The Art of Online Business
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The Art of Online Business
Why Not All "Bro" Marketing Tactics are Bad and What That Means for your Business, Featuring Rob Marsh
Rob Marsh is back to talk about "bro" marketing—why some people don’t like it and why not all of it is bad for your business.
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Let's clear up the myths around these marketing strategies and highlight the benefits of tactics that many see as too flashy or insincere.
Rob shares what he learns from years of writing ads for different businesses and how you can use strong marketing in an honest way that helps your customers.
Watch the previous episode on YouTube, "Building THE Leading Copywriting Community featuring Rob Marsh of The Copywriter Club"
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So I know you've heard that bro marketing is bad. People throw around the women in bikinis, the men on private jets and we all love to hate on bro marketing and I could list five names pretty quickly, which I won't. But here's a good name Rob Marsh is here with us today and we're gonna talk about why not all bro marketing tactics are bad and what that means for your business, rob, if you haven't listened to him on the previous episode where we got you know some nice candid snapshots of how he's built his business, the Copywriter Club, and some transitions and challenges that he's going through in his business. Right now he is a direct response copywriter who specializes in email and sales pages. He's written everything from direct mail to TV case studies and a book. He's worked for clients like American Express, cedars-sinai and Pluralsight. Today he writes primarily for tech companies, software as a service companies and even health supplemental clients. When I looked at the Copywriter Club if you haven't heard of it I see the tagline it's where copywriters go to get better better copy, better clients, better paychecks and maybe, Rob, you're going to change that tagline soon.
Speaker 1:I will see what happens, but thank you for coming on to the show a second time and I'll share the same thing I shared before. When I read your bio, you said you have a very or you're trying very hard not to have that second donut, and I commented that copywriters always have this little something that tickles your fancy, that, as you called in the previous episode a pattern interrupt. You being on the podcast has been that pattern interrupt. I would say a nice, fresh, just amicable interview. Not that all my interviews aren't friendly and fun, but I thoroughly enjoyed our first episode together and I'm happy to welcome you back for a second one. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I mean, if amicable is a pattern interrupt. Maybe we should do something really adversarial here and argue and give people something to talk about with this second episode, Right, right, Actually a little bit of a teaser.
Speaker 1:There may be a more entertaining filter on this episode, on this podcast coming up in about four months, maybe sooner. I'm working on a different podcast format, Ooh nice, I can't wait One that brings on a couple of experts has a twist in there. Ooh, that could be fun. Yeah, I think it's needed. I think it's needed. I'm working on it Very cool.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to see what that turns out to be. Ooh, that can be fun. Yeah, I think it's needed. I think it's needed. I'm working on it. Very cool, I can't wait to see what that turns out to be. Well, there's an open loop. There's a copywriting tactic for you. Keep us all listening for at least four months till we can find out what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Right, what will happen? And now I've committed myself on public air to actually make something happen. So, bro marketers I've never met one of these fabled bro marketers. You know, I hear about them. I feel like there's kind of like unicorns. What is a tactic that bro marketers aren't known and loathed for that you believe actually is good for business?
Speaker 2:Well, let's first you know I think everybody knows what bro marketers are. You mentioned. You know the private jets, the big houses, the Lamborghinis, sometimes fanning out hundreds of dollars or whatever, and really talking about this massive opportunity you've got to get in, and I think those images are actually pretty rare. I mean, there are definitely people out there that use them, and especially in the use them and especially in the biz op kind of world. They're out there for sure. But I think a lot of people have grabbed this term bro marketer and applied it to all marketing in a way that is really unfair to marketing on a whole and makes people afraid to actually do marketing. And so I've talked about this several times. But I am a fan of marketing, I love marketing, I love what it does, I love how it works, I love doing it, I love figuring out the problems and solving all those issues.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing most of the people that listen to your podcast, cry Joe, are marketers who love this thing that we all do, and when we hear people talking about how bad marketing is bro marketing whatever sometimes we start feeling bad about it. In fact, I once gave a presentation, a talk, about how marketers can use the tactics that con men you know, confidence men use in order to do good in the world. And after I gave that presentation, somebody came up to me and said I don't I mean thanks for the talk at all, but you made me feel like I'm a con man and that was not my intention at all. You know, after hearing that feedback, I'm like, okay, I got to rework this presentation because I was focused way too much on the negative and not on the positive. But there's a lot of baby in that bathwater that we like to throw away.
