Marketing- How to identify, correct, and avoid the good, bad, and illegal marketing tactics you use and consume.
THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME
I tried to warn you, I straight up told you just above this is a waste of your time, and clearly no matter what I say or do, you're still reading, aren't you?
WHY?
I've basically told you this isn't going to be anything of value, nothing that will actually help you grow, I didn't even promise happiness, or a trigger so you could release some pent up anger, yet you keep reading, you keep scrolling, you keep consuming. And here you are.
WHY?
I would guess curiosity, perhaps hope, maybe boredom, possibly even trust that I wouldn't actually waste your time despite what I was saying.
So. Here we are, together.
It reminds me of that song by Green Day on their Dookie album (yeah... I'm taking us WAY back to 1994)
"With nothing else to do
May I waste your time too?
So why are you alone?
Wasting your time
When you could be with me
Wasting your time"
What things are you doing in your business that's moving you forward, or are you just wasting your time and worse- other people’s time. THIS is what I really want to talk about today and it all ties back to Marketing- how we use it and how we consume it.
The other day in my Instagram stories I went off on a wee bit of a rant. I had signed up for a few free webinars, master classes, etc. from people in my industry (online education and course creation). Photography, Business, Coaching, Art is NOT new to me. Taking all of that and putting it into a successful COURSE is new to me (there's a lot of behind the scenes logistics- creating slides, audio, filming, hosting, launching, marketing, etc.) So I have been eating up as much free content as I can find along with dropping some serious cash on a course (I know, crazy right, I bought a course on how to create a course... haha!)
ANYWAYS!
These people I signed up with show AMAZING results.
They PROMISE success.
They say they have the SECRETS.
I trusted them at the time based off of:
Instagram following (you must be legit if THAT many people follow you, right!?)
Screen shots they were sharing (they have to be real, right!? That’s ballsy to photoshop)
How confidently and calmly they spoke (It's easy to spot a dirtbag, right?)
And they were educating on and selling something I wanted aka - their marketing(they nailed my problems and offered solutions- hooray.)
I packed up my computer, went to my local Starbucks, I sat down ready to take notes and was SO excited to learn something new. I love learning. I love expanding. I'm open and ready for a challenge. I'm not afraid to invest in myself and my future.
I couldn't have been more pissed off when I was done watching these videos. They were a WASTE of my damn time.
But... why? How? Was the info not good? Were they horrible, lying people trying to scam me? NO! They shared openly some education, spoke with so much positivity, shared results, shared their personal story.
So what happened!?
With the first “masterclass” I signed up for, I don't know why, but towards the end something clicked and I thought- should I trust this? I know it's STARING me in the face, but should I actually trust it? Should I trust their tactics, hints, and in the future should I ever trust them enough to invest with them?
This started my hour+ search rewinding videos, pausing them, zooming in to see Instagram handles of their clients, finding those clients online, and instantly becoming LIVID.
The results they shared were "true" but they were glorified, inconsistent, and had some conflicting information.
It happened AGAIN to me when I spent $40 on a hashtag data base and education site only to find inside the private Facebook group SEVERAL members complaining of NO results and the owner then stating (basically) it wasn’t actually as easy as advertised, there was A TON of experimentation and research to be done on our part in order to make her system actually work. I canceled after my first month.
Basically what happened both times was-
They mastered their marketing far better than they had actually mastered their craft, service, or product.
And I bought into it, with both my time and my money.
Then this happened- I decided to research someone else from a private group I am in. This person had shared the marketing tactics they used which they claimed had catapulted their business to making $10,000 / day. After some digging it was obvious- it was straight up a lie (heads up: if you’re going to lie openly to everyone stick to 1 consistent lie, it’s far more believable.)
But that lie was good marketing and it brought a ton of attention to her and her “successful” business that most people will never notice.
Why will they not notice? As I said above- hope, trust, good marketing.
