The Problem With Building Herds

A lot of people responded to a post I wrote last week about marketing like a douchebag.  The post was written in response to an e-mail I received from someone who wanted me to come to a “herd building day” at an upcoming seminar he’s hosting.

While much of the feedback I received was in the form of objections to the use of the “d-word”, there were a couple of questions that jumped out at me that I wanted to take a few minutes to address.  WARNING: the aforementioned “d-word” might pop up a couple of times in this post, so I’ll get that one out of the way first.

Question: Why did you describe the offending info-marketer as a “douchebag”? Answer: First of all, it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s an information marketer.  I have no problem with information marketers, especially since I consider myself to be one…or at least I’m testing the waters.  What I object to, and what inspired the name-calling, is bad information marketing practices.  More on that later.  The reason I used the word “douchebag” is that’s the only one I could think of that captured the visceral reaction I’d had to the email I’d received.  I spent a good two minutes trying to find another word that captured the feeling.  I couldn’t.  Moving on.

Question: What is a “herd building day”?  Answer: I have no idea.  I tried to figure it out, but the page that the email linked to had very little information about what the event actually entails.  Maybe you can figure it out.  I’m not going to dignify the page with a link; just google “herd building day” (with the quotes); it’ll be the link right under the post from this blog.

I’m going to make an assumption, though: based on previous communication from this particular marketer, I would guess that a “herd building day” is designed to teach you how to create a group of people who will buy stuff from you, regardless of whether it has any real value to them, because you’ll know the magic formula for crafting your “marketing message”.  Seriously.  This is the kind of stuff this guy teaches.  Of course, it could also be an inside joke referring to the fact that the people who sign up for the class are demonstrating the very herd behavior they’re hoping to learn how to create in others.  Pretty sick, eh?

Question: Why do you object to the use of the word “herd”?  Isn’t that just another way of saying “tribe”?  Answer: Only if you’re a douchebag.  I object to the idea of referring to your clients as a “herd” because a “herd” is a group of mindless animals, doing whatever they’re told to do, following wherever the leader goes.  A tribe, on the other hand, is a group of folks who share a common vision and are working together to achieve it.  There may be a leader, but if his head gets too big or he starts to milk the tribe for everything it’s worth, the tribe can kick the leader out or defect to a new tribe.  Herds don’t do that, because herds don’t think; they blindly follow.

Question: How can I be an effective marketer without being a douchebag?  Don’t I have to know how to manipulate people to make them buy?  Answer: It’s pretty simple, really: start by respecting your clients.  If you do, you’ll be more likely to create and market products that they want to buy, and you won’t have to manipulate them.  The basis of bad marketing is that it assumes that, no matter what the product is or whether or not it has any real value, people will buy it if you have a great “marketing message”.

Forget that.  No matter what these guys tell you, it’s total BS.  Do you really want to sell people stuff that’s going to be useless to them or, worse, is going to piss them off when they realize that you have their money and all they have to show for it is a bunch of crap?  If not, take the time to ask around and find out what kind of products your ideal customers want to buy.  Of course, that assumes you know who your ideal customers are.  If you don’t, start here.

If you start from a place of humility and are willing to ask how you can best serve your clients, you’re likelihood of success is greatly increased.  Figure out how to create a product that will change the lives of your clients in a positive way, and they’ll beat a path to your door to buy it.