The main trap of marketing and PR or what happens if you lie

I continue to talk about human marketing. When England entered World War II, there was a very remarkable episode. Military propaganda is something that not everyone usually and does not always believe. Official channels downplay losses, exaggerate successes. I'm not sure about the numbers right now, but the very first radio message from the front about the air battle was about the fact that 40 British fighters were shot down. Later came the information that less - 34. A couple of days later we found another pilot who had made an emergency landing.

The people of England began to believe in what is being broadcast. Because it was noticeable that they are not trying to lie. Moreover, the Germans also focused on their reports.
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There is the first iron principle of good marketing and PR - never to promise a gram more than you can do. And never lie. It should be a little carried away - and then at some point you will deceive yourself.

"Wolves, wolves!"

Why not lie? The first reason is the reverse reaction. Compare two headers. Here is the topic of Alizar: "Pornhub, Redtube and Youporn joined the general protest with a symbolic" slowdown "of the Internet." He slightly otrefreymil title: not "everyone here is doing a share," but chose the most attention-grabbing words. The meaning has changed a bit. He has such a job, to make the news interesting - it does not affect them, only changes the angle. And here is another good old example - “Acceleration of Windows loading for fun and profit”. Sounds against the background of such loud names of topics as some kind of kindergarten from the sandbox, right? No, rating +500, see for yourself - habrahabr.ru/post/106684 . Why? Because a wave of delight from how everything is cool inside.

The trailer should not be better than the movie. An innovative, unparalleled unique phone - these are twelve in a dozen of these.

There are one more thing about announcements. They are very fond of marketing and PR. The fact is that in environments with high criticality (for example, on Habré), you can coolly announce what is not there yet. Because the advantages are obvious, but there is no way to get to the bottom of the problems - the device is not in the hands. A fairy tale of pure water, but it works. I will not poke my finger, but the next time when announcing something insanely cool new just hold this fact in my head.

The difference between a hamburger on a billboard and in reality. Something personally your flat, bleak and a little stiff. We must go out and look at the shield again.

“We guarantee that we will do it in 48 hours. Do you want right now with you, have 15 minutes? ”

The second reason is disappointment at the ideally converging impressions or deficiency found. To promise more, to give less is the way of one sale. If your business is based on selling at least 2-3 goods to the same person (telephones, haircuts, board games, food, etc.) - you are not interested in him taking one and hiding in horror, but in so he came back. And once again returned. And further.

So, when you pick up a new phone and expect it to be the coolest in the world right on the announcement, and it slows down when viewing a photo - it is hellishly unpleasant. When you find more and more small chips - this is a completely different calico. My old Nokia knew such usability that HTC Hero didn’t know - if I deleted the capital letter and printed a new one, the capital one would print again. But in Hero was the perfect mobile mail. And in the Apple reader, when you copy a sentence ending in a word, the transfer of which goes to the next page, it goes to the clipboard completely. These little things give rise to emotions.

On the other hand, when you too aggressively announce something, reality can also give a face to the foot. Even if the product is exactly the same as intended - there will be no feeling of excitement from discoveries.

“This is the best microwave”

The third reason is that when you lie, your employees know it. Sellers. And they begin to lie to the customer about your product. And this is very unpleasant. Like any lie, it takes away the resources of memory and emotions. Then the staff does not hate you for it, but themselves. Then, of course, you, but first yourself. Work becomes impossible. There is no purpose. Motivation falls - and the person either leaves, or opposes himself to the leadership. For example, he steals, because these bastards got stuck there, charging three times Chinese goods.

Confidence in your product is the first part of internal marketing, and I’m also going to tell you about this later. Now the main thing is to understand that there is no better sale than sincere. When the seller is confident in the product and he would have bought it, it is felt. From this you always need to start internal marketing. The easiest way is to start publishing a combat leaflet and increase the information about what the company is doing, why, and how the actions of one department influenced the other. Everyone likes to see the result.

"It turned out even better"

The fourth reason to do well is that we live in a social world. In the game with closed information between sellers and buyers, the latter have the opportunity to exchange pieces of extracted data. A concrete example - the same reviews. Guess when there will be more positive reviews - when will users find something cool themselves, or when will they wait for this from a marketing booklet?

Practice

So you:
- Do not step away from the truth. Not because they can check and take you for a causal place, but because it is unprofitable.
- Minimize the dignity of your product in markets where there is more than one purchase per person.
- Open information about the actions of the company when it is needed.

Example 1, attention grabbing. 2011, we have a novelty for geeks (the first geek game released by us). We are silent as partisans until the release itself. One of the audience members finds the game in the store 12 days after the release. Photographs, puts the topic. The community rejoices at the game and resents how we did not tell them so. Starts to follow our news. What, in fact, wanted to get. It is a surprise to get more than you expect. This strategy is good to learn from Apple with their old presentations.

Example 2, asterisks. Different people regularly knock on me with a proposal to make a co-branding newsletter. In a sense, exchange mail bases - we advertise them in our newsletter, they in ours - us. Usually this is a stock or some kind of freebie. I always ask if they are ready for the fact that I will become their first client before mailing, and then I will tell you everything in detail and honestly. With all the stars at the top of the letter in large letters, with my personal opinion. One way or the other. And - you know - they merge something. The principle is very simple: I can only tell my clients what I am sure of.

Example 3, not mine . The online food store puts in every delivery a small gift. A can of cola, a big beautiful apple, a chocolate coin, and so on. My friends in Vkontakte have a girl who is extremely sober, and knows much more about some social engineering experts. She posted a photograph of the package and wrote that this concern had touched her. This is a little more than you expected.

