Marketing - how many people DON\'T fall for simple tricks?
 

Just got an email from some business I once purchased a RAM module from. Great Presents for the Holidays! <blah blah blah memory products>. (Dutch present-giving holiday coming up). Airlines do the same thing. Special to Dubai/Tokyo/Afghanistan this week! Gee I wasn't planning on it but that just sounds tooo good to pass up!

This type of thing pisses me off to no end. I don't get mails like that very often, and I can't really blame them for trying to establish a customer base. But I personally don't give a [censored] about newsletters and crap like that. Here's how I make purchases: first comes the realization that I need something, and then I go find the best/cheapest I can find.

I will read product reviews, but NOT testimonials on their own web site. I will not even read the FAQ if it includes 'Why should I buy your product?'. I will not fall for catch phrases and [censored]. In fact, the more happy faces I see on their site, the less likely I am to buy their product. Bonus Alt-F4 points if they display a group consisting of exactly one of each race. But I digress.

My point/question:

Obviously I am not the ideal audience for 99% of the marketing tricks that exist in this world. Being swayed by anything other than the merits of a product itself makes me feel like a huge sucker.

But are there many others like me? I would assume that most on these forums share my opinion

Re: Marketing - how many people DON\'T fall for simple tricks?
 

I have a BBA in marketing (which ive dont nothing with) and I always thought like you- who the [censored] would pay for this [censored] etc)
But keep one thing in mind:
People are [censored] stupid!
Plain and simple.

I remeber in one class I had the professor was talking about
a time he was commisioned to do all of marketing for all of the fund raisers for an entire school district. He should us what sorts of changes he made to the mailings, fliers etc. Basically the kinds of things he did still wouldnt have made me donate money. Its still just crap that i would throw out right away. But he said that he significantly increased the ammount of donations they received and didnt increase the marketing expenses by much. So this [censored] does work. Same reason Pepsi will spend 3 million for an ad during the superbowl.People are [censored] stupid.

Re: Marketing - how many people DON\'T fall for simple tricks?
 

The logic behind newsletter/spam type email is simple. It's so cheap it just has to get a few customers to bite to turn a profit.

Also the effect of brand recognition itself is probably +ev for them to do this.

A great book if you are into this is Cialdini's Influence. It describes different techniques to influence people's thought process and the ideas are heavily used in marketing.

Re: Marketing - how many people DON\'T fall for simple tricks?
 

I know it probaly not technical at all by marketing standards, but the Tipping Point was a really interesting read.

Re: Marketing - how many people DON\'T fall for simple tricks?
 

OP, I used to think like this, but you are probably affected by marketing more than you think. Some things are very subtle. Take brand marketing for example (I know your post was about more direct marketing). Where do you eat when you are traveling? Do you pull off the highway and grab something quick from <insert favorite national fast food chain here> or drop in on the corner grill which looks a little too spartan?

Re: Marketing - how many people DON\'T fall for simple tricks?
 

max- other than arbys which is amazing i look for the greasist shittiest looking diner i see and the food is almost always great

Re: Marketing - how many people DON\'T fall for simple tricks?
 

I was just using the food thing as an example because I used think marketing was useless on me, and then I realized some percentage of it is working on me, just as I suspect some percentage is working on OP. The thing is, when it works, you don't really even realize it.

Direct marketing doesn't expect to convert everyone, they just have to convert enough (usually single digit percentages) to make the marketing effort profitable.

Another good one is movies. You see the 30 second trailer and it makes you laugh, so you end up at the theater.