Being Nice May not Always be the Best Way to in Customers

by Douglas Titchmarsh

Published on this site: September 15th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

We spend a lot of time being nice to our customers. Why not, it's how we have been taught to behave towards our customers. Treat them with respect, massage their egos and they will reward us with their business. So we carefully craft our newsletters, and adverts, emails and websites to keep them happy, and on our side.

Then suddenly something comes along which turns this on its head. If you missed "The Rich Jerk" then you must have had your head in the sand, it was big news. This guy insulted his website visitors. He put them down, and told them he was better than them and had no time for them. Then they went and bought his product. And how. It sold in droves, but why did the people he insulted buy his book, and why did those same people keep telling the people they knew to go there?

It was a masterpiece in marketing psychology. The very fact it was so demeaning and insulting to the visitors meant it got talked about. The site created that elusive marketers dream, "A buzz". It also had a "whodunnit" factor for a while as no-one seemed to know who was behind this mocking salespage. Everywhere you looked people were discussing it, why it would fail, why they wouldn't buy from such a boastful seller, what were his credentials, and many other topics were debated.

All this discussion caused the site to gain ever more visitors as more people went to see what the "buzz" was all about. While they were there they would get curious as to what they could learn from this "Rich Jerk" and buy the ebook to see. The book was a good one too, and created even more discussion as people told others their mini reviews of it. It also had an affiliate program, so you could go on to promote it to earn commissions.

Back to the subject, the Rich Jerk promotion worked to sell ebooks by not being nice. It caused a stir, and made people sit up and take notice by breaking the rules. So we have learned that being nice isn't the only way to make sales, done correctly you can treat people like dirt and they will still buy from you, and tell others to buy too. Not only that, but I bet being the bad guy was a lot of fun for the Rich Jerk too, don't you?

Douglas Titchmarsh: Discover "How the Jerk got Rich" at
http://www.thediscountebookstore.com/....viewProd&productId=47
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