Example 4, negotiation. Today, I rarely have talks longer than 20 minutes - we are extremely open, contractors are open (or we send them in three letters). Immediately ask the numbers and talk about their intentions. We are not afraid of the word "no." So, while we were going to such a Zen, it turned out that big serious guys believe a lot more if you warn them about the risks. Well, sort of: “We’ll do it, all the chiki-bunches come on, I’m giving a tooth” - this is a good installation. But even stronger: “We will do this and this, and here it depends on the supplier, we can buy a day.” The interviewee understands that you are not trying to “bargain” and for the first time in your life you are happy that someone tells the truth before taking money from him. Everyone is happy. One recognized truth about your flaw makes all other realistic promises instantly much more reinforced. If you are not afraid to talk about minuses, then the rest in your opinion is weighed and justified. In business, to warn counterparty about risks is real happiness.

The most constructive dialogue after the shoal:
- Why is such a garbage with circulation?
- I'm a moron, did not look at the original layout.
And that's all. No attempt to dump the joint, no division of guilt. The most fun - you will not get to the bottom. In the meantime, you think it should be continued:
- Today at night we will assemble a new batch, close the pre-orders, tomorrow by 16:00 there will be the main circulation.
Clear and understandable. Nice to work with people like that, right?

Example 5, shipping. Every day we have minor disputes in the wording. One day we signed up with a new shipping company. Seryoga, the head of the online store, sends an update to the site - everywhere "from 3 days." Ottormazhivayu update, please send at least once in the specified regions and only then specify the period more realistic. Seryoga says that it is not necessary, he has already looked at the tracks at the talks. Depending on the season from 3 to 14 days. But he is afraid that 14 is very dofig. As a result, we write with a fork, it was enough to explain the position above. Will come in 5 days - will be a delight. Will come for 14 - will be approx. All is well.

Example 6, case of technical support. This is an abstraction that we were chased away in Cape Town in business class. You are a local Euronet, a client who buys the first phone shovel with a large screen on the market knocks on your support. He says that he wanted him, but he sits down for a day. Explicit marriage in her opinion.

The Arabs of my group decide to send a client - like, excuse me, this is the peculiarity, “grandmothers are hungry.” Nadine-Marie from Leica understands that it is necessary to thoroughly explain that this is a retribution for a big beautiful bright screen; they say, not a marriage, but a feature. Germans from Lufthansa offer a refund with an apology. I have been upholding my decision for a very long time, almost to a fight: explain Nadine’s version to the client, offer Chris’s refund, give a discount to any next phone or second battery, and clearly indicate in the seller’s script what the customer needs to explain This devil-machine lasts a maximum of one and a half days. And offer along with it immediately before the sale of the battery. Sure, I would earn more and customers would be happy. Check, because of the abstract case, did not work, of course. And it still hurts me that we decided not to waste time on this client - I just give a tooth, she would always take phones from us for another 5-6 years. On the way home I read the exact same case about Newman and Marcus and the return of the dress that had sat down after washing. The owner lost about 40 thousand dollars, and the client then bought for tens of years for several million.

Example 7, a situation of notorious loss. Our sellers training, situation analysis. A man enters the store asking for a game that is not known to be. But then she is in the Children's World in two blocks. The first attempt - unobtrusively to offer an analog. If you need a specific position - print the map and explain where to find someone else's store. For most sellers it sounds like a uniform idiocy. But let's look at the options from the point of view of game theory: the seller can try to tell that no one has such a position. To lie. The result - the client finds out the truth (and it's hard not to know) and takes offense. Minus three years of shopping in our expectation. The seller can do nothing, simply saying that there is no game. The client will leave, everything is at zero. Then he will find somewhere or forget. The seller can advise someone else's shop. The buyer will go and buy his position. And be happy. And it will be remembered that we are so frostbitten that we help even in such cases. Guess where he will go next time to buy a birthday gift to a friend? That is why we recommend doing this. But at the same time, we know that only a seller who understands the essence will do so — although, for example, a long time ago, we checked far Samara, they advised.

Example 8, emergency envelopes. Large companies are constantly on the verge of public scandal. When and what happens is incomprehensible. An example is the recent nezhdanchik with mail. Each emergency package includes somewhere at the level of 30 minutes from the fall of services or the detection of a global problem the item “provide maximum information about the incident to the PR department”. The next step - PR opens this information to the call center, experts, users or journalists. Look at the topic about the discharge of Yandex passwords - dozens of assumptions based on incomplete data, while I am very pleased with the clear and sober determination of employees. And - openness. No one plays the unconscious. The problem is openly confirmed in the comments, indicated that they are engaged, a period is indicated when there will be more information. Information arrives - return topic in the same spirit. There is a ready solution inside Yandex to block mail before replacing the password - someone thought in advance about what an ass happens. And compare with the answer to a similar nezhdanchik mail.ru. Google gave the postanalyst in the spirit of "there was no need to worry so much."

The strategy is that in case of problems there will always be losses. If you are silent as a partisan and say that this is all a lie and vile insinuations, the truth will open anyway. The optimal game is to take minimal losses quickly, that is, immediately recognize everything and say what is being done. During the leaks of the photo from iCloud, those stars who immediately joked and recognized the situation, won more than those who tried to say that they were fakes.

In the client service the problem is not scary. This is, in fact, a reason to strengthen the relationship with the client. An adequate person understands that garbage sometimes happens. And if they understand him from the first minutes and begin to resolve the issue - this is very cool. By the way, tech support providers, I will give it to you, yes.

Back to england

Yes, but about England at the beginning of the war and the loss of 40 aircraft - I am almost sure that there was a catch. Their co-engineer, most likely, intentionally exaggerated the losses in the first report in order to gain the trust of his people. Good or bad - I do not know.