Speaker 2:You know, and say, hey, you know all of that, bro, marketing stuff is bad. So, yeah, I can go through. You know the tactics of why I think that we still need them. But let me just say that if your product works so I mean, if your product doesn't work then yeah, you should not be marketing it. You have no business selling it to anybody. That's bad. But if your product works, you owe it to your potential customers to get it in their hands at a price that is fair, in a way that doesn't take advantage of them, but that helps them solve the problem that they have. And if you do that, then the marketing tactics that you work are going to naturally be pretty darn good.
Speaker 1:That is a very, very good point. I think somebody needs to hear that today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah, we can go on and on about the specifics as well, but if you're serving people, you're probably doing a good thing.
Speaker 1:That reminds me of the phrase selling is serving, not my own. It that reminds me of the phrase selling is serving, not my own. It's one that I picked up from a guy I used to work with, but I believe it's true. I believe it's true. I believe we were put here. I believe we have our skills and our gifts and our passions, and we are meant to serve and work with people. And without selling, how are we going to be a blessing and a transformative agent in folks' lives? Exactly?
Speaker 2:So can I give you some examples, please, please do. I'm guessing many of your guests have heard of this writing formula PAS, the letters P-A-S. It stands for problem, agitate, solve. Lot of people take issue with the idea of agitating the pain or the problem that people have when you're talking to them in marketing. So they say that when you agitate that pain, you're making people feel bad about themselves, you're making them uncomfortable, which isn't a good thing.
Speaker 2:And I don't necessarily disagree with that, although helping people understand how bad their problem is, if it leads to a solution, can be a good thing. But obviously we don't want to cause more trauma. We don't. We don't want to make things worse for them.
Speaker 2:So I would just maybe twist that just a little bit and think about you don't agitate the problem or the pain in order to make people feel bad. You do it in order to empathize with them and show them that you understand what they're going through, so that you can say to them look, I hear you, I've, I've been there. If you have actually been there, you've been through the same kind of thing, or, or you know, I can empathize with you and because of that I have this thing that's going to solve the problem for you. Right like that is a sales message that works, and it does it in a way that is uh helpful. Now, sometimes we do have to help people feel like how bad that pain is right, and so that in that case, agitation isn't necessarily bad, as long as you're not using it to traumatize or to manipulate.
Speaker 1:True.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly so.
Speaker 2:Other things, like people talk all the time about countdown timers are a bro marketing tactic because it, you know, makes people feel like they've got to make a decision right now.
Speaker 2:Right, and there is that element to it. But a lot of programs are time bound, they start on a particular day and, in order to help people decide to join, it helps to have a countdown timer saying, hey, this offer does end Right, and after the offer is over, you can't get it anymore. And so again, doing it from a place where you're helping your customers, as opposed to trying to get something out of them or manipulate them into making a decision, is a good thing. So, and we could, you know, same thing applies for, you know, scarcity and risk removal. You know where, where we try to make it an easy decision for people by lowering the price or giving them a free trial or offering a money back guarantee. Like all of these tactics are effective marketing, and just because bro marketers use them does not mean that they're bad. It means that we're trying to help people get to a solution that helps them ultimately solve a problem.
Speaker 1:I've been helped out of a place of indecision with timers and so far, the courses I bought, I haven't regretted purchasing them. I have yet to get a bad one. Maybe that's just me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there are definitely bad courses out there, there are bad actors out there. There's a reason why we talk about, you know, bro, marketers or any of the other you know, surkets that we use to refer to people, but most marketers are good and are trying to help. Let me give you one other example, because I've heard this a lot, where people say well, you know the product, all you're selling is hope, right. So my mom, before she passed away, had Alzheimer's disease and obviously Alzheimer's is a terrible thing to get there's no hope for a solution.
Speaker 2:You know it's going to end badly. And as she was starting to deal with this diagnosis and what was going on, she went online and she found some tapes and a couple of books. I think that you know it's like brain energy and the promises there were. You know, helps you remember things and they may even have stretched the truth a bit into you know, helps delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Speaker 2:My mom bought those and you know when, after she passed away, you know, and I was cleaning out some of her stuff I found these products. Now you could argue that the products didn't work and it was bad and she shouldn't have been sold these products. Now you could argue that the products didn't work and it was bad and she shouldn't have been, you know, sold these products. But I would argue that those products gave my mom something really precious in the years that she was alive, and that was hope.
Speaker 2:She had some hope that she would find a solution or that there would be. You know some way to, if not overcome it, delay the symptoms and the things that she was feeling, and to her $100 or $200, whatever those things cost to give her that hope in some ways was way more precious than an actual solution. You know, if there was a solution out there could be Like. Hope is an awesome thing to give people. Now I am not arguing that we should sell products that don't work or that we should manipulate people based on hope, but I am saying that when we give people hope that there is a solution for their problem and and can back it up, that's a good thing, and I I saw that in this thing that you know, maybe was a little bit dubious, that my mom bought and again, I think that's a good thing and something that marketers should be proud of.
