Why online marketing scammers intentionally act like douchebags

Why acting like idiots is remarkably profitable for the internet’s loudest snake oil salesmen

Been a really long minute, so I’d like you to welcome to this week’s edition of Second Guess. 

2013 has been a rollercoaster of a year. I took on more responsibilities this year and spent several months building teams, products, and processes. For the first time in a long time, I’ve taken a week off and I’m grateful for the opportunity to get back to active writing. Let’s get into it.

Today’s fun fact: Did you know that the average person is more creative in the shower? If you’ve ever felt like you think or sing better while taking a warm bath, you’re probably right! The warm water increases the flow of dopamine — and potentially makes us more creative.

If you’re new to the newsletter or you missed the last edition of this Second Guess, catch up: I wrote about why I no longer care about work-life balance and argued that ambitious people do not need a trade-off between work and life.

And now, to today’s story…

Before the late 19th century, when businesses wanted to sell products or services, they would set up booths at trade shows and try to attract as much attention as possible. While this method worked to a large extent, it wasn’t the most efficient process. There was no way to track potential customer interest, segment prospects, follow up, or know for sure when to close sales in the future. You either sold or you didn’t.

In, 1898, a man named Elias St. Elmo Lewis designed a marketing model — AIDA — to help salespeople guide their prospects through the purchasing process. AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action ushered in the era of the sales funnel.

The sales funnel in business is the journey a customer takes from when they first hear of a company to when they make a purchase. It’s called a funnel because, at every step of the journey, potential customers will be lost.

Let’s say a fashion brand wants to introduce a new luxury line and is planning a launch event to showcase the dresses and they pay for advertising to reach 500,000 people. Out of those 500,000 people, it’s likely that 80% of that number don’t fit right within the target audience, aren’t interested, or can’t afford the dresses. 

Out of the 100,000 people left, only 40,000 people are excited enough by the ad to click on the landing page to sign up for the mailing list. Of those 40k people. Of those 40k people, only 1k people might actually pay the reservation fee for a sea. During the event, it’s possible only 300 people actually buy the clothes. Out of the initial 500,000 people, only 300 people made a purchase.

Why marketing charlatans exploit the sales funnel

A good sales and marketing team will do their best to make sure that the drop-offs from each stage are as low as possible. If the fashion company wants to sell more than 300 clothes, the sales and marketing teams will have to look into the sales funnel to figure out areas of improvement. They could improve the ads to make them more exciting, make their emails more exciting, introduce deals, book a larger event venue to accommodate more people for the launch event, or implement Buy Now, Pay, Later, after-sales value adds, etc.

The sales funnel is so valuable in business that it can be the difference between profitable companies and struggling companies. But marketing charlatans have hacked another way to achieve the same results without all the hard work. Instead of using data and targeting to carefully plan their marketing strategy — that would be too expensive — they can just shove a lot of people into the top of the funnel. Instead of trying to reach 500,000 people, why not reach 5 million people; even if they have to employ dirty tactics and post controversial garbage, who cares? As long as they get the views and impressions. 

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You see, marketing “gurus” have been in businesses even before the age of social media. These people package themselves with big personalities and present themselves as hugely successful. Then they promise to sell “secrets” to people desperate to become rich.

For a normal reputable business, reaching more people would cost a lot more money, but for marketing charlatans with far less to lose, they only need to figure out how to reach as many eyeballs as possible, by any means necessary. This is where their gauche, sociopathic, unbearable personalities come in. 

Despite what we think when we see their cringe content, these marketing scammers are not dumb

There is a popular saying that “any publicity is good publicity” and marketing charlatans exploit it to incredible heights. People getting outraged by a marketing charlatan’s controversial opinion is still putting their face in front of a new audience. And so these marketing scammers do their best to fuel the fires with gaudy personalities and careless hot takes.

Hate tweeting, trash-talking, dragging, and “ratioing” a cringey video from a controversial marketing “guru” is still contributing to the overall engagement. People searching for the origin of the “gist” all further enhance their reach. Converting just 1% of 5 million viewers is still more profitable than 80% of 50,000 viewers. 

Marketing charlatans aren’t looking for intelligent people

Have you ever wondered why scam emails often have glaring errors? They don’t want to waste their time on people smart or aware enough to spot red flags. It’s the same strategy marketing charlatans use to capture the attention of the most gullible people online. 

Case in point below:

These fake gurus make more money selling courses than from their actual business. It’s not surprising why many of them constantly promote seminars, courses, masterminds, or online products. It’s ridiculously profitable — even though the courses themselves offer very little value.

Fake internet gurus know that many people are desperate to change their life. They recognize there’s a lot of money to be made. So, they make up personal experiences to appear like an authoritative figure and then charge hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for a course that’s hastily put together in the pursuit of a quick dollar. 

If they get a little too much criticism, they can always brand concerned people offering valid criticism as “haters”.

In conclusion,

• If a marketer overemphasizes earnings without any verifiable value offerings, it’s likely a scam. 

• If they throw around huge figures and they don’t have trackable work experience, it’s a scam

• Marketers who claim to be making $100,000 a month from side hustles should be able to back that up. If a marketing influencer can’t show you the receipts to demonstrate how they achieved their success, you should approach their advice with a healthy amount of skepticism.

How to spot a proper marketing influencer? Simple, they often talk about things in their areas of expertise, and work or have worked at the highest level, building unrefutable proof of impactful work with years of experience. Quick Google searches and some reading can also typically back up claims or trends that experts speak about. 

Nobody is going to become a great marketer from attending poorly compiled seminars. Neither will anyone make thousands of dollars weekly from passive income after bingeing a sloppy course.

You often don’t have to dig too deep to see several bad reviews from people who have been scammed. But also, most of these marketing frauds never seem to have any notable track records. There’s nothing more annoying than investing a lot of your hard-earned money only to be served vague self-help bullshit you can read in the average motivational book.

Marketing charlatans know that our attention in today’s world is currency. Let’s learn to spend our wisely.

See you next week!