Are You Using Misleading Marketing with Shauna Van Mourik
Jan 16, 2023
You might be misleading people with your marketing and not even know it. In this episode of Cash In On Camera, Lead Copywriter & Organic Content Marketer Shauna Van Mourik shares how to know when your marketing is misleading and what to do to turn it around so it helps rather than hinders your business.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear…
▶️ [0:42] That's a great question. And I think that it's a slippery slope to actually put like a pin in it. Because there are a lot of gray areas involved in this concept of misleading marketing, and it comes from a place of ethics. We've gotta think of, are we being ethically sold to as consumers, and then are we ethically selling as business owners and people who are in the marketing space? So as with all things ethics, there is wiggle room, and there is room for debate. But I would say as long as what you are selling is understood clearly to who you're selling it to and it's clear and true and there, there are no loopholes. No rigor, morals then you're in the right space, right? You're doing what's right. You're telling them everything they need to know in order to make an educated decision. I hope that helps.
▶️ [3:14] Yeah. And actually, where that started from, I've been looking at this for a while, because I do have a background in rhetoric, which is very simply put the art of persuasion. And there are two elements to that. True rhetoric, which is founded in Aristotle, play-Doh, those people. , that concept meant the seeking of truth, right? You were going through whatever you needed to go through debates and philosophies to find the truth of the matter. And then there's BS rhetoric, and that is just propaganda. That's persuasion for the sake of persuasion. And so I'm constantly attuned to this, and this is a part of being a marketer, that is bittersweet because then I see claims such as in particular in my field as a content creator. And as somebody who really promotes content marketing, saying that I can get all of your content done in an hour with you. That's what kind of made me hiccup cuz I thought this has given me a bad name and I can only imagine where it's happening in a variety of other fields, which includes like you just said, a coach, a business coach even a fitness coach, right?
▶️ [5:25] One of the things that we do here is profitable podcasting and what we teach is that we can teach you to run your podcast in an hour per week. And that's a pretty bold claim, but it's actually true because and I bring this up because it really is an example of how traditionally, people who teach from podcasting, teach it a very different way. Right? They teach to record it and download it and edit it. And I know as a content producer, creator, broadcaster, like, if you edit things, then yes, it does take a lot of time. So our process is that we don't do any editing. We're cutting all that down. So now it becomes actually not misleading. It's actually true just because we have been innovative in how we've built out that system.
▶️ [7:20] That's beautiful. And it's always good to be upfront and forthright when it comes to any of your marketing when you're showing up. And this actually you were saying authenticity. It's a buzzword right now, but it's a buzzword I particularly love. It's got a lot of different definitions to a lot of different people, but showing up authentically is a part of this whole idea of being ethical and making sure that you're not misleading people. And it's really helpful to think about this in the idea of conversion as well. So if you're showing up as yourself, and you're just rocking it.
▶️ [9:19] And it's heartbreaking. It's truly heartbreaking because so, Sally was successful in doing XYZ in this way. You, even if you become reasonably successful, and emulate her, will never achieve that same level of success because you're not her. and you're more likely to burn out. You're more likely to be dissatisfied with whatever level of success you do, in fact, achieve. So you're self-sabotaging when you're showing up inauthentically to yourself when you're playing copycat copy. And I say copycat copy because it's often I see people doing this with their copywriting. They will see somebody else's sales page or sales funnel and they will almost verbatim copy it and just sub in words or use templates that successful people have used. And it's troubling because it's never going to perform the way you think it will because it wasn't made for you, your offer. And how the transformation that you actually provide to your people.
[13:17] Yeah. And maybe there's some work that needs to be done between the ears to help. And I know this is something that's important to you as well, and it is to me as well as this idea of confidence that you have the self-awareness, but also the self-esteem and the confidence to be able to step out into the world and be truly authentic to who you are, which does trickle down into your marketing. Whether it be the copy, the content the messaging, how you're showing up, how frequently you're showing up, all of those things.
▶️ [17:31] I think especially for people who are selling high-ticket services and products, right? You really have to, and I've had a conversation just recently, I think this morning with someone about this, where there was a misalignment because their ideal client was, or the things that were, they were selling were high tickets, so they needed to bring in clients who could afford those types of high ticket things and the marketing was not aligned to that, right? Mm-hmm. and they were making content that wasn't going to be consumed by that ideal person. So yeah, I think there's something to be said for making sure that there's a connection between those two things. Brilliant.