While learning about my role as a cishet white woman in anti-racism work, I heard a concept that really spoke to my heart: "Do no harm."
This is the idea that when we're forming new, JUST habits, it's important that we work as hard as we can to not further inflict harm during our attempts.
This should also be something we strive for as we work towards more equitable marketing, so I put together a few key ways we can do less harm when selling!
VALUE THE DIGNITY OF YOUR CUSTOMER WHETHER THEY BUY FROM YOU OR NOT.
Let's make that practical. Do you literally talk smack about or shame people who are "sitting on the fence," or does your marketing content make it clear you respect their autonomy?
GIVE YOUR CUSTOMER ALL THE INFORMATION THEY'LL NEED TO MAKE A WISE DECISION.
Don't withhold this stuff! Tell us what is included in your offer, how much it costs, who it's really best for, and the honest results we can expect. This builds trust.
STOP USING FAKE SCARCITY AND INAPPROPRIATE PRESSURE TACTICS.
Sit and reflect on why you default to them. In many cases, we gravitate towards fake scarcity and pressure because we don't know how to make our offer sound interesting in any other way. This is lazy marketing.
Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. How much pressure feels appropriate to YOU when you're shopping? What crosses a line? Go and do likewise.
DON'T PREY ON FEARS AND VULNERABILITIES JUST TO EARN MONEY.
Many marketing strategists tell you to end a piece of sales content with a heaping dose of pain your customers will experience if they don't buy. This is like painting a joyful future vision for your customer and helping them catch the enthusiasm... then dumping a bucket of ice water all over them.
You can talk about pain (and you should), but the WHEN and HOW matters. Don't make them feel like sh*t when they're already hurting. Serve and empower them toward the sale.
Now we need to build on this concept. Our marketing has to be ethical AND humanized to be persuasive. How do we humanize our marketing? Let's talk about it!
The Four Pillars of Humanized Sales
VALUE
Impart incredible wisdom, knowledge, and education to meet your reader's needs. Focus on QUALITY. Would you rather be the 27th sales email to land in someone’s inbox today or the BEST sales email to land in someone’s inbox today? The choice to write something of value is always yours.
PRESENCE
Show up passionately in your content as YOURSELF instead of copying another brand's persona and hoping it attracts more clients because it’s a safe formula. Copying formulas always leads to a more saturated market, which will make sales harder for you and your peers. Dare to be who you already are, who your followers already love!
CLARITY
Be 100% honest and transparent about what your offering includes, who it's for, how it will benefit your customers, and what results they can actually expect.
Don’t stretch or hide the truth if your offering isn’t as perfect now as you envision it will one day become. The truth is always compelling to the person who wants YOU and YOUR solution to their problem RIGHT NOW.
GENEROSITY
Give more of your BEST educational content away for FREE to serve your clients to the sale. There is a difference between giving away the whole farm and giving away some delicious produce as an act of kindness.
Stop giving tiny seeds as samples. Nobody eats apple seeds and enjoys them! But if they love the FRUIT, they’ll be back to invest in more! If you’ve walked around the perimeter of a Costco warehouse you’ll know what I mean. Great samples are persuasive!
.png)
