In response to the post, Does Your Newsletter SUCK?, Dennis Dilday and Dani Nordin brought up some excellent points about the nature of sucky versus great marketing. I think though, that it all centers around one of the great marketing fallacies afflicting businesses large and small: The Sock-Puppet Fallacy. I just made that up so don’t bother googling it.

The Sock-Puppet Fallacy, named after the likable failure that was the Pets.com mascot, is the mistaken belief that the more people like your marketing materials (newsletters, ads, taglines, etc), the more they’ll want to give you money.

You see it everywhere. The effectiveness of ad campaigns is even measured in terms of how they rate in surveys of “Most Liked” ads. But I am here to tell you, unequivocally, that any such connection is purely an illusion.

“How can this be?” you might be asking. “People spend money on what they like. Duh!”

Ah, but here is where the fallacy comes in. To understand what’s going on it’s critical to differentiate between liking your marketing and liking your business. People spend money on businesses they like. But likable marketing is only good for getting people to pay attention. And with a 95 percent product failure rate, the marketing world is choked with likable marketing that does nothing for sales.

Ideally you would have both — likable marketing and a likable business. But to do that, your marketing has to actually give people a valid reason to like your business. If you don’t make it abundantly clear how YOU will meet their needs better than anybody else, they will simply enjoy your clever materials then spend their money on the business that seems like it will meet their needs.

Also, keep in mind that people are reflexively supportive. So when they tell you how much they love your newsletter (website, logo….), chances are they’re just searching for something nice to say.

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