Honesty in Marketing, from my real world experience
Being honest and actually caring about your customer is paramount to running a successful and long running business. Especially if you are a small local business. Word gets around quick if you are being a dishonest and mean person. Unless there is no where else that they can get their goods in town, then most likely those customers will leave you. Being honest applies to your marketing as well. Yes, a well-crafted phrase and catchy graphics might bring them in initially, however, if you were being outright tricky with your marketing offer from the start, customers will know and they are very unforgiving.
An example I would like to give is an industry in which I used to work in. The Casino industry. It is indeed a very cut-throat business. Many of the companies trying various different ways to bring in new customers to their property. A popular marketing phrase often used is, “Up to 98% payout on our machines!” At face value, for a new potential client whom is looking to try and go gambling for the first time, or looking for a new casino to try their luck at, this is very appealing. The chance to go and gambled with what appears to be a very low risk. 98% payout sounds pretty awesome right, that’s only a 2-cent cost to try and win a ton of money! However, buyer beware. I will tell you exactly what that means.
The phrase, “On our machines” is a multi-layered dimension statement. That statement means, that 98% payouts are on slots that are owned by the casino. The other layer to that statement is the casino really only need a couple machines, in the entire casino to payout 98% for their marketing phrase to hold true. Depending on the size of the casino you can really extrapolate the chances of finding that one or two machines that pay out 98%. Also, the other layer to that statement is, there are machines in the casino that are owned by 3rd parties. These are usually the ones with the highest payouts. Those payouts in the millions of dollars. Those machines will typically have the highest percentage hold. Why, because they are very popular, the machine has to split the profits with the casino and also, once those jackpots are hit. The 3rd party has to have enough money to pay them out. In the state of Nevada, the maximum hold percentages, if my memory holds true, is 15%, however typical hold percentages are 4-12% is the common practice, the lower the denomination the higher the percentage hold.
Going back to honesty in marketing. What happens when a customer goes to the casino, spends two to three thousand dollars and just loses everything, and fast. Well, the customer gets very jaded, many times they will approach an employee and ask why their 98% payout statement was bull-crap. Find out what exactly that phase really meant. Now the customer is angry, leaves and promises to never come back. On top of that, that former customer tells as many people that will hear them out, how much your business stinks and is dishonest. Now, maybe the casino has enough marketing money to just remedy the problem and bring an endless stream of new customers in, however, for a small business being dishonest like this. It would eventually end very poorly.
One final hint on casinos, the jack up the hold percentages during the busy holiday and weekends. Be careful out there! They don’t have all that fancy carpet and chandeliers for nothing.
Thanks for reading, and for help with an HONEST marketing plan, please reach out to me
Jason St Clair
Jason@atheoz.com