And the last straw - I was sucked in by an Instagram ad (my ADHD got the best of me here) that lead me to another free webinar. Although the account wasn’t lying, she did have massive success, in the end she wasn’t actually teaching how she scaled her products that she made, she instead was selling the roadmap and step by step process on how to find and sell Chinese products and then brand them as your own. To be fair… A LOT of BIG companies do this, but that twist was off putting. It wasn’t HER creations that made her millions, it was China.
Why am I telling you this? To waste your time too?
No.
3 Reasons.
White, Grey, and Black Hat Marketing.
What is Marketing?
Wikipedia says: Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services.
Business is a multidimensional spider web that, with time, you'll learn how to weave. Marketing is like trying to attract all the nearby bugs to your web (in my case, and hopefully yours too, I’m not looking to kill and eat my visitors, I just want to invite them to hang out in my cool creation, but that isn’t true for every spider.)
BASICALLY-
The more you learn about marketing the more you will learn about people, how they think, how they talk, what they desire, what resonates with them. It's a little psychological I'll admit, but it's not (always) playing dirty, it's consciously taking the time to understand the group of people you're hoping to work with, who they are, what they want, how you can help them, and how you can speak to them so they understand that you CAN indeed help them with your product or service. It IS a skill, but it doesn't have to be a sleazy one.
Not only are you a consumer you're also a business owner or Artists who does marketing. SO I ask you here and now:
Who do you want to be? How do you want to be successful? Who do you want to connect with and why? What games do you want to play? What system do you want to take advantage of? Who will you screw over to benefit yourself? Whose time and money will you waste as you trap them in your web?
Let's dive in.
1- White Hat Marketing: honest and overall good tactics
2- Grey Hat Marketing: you're trying to make shit shine, morally it might not be the best, you learn to bend rules to your advanage.
3- Black Hat Marketing: unethical and possibly illegal
And now let’s go to the deep end.
1- White Hat Marketing:
THIS IS ALWAYS WHERE YOU WANT TO BE. Be honest. Care. Do to others what you would want done to you. Be creative, be unique, do your research, be a bad ass in your business, learn what you can to advance your skills and understanding of your industry. Get to know your clients, what they want, and what you can do to give them the best experience you can offer!
This should be the easiest way to market but I’ll be honest, it isn’t. Firstly because you’re battling the liars, cheats, and sneaky marketers we talked about above. You’re essentially having to put your truth up against magical fallacies that sell better and that’s hard. Next is the disappointing truth that not everyone will be accepting that not everything is sunshine, butterflies, and roses all the time. There are some people out there who WANT to be sold the lie because they don’t want to be faced with reality, they don’t want to be told they might have to put work in, they want to hide the fact to themselves that something isn’t healthy, they want to stuff down their emotions and numb out, they want the easy way out, they just want to look cool, they prefer to be told what they want to hear, and the list goes on and on.
Nothing is perfect but with the right marketing it can be and that’s why so many of us fall victim to the next category.
2- Grey Hat Marketing:
Step into this area with extreme caution! THIS IS WHERE IT'S SUPER EASY TO GET TRAPPED AND TO TRAP OTHERS!
It's so easy to get tricked here because you're NOT being absolutely lied to, it doesn't feel or appear to be obviously WRONG, it's not a straight up scam, or illegal, but.... it's not gaining success simply by making a great product or providing a great service. Success came from some massive mastermind strategy implemented. It’s that grey area.
You can easily fall into this bracket as a business owner too. How?
You aren't lying, you're just leaving a few miscellaneous parts out that could round out the whole story. You aren't hurting anyone, but you’re not doing your best to protect them from everything you know either. You've learned some tactics that are clever but they are building off of fear, F.O.M.O. or The Dream, making it an easy money grab.
So is it genius or morally questionable? You decide.
