Dan Russell - Snake Oil: Genuine Marketing in an Age of Cure-Alls

Snake Oil

GENUINE MARKETING

IN AN AGE OF CURE-ALLS

DAN RUSSELL

NEW YORK

LONDONNASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

Genuine Marketing in an Age of Cure-Alls

2022 Dan Russell

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC. www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

Proudly distributed by Ingram Publisher Services.

Morgan James is a proud partner of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg. Partners in building since 2006.

Get involved today! Visit MorganJamesPublishing.com/giving-back

for Melanieto the ends of the Earth.

Mike Gets Ripped Off By An Ad Man

It always seems to start this way.

Fairfield Cycles, the bike shop that Mike started around six years ago, is experiencing its biggest sales slump to date. Revenue is down 70% from the same period last year.

Mike is sitting in front of his computer feeling stumped, so he pulls up Google and starts searching for a solution. A few minutes later, he finds himself watching a YouTube video that explains how Instagram Ads can help attract new customers to local businesses.

Excited by the possibilities, Mike starts posting on Facebook asking for referrals to people who can help him build an Instagram ad campaign. He gets dozens of responses from marketing consultants offering to help him. A little overwhelmed, yet committed to finding a solution, Mike books a few calls. Most of the calls end with a big price tag and a long-term commitment, but one call with a young marketer named Shilo seemed promising.

Shilo explains his approach to advertising, throwing out terms like conversion rate and CPM. Mike could swear these were the same terms he heard in that video he watched. Shilo must know what hes doing. And his price point was within Mikes budget. So, Mike hires Shilo to build him an Instagram ad campaign.

There are two things that Mike isnt aware of at this point, even after hiring Shilo.

The first thing Mike doesnt know is that the cause of his sales problem isnt his lack of adsits his website. The site is outdated, not user-friendly, and doesnt have a way of converting visitors into leads. Theres no form, his address and phone number arent clickable, and the site isnt even mobile-friendly.

The second thing Mike doesnt know is that Shilo is what we call a MINO: a Marketer In Name Only.

(think of a minnow, the baby fish of the marketing industry)

Shilo, having recently completed an Instagram Ads training program, is naturally excited to have Mike as a client. This contract is the beginning of what Shilo hopes is a successful marketing agency. But that doesnt change the fact that Shilo is a MINO and has few marketing skills outside the realm of running Instagram Ads. That means when hes hired, Shilo is paying attention to only one thing: Instagram Ads. He has little experience with websites, so he doesnt pay any attention to how Mikes website is performing.

Mike, meanwhile, has never hired an Instagram ads expert, much less a marketer. He didnt take a class on hiring a marketer. Hes a bike lover who started a business around something he loves. He doesnt know that MINOs exist.

Shilo begins building a beautiful Instagram ad campaign. Upon launch, the ads actually perform quite well. They receive a high click-through rate and send tons of people to Mikes website. Shilo is proud of his work and starts to tell his friends that his marketing agency is off to a great start.

But, as Mike will soon point out to Shilo, nobody is buying.

Mikes website is still performing badly, which means when people click on Shilos ads, they leave the website a few seconds later. Mike may as well be lighting his cash on fire. But neither Mike nor Shilo know this.

So, after a few stressful weeks, Mike fires Shilo.

From Mikes perspective, Shilo was there to do one thingmake sales go up. Clearly, Shilo just wasnt cutting it. So Mike starts searching for a new solution while telling his entrepreneur friends that Instagram ads dont actually work that well.

Shilo, meanwhile, is blindsided by the firing. From his perspective, he was there to run Instagram adswhich he did. Successfully. So he takes a few screenshots of his ad campaign for his portfolio and continues trying to find clients who will hire him.

End scene.

Who exactly is at fault in this scenario?

Is it Shilo? Whose ignorance of a problem beyond the scope of his expertise led to the wasted time and money?

Or is it Mike, the business owner with a limited budget who assumed Shilo had marketing skills he never claimed to possess?

The answer is not a popular oneespecially if youre a business owner:

The fault lies with Mike.

Lets simplify: if your car broke down on the side of the road, unless youre experienced in these matters, you wouldnt burst into the mechanics shop and demand that they replace a specific part of your car. You dont know which part is broken.

And if you did do that, you cant hold the mechanic responsible for throwing his tools down, yelling you got it! and charging you for something you were sure you needed. It would take an experienced and honest mechanic to tell you to pump the brakes (pun intended) and figure out what the real problem is.

And yet, Mike did exactly that.

He burst into the mechanics shop yelling give me some of those Instagram Ads! and Shilo was there to reply: you got it.

It was Mike who spent money solving the wrong problem.

It was Mike who ultimately made the decision to hire Shilo.

Shilo wasnt experienced enough in the services industry to say, pump the brakes, so a contract was signed and payment was made.

Okaynow for a little perspective.

Mike may have been at fault in this instance, but it wasnt his fault that it was his fault. Mike was the victim of authority bias. When we encounter an expert or figure of authority, we are more likely to respect their opinion and follow their instructionsthats authority bias. The power of this bias is compounded when someone is in a state of desperation, which is how Mike felt when he began reaching out for marketing help. He was out of his depth, and he knew it. So the first person he saw who fit into his budget and seemed able to fix the problem (in the way he defined it) became the expert in his eyes. Not just the expert on Instagram ads, but the