Speaker 1:I agree, I definitely agree. I feel like hope is a force. What's the opposite of hope?
Speaker 2:Despair.
Speaker 1:I met somebody who had a lot of despair recently. They'll never listen to this, this podcast, but I remember sitting down with them. It was an old friend and it just if the cart, the cartoon depiction of the storm cloud that's just following you around and raining on you. This was that person and I mean I'm super optimistic like to meet new people. They were like not trusting of people and it seemed like during what I thought was an amazing trip, like everything went right for me, everything went wrong for them, in the matter of a day that we were together, even to the point where we're sitting down for coffee, and this weird spiny looking pine cone not pine cone, seed acorn thing dropped on our table and was like mashed. I'm like what the heck? That has never happened to me before and they were like, yeah, you know I would.
Speaker 1:I'm not surprised this kind of stuff happens. I'm like, oh my gosh, like we need to not hang out anymore. But to your point, it's definitely good to give somebody hope, and especially so when it's tied with a program that actually can deliver. So I have a question, and I think the listener might have had this question too when is the line? Can you speak to that as a copywriter? Where is the line? Can you speak to that as a copywriter? Good agitation versus bad agitation. How far do you go to agitate a problem for good before it becomes?
Speaker 2:triggering. This is a little bit like the Supreme Court justice when they were looking at the definition of pornography. They're like I know it when I see it. So it is hard to say this is exactly where the line is. And I know a lot of us really want to say, yeah, the line is right here and you can go right up to the line and be okay, and then, once you step over the line, everything is bad and it's just not like that. There's a lot of gray space where a tactic might be okay in one situation but would definitely be bad in another situation. So but I would say this if you're, if you're manipulating and you are trying to get people to act and I would define manipulation as acting against somebody's will not necessarily because sometimes we manipulate people to do things that are in their interest, especially as parents.
Speaker 2:We do this all the time, right Like you know. Here comes the choo-choo train and we stick a you know a bit of cauliflower into a kid's mouth instead of apple or whatever. Right Like we're, we manipulate our children all the time and, by the way, our children manipulate us right back, you know it is a very human thing to do the things that that get us the things we want.
Speaker 2:So so we gotta be a little bit careful about that. But if you are manipulating people to act against their own interests or even the way that they want to act, like they would not choose to do this for themselves at this time, even if it would be good for them, it's probably not a great thing. There are exceptions, you know. Like if you manipulate people or a person to stop taking heroin, very few people are going to say that's a bad thing, right, even though we may be manipulating them. But we're not talking about that kind of case. We're talking about selling your product or your service or whatever the thing is, and in those cases we should not be impeding people's free will, people's free will.
Speaker 2:And so the dark side of marketing where we set up these things, like the buy button that says I'm 100% in and then right below it it says no, I love failure or I want to keep failing all my life. Those dark patterns are ugly and manipulative and, yeah, those are bad. But a button that says yes, I'm 100% in, and then the button underneath says no, I'm not ready for this right now. That's fine, right? We give people the option to decide yes or no, right? We're not taking away their agency. That's where I would draw the line. And again, if you're trying to get somebody off heroin, fine, manipulate a little bit, but I'm not talking about that stuff.
Speaker 1:Now I'm thinking of a button at the bottom of my upsell page that says like yes, I want these Canva templates, and then right underneath it says like no, my ads already have enough scroll scroll stopping power already, or something like that.
Speaker 2:And to me that feels probably okay, right, because if I do feel that way, like if I don't need Canva templates, or maybe I have another option and I can create my own and I don't need your particular templates, right, like that's okay, my ads, you're not really being manipulative there.
Speaker 2:But if it said, no, I never want to succeed, no, I'm happy with ads that don't perform Right, like that, takes that decision and turns it into more manipulation, where we're making people feel bad about the thing that they're doing as opposed to giving them a yes, no decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like we're beating them up, we're bullying them, like we would do that. Well, hopefully we wouldn't do that in real life. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't think that you would. I mean, maybe there are some we've probably all been at the used car lot right that you get that kind of a tactic but that doesn't work really online for selling. So again going back to the original question where do we draw that line? It depends, but most of us know it. When we start to cross that line, when we start to feel like we know we're crossing that line, when it's there and we should probably move, take a couple steps back you inside of the Copywriter Club, help.
