On Reputation and Modern Marketing

Lately a lot of books have been written on “effective” marketing and selling, drawing on everything from NLP to neuroscience. Many of those ideas touch on manipulation at the point of sale — and by now they’re used everywhere.

For example:

— Manufacturing a sense of urgency: “Price goes up in X days, hurry…”.

— A different price depending on how “well-off” the buyer is assumed to be — guessed from their IP address, location, search history, and the pages they’ve been browsing.

— A different price for holidays or periods of high demand.

Note that the product or service itself stays absolutely the same! How acceptable is that, when you’re expecting money to come in only a few days from now and you’re offered the very same thing for more? Would you be glad to learn that the item you bought for, say, a thousand rubles, your friend picked up for five hundred — thanks to some hidden algorithm?

Among the other techniques:

— The “struck-through price” method, where an inflated figure is crossed out and the item sells at its normal price, but with the theater of a discount.

— Quietly raising prices right before the “sale” so the markdown looks real.

— FOMO, the fear of missing out: “Only X spots left, hurry…”.

— The trick: “Oh, sorry, the one you want was bought literally ten minutes ago… but if you’re really ready to buy, let me check the stockroom…” — where the needed item magically turns up.

— A format built on cornering the resource: “Take it or leave it.”

— Harvesting personal data as the price of access to otherwise public content, to be used for marketing later.

In his research, Jack Brehm found that when options start to feel less available, our instincts make us want them more — because we feel our freedom being squeezed.

On the other hand, I remember being taught back in 2007, on an MBA course, that words like “elite,” “exclusive,” “top-tier,” “VIP” and the rest often repel the target audience more than they attract it.

When you deal with marketers, it’s worth remembering that their goal is the short-term win, and to get it they’ll reach for any combination of manipulative methods. They earn their commission here and now, at the cost of your long-term reputation, and then go find the next client who looks like you. Is that the result you’re counting on?

An excessive hunger for profit is like the word “huckster” branded on your forehead. I’ve seen cases — especially with goods or services that exploit people’s needs at their most vulnerable moments — where, with no alternative on offer, people paid through gritted teeth; but the moment other options appeared, they turned away from the old counterparties for good.

In today’s world, where almost everyone has learned to sense the catch by instinct, selling consciously looks like something new — but it’s well-forgotten old. Everything in moderation!

Building trust with your clients lays a solid foundation of reputation, step by step — and over the long run it always pays off.

Here’s to guarding our entrepreneurial honor from a young age! 😎