4 Ways to Alienate Customers and Piss Off Prospects

If your business model involves cold calls and phone campaigns, this blog is for you. Why? Because exchanges like this happen every day:

*phone rings”
Prospect: Stop calling me.”
Business Development Rep (BDR): Okay, sure. Would you like me to put you on a list where you’ll hear from us just a few times each quarter
Prospect: No, I’d like to hear from you never. Do you have a never-call list? Because that’s what I want.

This is an actual excerpt from an actual call I received from [redacted] today, but it could be any business calling any prospect or customer. If you’ve gotten here, you’re committing Bad Marketing™, and you need to fix it.

This is the kind of bad behavior that gives marketers and salespeople a bad name. And it’s the kind of behavior I want to help you avoid. So, let’s talk about a few things that piss prospects and clients off, and how you can avoid them.

1. Over-zealous call campaign policies

Why did I answer the phone with “Stop calling me”? Because, by the time this call came through, I’d seen the number so many times that I already knew who was calling before I answered the phone. Worse, I’d already asked them to stop calling me. More than once.

The company trying to get my attention could’ve avoided getting to this point in a couple of ways.

First, if they had implemented a longer call cycle, I might not have recognized the number. Second, for this campaign, they had a call-back policy in which, if the prospect didn’t answer, they called back after five minutes. This is a massively disruptive tactic, and it’s one employed by phone scammers. Don’t do it.

If they weren’t going to do either of those things, they could at least have made it easier for call center employees to put prospects on their do-not-contact list. Either way, having a little empathy for the people they’re trying to reach would go a long way.

2. Abusing your inbox privileges

Of course, phone campaigns aren’t the only bad actors here. If you want to stay out of your prospects’ spam folders, you really need to think about how often you send out those email blasts.

Put yourself in your audience’s place. You give your email address away because you want a piece of content. Next thing you know, you’re getting multiple messages a day. It doesn’t take too long before you don’t even read the subject lines before deleting.

You hate it when brands do this to you, so why would you do it to your prospects and customers? Again, have some empathy. Follow the golden rule. Look at where your list segments overlap and how much you’re inundating your audience with emails, calls, and/or texts. Then, cut it down to the minimum effective communication. Your mailing list will thank you.

3. Selling your prospects a solution before they know they have a problem

Whether you’re writing a blog, posting on social, or sending an email to your mailing list, think about where your customers and prospects are in the buyer’s journey. Are you trying to sell them your Amazing Solution™ for a problem they don’t even know they have?

When in doubt, go by the 80/20 rule. Make 80% of your communications informative, entertaining, and/or otherwise valuable to your audience. Focus on the kind of content they want to consume for the majority of your output, and you’ll build trust, authority, and brand awareness. You can use the other 20% (or less) to sell your stuff.

4. Over-promising and under-delivering

“You’ll be AMAZED at this INCREDIBLE and SHOCKING solution to your BIGGEST problem in life!”

If your audience sees a headline like that, your content better be phenomenal. If they give you their contact info based on that kind of promise, and you give them a spare infographic with some common sense tips — they’re not going to thank you. In fact, a lot of them are going to make a mad dash straight for the “unsubscribe” button. And, worse, the feisty ones are guaranteed to call you out on Twitter and Yelp. Not the kind of press you want, tbh.

On the other hand, if you put a little time into matching your headlines (promises) to your content (deliverables), then you’ll build trust instead of backlash. Be a friend to your audience. Promise them what you’re going to deliver, not just what they want to hear.

There you go. Follow these tips, and you’ll avoid a few common pitfalls that almost universally piss off customers and scare away prospects. I’m not saying you won’t anger at least a small segment of your audience every now and then, but this should help you stay on most people’s good side, most of the time. Good luck!

Want help with content and digital marketing ideas that won’t piss off your prospects? Drop me a line!