Speaker 1:well, I saw the group. It's at 15,500 members right now and you're helping copywriters there get better, better copy, better clients, better paychecks. What do you typically say to the person who does have a program but they're just a bit shy about it? Selling it, promoting it, speaking about it? Because I've coached people in similar situations and I know somebody who's listening right now, who is way, way, way, way, way too far on the other end of the spectrum, like scared to even talk about what they're great at, what they can help at, because they think that if they say even one or two things or send out another email that they are the sleazy car salesman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's head trash in my opinion. Email that they are the sleazy car salesman yeah, that's head trash in my opinion. And obviously we need to work through this stuff in order to get there. But, as I said when we first started talking, if you have something that genuinely helps people, you owe it to them to get it into their hands, if you can, at a fair price, in a way that is reasonable for you know, can you imagine somebody having the cure to cancer and this is an extreme but having a cure to cancer and saying, well, I don't really want to talk about it because you know the team helped me get there and I actually used some ideas from other people before I came up with my own breakthrough, and you know. So I'm just kind of people find it if they really like me or they hear, you know, other people talking about me and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:Like, of course not.
Speaker 2:This. This is a thing that could help so many people, right? So why not shout it from the rooftops In saying that, obviously, do it in the right way, do it in a way that is comfortable for you, but there is definitely a way that you can get the word out, whether it's with things like Facebook ads, which you are so good at and helping your clients do, and, like you know, breaking that, that pattern, or getting noticed and introducing these ideas and getting them onto a sales page. Like there's a skillset, and if you didn't share your skillset with marketers who need it, then there are.
Speaker 2:You know, how many clients do you have in your groups? Like dozens, maybe hundreds of people who will not sell as well as they could, and you owe it to them, kwaijo, to help them if you can, obviously at a fair price, obviously in a way that helps them, right? Like you're not going to be taking money and selling something that doesn't work, or continually running ads that fail and fail and fail and keep going back to them and saying, hey, just one more try and we're going to get this. Like you're being very real about this, but you owe it to people to use your skills to help them. It's just part of being human and living in a community.
Speaker 1:Agreed, agreed. I want to let the listener hear about this emotional copy workshop. Can you share why that would be beneficial and why somebody should go? I know I could, but I'll let you share it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so emotions is one of these ideas for capturing attention, for keeping attention. We want to work with and learn from and hang out with people that we connect with on an emotional basis, and copywriters are often told hey, here's how you write emotional copy. Add the word you know. If you want people to feel angry, add the word anger or mad or you know some related word like that to your copy. You want people to fear missing out on something? Yeah, talk about how you're frightened or scared. Right, they're told to pepper in these words. I'm just going to say it. That doesn't work. Whoever is telling copywriters to do that is feeding them a line, because I just said anger, mad, frightened, scared, and I guarantee you there's not a single listener. You're not angry or scared or frightened, right, like, we just use those words and it doesn't change the emotion.
Speaker 2:But when we tell stories, when we are vulnerable, when we do things that I share three tactics in that emotional copywriting workshop. When we do these things, we actually can evoke emotions, and it all starts with knowing what emotions people are feeling and then what emotions they need to transition to in order to buy. And so, yeah, I put together a workshop to help people do that. And again, this taps into a lot of these marketing tactics where you're not trying to be manipulative, you're trying to make a connection. You're, in some cases, you're showing your own vulnerability or you're empathizing with the problems. Now we do that with emotions, and that's what that workshop is all about.
Speaker 1:That will be in the show notes below. I definitely, of course, coming out of this conversation, feel like listener. You need to go to this workshop. I'm going to go to the workshop because, ultimately, I know that I can be a better. I guess I am a copywriter, huh Rob, I always feel like copy is so difficult for me, but I want to make sure that my copy is better and motivate people to take the decisions that I know they will make. That benefit their business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean these skills I think help anybody. If you have a product or a service that you're marketing, having better headlines that connect emotionally or having that hook that is, you know, connects to you or how you feel or how your clients feel, just makes it so much more effective. It's one of those things that gets people involved with the message you have to say and then, assuming that you can really help them, gets them to that point that buying decision where they can opt in. I actually put together for your show, kwaijo. I was working on this last week.
Speaker 2:I started going through and thinking you know, what would be really helpful is a playbook. So that workshop sells for like $27. And I thought if I had a playbook that I could give to your listeners that basically walks through the three steps of how do you write an emotional headline or an emotional hook that you know. And so I kind of created that. And then I went in to chat GPT and I actually wrote out some prompts so that if somebody doesn't want to actually do the exercise that helps them figure out the emotion, helps them with the hook or the headline and then to connect it to the rest of their ad message, can actually have ChatGPT or Claude or Mistral or whatever the AI bot that you use do it for you, and so I put together this little playbook, and I didn't tell you this before we started recording.
