Why there’s money in mockery…

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Why Brands Should Stop Fighting Negative Reviews and Start Embracing Them.

A study suggests that companies appear more confident—and funnier —when they lean in to insults.

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Oh look:

If it isn’t something I’ve already written about almost 9 months ago…

(It’s “The pick-up artist secret to dealing with trolls, haters, critics and 1-star reviewers…” email – It’s on my Email Echoes page if you want to check it out.)

A lot of brands – supplements or otherwise – deal with critics, haters, trolls, one-star reviewers in usually one of the two ways:

(1) They try to defend themselves;

(2) They stoop down to their level and get nasty.

Most are actually in that former category – albeit I have seen the latter a couple of times too.

(I remember this one restaurant owner handing out ad hominems to every single 1* Google reviewer – got a good chuckle out of that….)

There’s also another option:

Agreeing & Amplifying.

(Or “leaning into it” – as that WSJ article calls it.)

I wrote about it in that email last year.

But there’s actually a fourth option as well…

Mockery.

Mockery is a long-standing, traditional way to persuade – it’s been used for centuries by all the most influential & talented orators, prophets, politicans, evangelists, and gifted teachers to persuade and influence.

Old Testament prophets used to mock the hell (pun intended) out of devil worshipers…

And it persuaded the crowd around them.

It has to be done tactfully, though – the key is that you just have to be right about what you’re talking about.

Mockery – based in truth like that – is inherently funny & persuasive.

(Except to those being mocked, of course.)

And thus it works like gangbusters for getting attention.

And in an attention economy that we’re living in right now…

This means sales.

(The actor standing in the spotlight has a heightened presence.)

Take that “Why I’m such an “insensitive” rat-bastard…” email I wrote a while back.

(It’s on my Email Echoes page – so you can take a look at how I apply this in practice.)

That email?

It was BY FAR and large my most successful email that week.

By engagement metrics at least:

Opens rates… click-through rates… replies all soared.

Either way, do with this info what you will at the end of the day.

Just throwing you some tools for your handling-low-quality-customers toolbox.

And it seems that as the years go by… 

There are only more of these people sprouting out.

Last year, I read that Costco has had to increase the number of those return policy letters it sends over the past few years.

(i.e., a letter they send to a customer who they’ve detected is abusing their very lenient return policy.)

This rough economy will only give birth to more and more low-class buyers…

So best keep this tool somewhere close.

Enough dilly-dallying though:

If you’re the kind of person who thinks the customer is always right and will bend over on all fours just to avoid some conflict?

You’re in the wrong saloon, mister – Email Storyselling probably ain’t for you.

(Here? We think the customer is SOMETIMES right…)