from the people who send me emails with the heading,
"You Got an Affiliate Sale".
I find these false emails manipulative, demeaning and
humiliating. I wonder how it impacts on people
who have never had a sale or had limited affiliate sales?
Does it destroy their hope completely?
It was bad enough when inexperienced marketers used this
ploy to get us to open their emails - but now the top marketers
(who should know better) are engaging in this practice of falsely
building up their reader's hopes.
I find the practice dishonest and unethical and refuse to read
these emails. I will also be unsubscribing from multiple lists
as a result.
The whole thing has become farsical in the extreme - we now
have a major launch underway with the leading email
having the heading, "You got an affiliate sale" - so we will
be inundated with these false assertions.
Are things on the affiliate marketing front becoming so desperate
that we have to manipulate people's hopes and emotions so
blatently?
To me all that these false emails do is confirm that there is a lot
of hype, hot air and falsity within the affiliate marketing
communications. It is getting harder and harder to determine
the "truth".
I would be delighted if affiliate marketers would come to
their senses and desist from this inane and dishonest practice.
******************************************************
Ron Passfield is a Giant Squid100 and
social media consultant.His 6 month social media training program
is available at:
http://www.squidooroo.com
Sign up now for a FREE ecourse
in social media marketing:
Social Media Marketing Tips
Posts
2 comments:
Hi Ron,
I've unsubscribed from quite a few email lists in the last year, so I haven't been receiving the false emails about affiliate sales, thank goodness. Besides being unethical, it seems to me that this type of deception rings of not just spam but potential virus links. And you're certainly right that building up readers' hopes is just wrong. I'm with you in calling for a cease and desist of this practice. "Do unto others" is always a good rule to remember, no matter what one is promoting, and I'd think even this sneaky marketers wouldn't like if people tried to deceive them. Thanks for the alert, and happy new year!
Susan
Hi Susan
Thanks for sharing and supporting my views on this issue. I am not saying that everyone who uses this process is unethical. What I am saying is that the process itself is dishonest - it creates false hopes and leaves the recipient disappointed. I cannot see how this approach builds relationships or encourages interaction. I think that it does get people to open emails at the start but as it becomes more frequent, people will be upset with this approach. The marketers might get more people to open their emails but they will lose subscribers in the process.
Post a Comment