Honestly, it's easier to do than you think. Did you learn a trick to hide your hashtags and are you hiding your likes? Did you get a bad review so then you asked all your family and friends to go onto your page with all their different accounts and flood your page with 5 star reviews even if they have never hired you? Did you post a ton of affiliate links to products you’ve never even tried but are hoping to get paid for, or better yet did you do a big haul then return it all? Did you add #catsofinstagram on your self-portrait which is a straight up lie in hopes of getting more views?
Should you go to hell for trying to trick the algorithm? No. DAMN, the algorithm can be hard to bust, I get it, but you have to admit, you’re playing some tricks! Will it hurt the BILLIONAIRE and unstoppable force that is Amazon if you return some stuff? No. But you are wasting time, resources, and portraying a lifestyle online that isn't yours. It's not always as bad as you think, but it's not 100% all that great either. That’s why it’s SO easy to get trapped here and trap others and then you just keep going. Stay alert my fiends!
From a business perspective you might think some of the above things I mentioned were kinda smart (like the great reviews to drown out that mean, unfair review you got from some shithead) but as soon as you switch spots and look at this from a consumer perspective I bet you’re kinda annoyed! You want to read reviews from REAL customers so you can make an honest assessment and choice on how you want to spend your time and money, not be swayed by family and friends who will support that person no matter what!
This is where I have found I am wasting most of my time- with these grey hat businesses. I think what makes me SO mad is the simple fact of: I want to trust people fully and I can’t. I want to fully understand what I’m getting myself into without wading through the bullshit and I can’t. And to be honest:
I’m tired of being the vulnerable, honest business owner who tells it like it is while I watch all of these other people grossly succeed by making their own shit shine while some days I sit in a pile of my own shit (just like they do) and tell everyone about it because I’m not ashamed or afraid and then people see this as failure, weakness, or send me pitty because no one is used to seeing the god damn truth on the Internet anymore.
Ok. PAUSE. I’m gonna take a breath. Do you need one too?
My internal alert system has been awakened and now I can clearly see these tactics everywhere on social media, and I DO MEAN EVERYWHERE. But what's GREAT about this whole experience is I can now ALSO more easily see the AMAZINGNESS that's humbly out there too that even I have been overlooking. (More on this later! )This experience has really made me stop and look at my own marketing too and I am so excited to push on and do it from an even more pure place, even if that means not everyone will want what I am selling, even if people DO see me as less than professional or perfect because I never wanted to be seen as either of those things in the first place. I am raw. I am a dreamer. I am an Artist. I am a writer. I am a friend. I am a coach. I am a real human being running a business and I will dedicate myself to telling the true stories that go along with that in my marketing because that’s what I would hope other people would do for me.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
-Gandhi
3- Black Hat Marketing:
Scammers. White Collar Crime. Slimy Sales people. They sit here. They lie, they cheat, they steal. This marketing is either 100% a lie, they're doing some down right dirty illegal practices to get by, or their personal morals and conscious are so damn low and lost they could care less about any damage they do on an emotional, physical, financial, ANYTHING level. Don’t be these shitheads. This is normally more obvious, but if you’re a trusting and hopeful person engaging with a soulless bastard it can take you by surprise. AND if they are that ruthless they might be using tactics you didn’t even know existed! I don’t have much more to say here- it’s a slimy area you just don’t want to be in, and you’ll KNOW when you’re here. Don’t do this stuff to other people to get ahead. You’re not contributing anything back to the world other than falsehoods so you can get rich. There are better ways. And honestly, some of these things take so much time, money, and brain power, why not shift your way of thinking and do it in an honest way?
I have to add, to be fair... some stuff might actually seem/be fine but the powers at be (like Meta or even the Government for example) have decided it's not ok, waved a wand, and said it’s now damn near or straight up “illegal” so you have to play by their rules unless you want to run the risk of getting the boot, fined, etc. and I'm not gonna lie, in some situations I say- more power to you if you want to try to rebel a little and use Black Hat Marketing to beat these systems and fight fire with fire, just... tread with caution here. They told you the consequences. Are you willing to pay them?
