t for everybody. But for a few of you out there, I’m the best SEO consultant in Evansville. For small businesses. That works great with business owners and one-person marketing teams.
See what I did there. I know I’m not for everybody. But that’s alright. Better to be clear about what I do so that somebody can refer me than to burn bridges when somebody isn’t the right fit.
It’s fun to have a brand voice
I get what those Tacocat sulkers are going for. They are going for a brand voice. It’s what makes us a little more human. It’s what makes us click with one company instead of another.
So go ahead and let a little bit of your personality show in your marketing. That’s cool. Just know that people respond to joy and generousity a lot more than they do to guilt and shame. Be the good guy in your marketing.
Even when they unsubscribe.
