subject: Building your clientele…by insulting them??? [print this page] Building your clienteleby insulting them???
It almost seems counter-intuitive to try to sell a product by talking down to your potential clients or insulting them. After all, aren't you supposed to sweet talk them into buying your product? Actually, that's where the genius of this style of selling comes in. Most people are used to this, and are usually on guard against someone trying to be friendly. What they don't expect is a more unfriendly approach, and so they're a bit disarmed by it. The impression sticks because it's novel.
As an example, let's say that you're looking for an astrology service. You've been shopping around for a while, and hear mostly the same thing. Let's say the typical line is, "Your parents may have been cold and distant when you were a child." Now, let's say you find a site that says, instead of that, "Your parents probably got drunk and beat the %&!? out of you when you were a kid." Which one are you going to remember? The latter one is outside of your expectation, so naturally, you won't so easily forget it, and the candor may actually sell you on that service.
Another example would be in standup comedy. Which ones are the most remembered? Very seldom is it going to be the ones that have similar routines to other comedians. It's a fact that the most outrageous and shocking comedians of their times are the ones whose fame continues after their death.
Before you get too excited about using this technique, it should be said that there is an art form, a finesse, that should be observed in using shock value to sell your products. The most famous comedians aren't the ones that punctuate every other word with a swear word or insults the audience every five minutes. There is other content in their repertoires geared to support the novelty of the shocking stuff, often by contrast. It's better to push a few buttons here and there than to mash them all at once. Otherwise, you distract the clients from the goal of selling your product to them. Also, it's harder to keep your material fresh and novel if you use up everything all at once.
A good strategy to start with is to provide some kind of insult to people who come to your site, but who won't buy your products. It's best to have these on your landing page, possibly as a randomly generated text box. This way, even if a visitor to your website doesn't get moved by guilt or amused into buying your product, they may return just to see the new jab you have for them. Of course, for this to be effective, it's in your best interest to let them know that this is a randomly generated jab. This amounts to, if nothing else, a tool to increase your Google ranking. In this case, keep them wanting more!
If used properly, insulting visitors can be useful for your business. Just don't go over the top with it, or you'll get the opposite effect from what you want.