At the end of the day:
White Hat Marketing is not SCREAMING for my attention. It’s not putting a bow on a half ass box and saying I NEED it. It’s not saying- I am THE solution to your problems and your dreams. It's not making me HATE my own life, my own dreams, myself- it's LIFTING me up where I am and gently asking me what I want and if they can help.
THIS is what you want to consume and THIS is who you want to be in your business! Stop wasting YOUR time with these other people and DO NOT waste other people’s time by being those people. Think about yourself, think about your clients.
What will make you move forward in your business? It isn’t obsessing over the tricks, hacks, secrets, overnight success, and over glamorized realities we see on social media.
What will make your clients want to book with you, rebook with you, and tell their friends to book with you? It isn’t tricks, hacks, secrets, and over glamorized realities on your social media. Ok. That might work for 1 booking, or 2. That shit might work for a LONG time if you run a 100% online business where you never meet your clients, but if you’re a photographer or Artist working in the real world, wanting to get paid by real people that you will have to meet face to face who have friends that they meet up with face to face you WILL be found out and your business WILL tank.
All it takes is one real person to book you and have a HALF ASSED experience, feel as though they were tricked, feel as though they were slighted with your service to crumble your business. Look at me, look at me putting these companies on blast. I’m not name dropping here, I don’t want to be that cruel, but you bet if I know ANYONE considering working with any of these people I will wave that red flag so fast and so will everyone else in my shoes- and that’s how the demise starts.
AND. All it takes is one real person to book you and have an AMAZING experience, feel cared for, heard, and seen to explode your business- and that’s how success starts.
You don’t have to cheat, steal, manipulate, kinda lie, extrapolate the truth, psychologically mind fuck people, and put the fear of god into them to be successful and grow.
You just need to be nice, honest, good at what you do, relatable, caring, skillful, and your business will build. I believe this. I know this. I have lived this. And now I look up to this more than ever.
In the last week I have reconnected myself to Artists and business owners that are SLAYING the game and their marketing feels damn near nonexistent. I trusted them and looked up to them years ago when I was building my first business. I invested in them and they changed my world. Since then social media has exploded and I have been completely inundated with these “Masters” that in all reality aren’t masters of any skill- they are masters of marketing, and they spoke so loudly they unfortunately drowned out all the others.
I don’t want to be fed big, fancy dreams paired with false hopes and fancy ideas of aesthetic yet empty moments. I want to learn. I want to feel excited about my craft. I want community and connection. I want growth from a place of passion. I want to know the reality of my future based on what others before me have learned from their past.
I want to hear the real ugly and bad side of things so I can properly prepare myself for those battles and know I’m not alone in them AND I want to hear the so overwhelmingly but simplistically beautiful truths to fuel me with hope so I know what’s possible outside of just me and my current reality.
I know this was long winded.
But I had to get it out.
I am TIRED of our current climate. It effects all of us. It’s important for me to speak my truth about what I’m experiencing so hopefully I can help other people avoid wasting their time and help build a culture where we all agree we want more for ourselves, and our clients deserve better.
When you build a business you have the opportunity to impact lives in exchange for money. It’s honestly just an exchange of energy. I strive for that energy to be creative, positive, bold, and pure.
If you’re still here, if you’re still reading, THANK YOU for trusting that I would NEVER waste your time and I am here to support you in any way I can when it comes to building your business and marketing your Art and services. Together we can make our corner of the Earth a better place just by marketing the truth of who we are and the services we offer.
Are you looking for genuine and creative ways to market your business? Are you being honest in your marketing but does selling yourself still feel icky or confusing? Or are you confident but just can’t seem to reach the real people who you know are out there that could benefit from your Art or service!?
I help Photographers, Artists, and Small Businesses just like you simplify their marketing process, get excited about sharing their work, and find creative ways outside the traditional “just post on social media” to get in front of people!
Send me a message with your biggest struggles and let’s design a program for you that feels TRUE to who you are, FUN, and EFFECTIVE!