Speaker 1:You did. I'm really surprised. Thank you, it's available at thecopywriterclubcom.
Speaker 2:Forward slash smile. Now I will say it's not free, but it's also not $27. And the reason that it's gonna be $1 and the reason it's $1 is because and you probably know this too there are so many lead magnets and things out there that I've downloaded into my downloads folder that I have never looked at. And it's because they're free and I know I'm going to get to them someday and I never do. I literally I think I have 1,100. Last time I counted in my downloads folder of stuff that I've looked at and thought, oh, I'll get to that someday. We I counted in my downloads folder of stuff that I've looked at and thought, oh, I'll get to that someday. We value the things that we pay for and so, even though it's almost free, it's $1. And if anybody wants that playbook, they can have it. And if $1 for some reason is a hurdle too hard for you, message me directly and I'll figure out a way to get it to you $1.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. I do not support that. $1 is good. Please don't message Rob saying can it be for free? You didn't know this, Rob, but very recently, in the past two months, I basically moved away from my other free lead magnets for the same reason, and I can say this with the listener you're listening to me right now. If we were in the same room I would say all the free lead magnets that you have. It's like we've been going for dopamine hits and we feel like, hey, I made the move. I gave my email address, I got this free lead magnet. I'm doing something to grow my business. No, no, you're not. You're not using it. I've done it before. You just admitted to it, Rob. How many times?
Speaker 2:So many times. It makes me sick how many times I've been through somebody's funnel and not ever opened up the thing I downloaded.
Speaker 1:And putting a little bit of skin in the game and, honestly, a dollar seems super, super cheap, like, but it's very, very true, like the things that I've paid for, there's just something in my mind I paid for this, I better make use for it, and so I made that move to yeah about two months ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's again. It's we value the things that we pay for. Obviously, the workshop itself has so much more and and there's a little bit more skin in the game. If you pay $27, you're probably going to watch that. There's a bunch of bonuses that you can get along with that too, so you can. You can check that out when it's ready. But if if that feels like too much of a commitment and you just want to see how do you write an emotional hook, emotional headline, go to the copywriter. Clubcom forward slash smile.
Speaker 1:Forward slash, smile. Okay, that one is going into the description. I have one last question, which is if you could leave one one encouragement about persuasion. What would that be for the listener?
Speaker 2:I would suggest that the more you can learn about being persuasive would be a good thing. I'm not just talking about in for marketing, for marketing your business, but persuasion is how we relate to people. You know, if my wife wants me to empty the dishwasher, it helps if she has. You know, a little bit of persuasiveness to the request, right? If you just make a demand or you know whatever, then it doesn't work. And we apply this to everything. Everything is sales, everything is marketing, and that sounds really harsh to say it that way, but the way that we deal with other people is us helping them get what they want, them helping us get what we want. Vice versa, those relationships are all about helping each other, and the more we know about persuasion and how to persuade people for their benefit and for ours, the better. So, yeah, if you find a book on it, if you find courses to look at on it, even write free articles online, whatever. The more you can learn about persuasion, the better.
Speaker 1:Agreed. I was just thinking and smiling. If I hadn't done the work to persuade my wife, look at all the good that wouldn't have come into the world. I'm thinking about my kids and my business.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Oh man, it's been a good episode. Rob, thank you for being here and just sharing a small moment with the listenership of the Art of Online Business podcast, very much appreciated, very much valued by me, and I know if the listener could reach out to you, hopefully they will actually. What's your preferred method of somebody to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:I mean I'm kind of everywhere, but it's pretty easy to track down my email address. I mentioned it on our podcast all the time. You know, listen to our podcast, hop into the free Facebook group if you want. You know, jump in. We can even connect on LinkedIn. I'm out there, pretty easy to find. Just look for the Copywriter Club, rob Marsh.
Speaker 1:Right on, right on. I almost used the cliche show Rob some love. But actually I would say, after knowing about your business, even back before I had my own business this is going back four or five years show yourself some love. Listener, get into Rob's ecosphere, hop into his group. You'll only benefit from that. And I can say that because I've observed his business and know people that have been inside of his paid offers. And super legit I mean, everybody that comes on the podcast is legit. But I just want to say that for you, rob.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, well, and you. If you want to get into the Caprietta Club podcast, a great place to start. Kwaijo was on our podcast late in 2024. It's a great episode. You can check that out and, if you like what you hear, keep listening Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, listener, take care. Until the next time you see me or hear from me, be blessed and we'll see you in the next one. Bye.
