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Freds Inverse Law of Marketing Intelligence (the cream, as well as, the crap rises to the top)

July 3, 2008

Freds Inverse Law of Marketing Intelligence (the cream, as well as, the crap rises to the top)You've heard the old sayings: "The cream of the crop", or "The cream rises to the top". Well, I'm here to tell you that both the cream rises to the top and that the crap does too!

Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956) is often quoted as saying: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." However, his actual quote was: "No one in this world, so far as I know, and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."

He also said: "It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake." He was a pretty smart guy!

Dumb, Dumb, and Dumber!
You read and hear a lot (ok, maybe not a lot... it depends on what you read and listen to) about the dumbing down of America. It's true. For all our advances and progress, we're drowning in not-so-smart people. Some people say this is an intentional process created by our own government to make us easier to govern. I don't know if that's true or not, but just taking a trip to the mall is enough to rattle any faith that we'll still be around in 100 years. Just sit and watch people at any public place and it won't take long to really question if, taken as a whole, we're any smarter than the apes.

The Rich Get Richer, the Smart Get Smarter, and the Not-So-Smart Breed Like Crazy!
...And the poor get poorer and the dumb get... well, dumber. It's sad, but it appears to be true. It looks like, and I'll admin that I'm not quoting any scientific studies, just my own observations, that the more progress we make and the more we learn, the more intellectual distance we put between those with education and knowledge and those that just don't give a rat's rear-end about anything. Again, sad but seemingly true. I think it's historically accurate to say that the population of less affluent, less educated people tends to propagate and expand faster than the wealthier and more educated. Social proof is big on the Internet these days, put it in action offline and just look around and you'll see what I mean.

Put Your Thumb in the Dyke.
Don't even try; the pressure will blow it off your hand! I don't know what the answers to these observations are, but don't try to fix it alone, it'll kill you.

That's the Law Son!
So what does that have to do with marketing? Simple. If you're writing copy, or even if you don't consider yourself a copywriter and you're just making a simple web site to sell whatever it is you want to sell, you're automatically in the upper groups I refer to. Why? Because you're trying to improve your position in life and better yourself. That puts you into a different segment of the population than most people. You therefore think a little differently than most people, perhaps the people you're trying to sell something to. Talk to them on your level, or, even on a semi-formal level and you've lost them from the first sentence. You have to make your message match the natural language and thoughts of your target.

So, here it is:
Fred's Law of Inverse Marketing Intelligence: Simple Sells, Smart Fails.

For example: If you're selling a new sport shoe, you could make an ad stating all the technical specifications, all the research and development that went into creating a new inner and outer sole material that gives 80% better energy recovery, and how it also deflects angular momentum into vertical energy with 75% efficiency, blah, blah, blah. Now people like me want to know all that, but I don't buy that many sport shoes. You're much more likely to sell more shoes with a simple ad showing a sports star using the shoes and a strong but simple headline.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have the details available for those that want to know, but generally speaking: most people simply don't care.

So there you have it. I know, it's sad, but it's true. Even those long, well thought-out sales letters that people like Clayton Makepeace create, and charge their clients thousands of dollars to create, are simple. They're not scientific papers. Even if he's writing copy for a health supplement, the benefits of the product are spelled out in simple to understand terms that the average guy on the street will relate to, not the language off the back of the label on the bottle.

You might feel smart writing a really intelligent sounding sales letter, but wouldn't you feel smarter putting bushels of cash in your bank account? I thought so!

Until Next Time,
Fred

P.S. This whole post was written as a reminder to me, so that I can read it over and over. This is my biggest problem when trying to sell something!

About the Author

Fred Black is an experienced programmer, web site developer, online business operator, systems integrator, father, husband, musician, and songwriter. Visit his Internet Business Blog at: http://www.pqInternet.com.


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Posted by Fred on July 3, 2008 | Printer-Friendly

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  Comments:
  1.  

    Yeah, a friend and I have often ruminated that maybe if we had lobotomies, we could do better.

    Related - in politics, scum rises to the top.
    Related - money and credit - scam banking/money systems rise to the top. But they have the help of governments who see honest money as a threat to their power. Witness the attack by the U.S. Treasury on e-gold and other e-currencies that are actually backed with something.

    Here are some quotes I keep posted above my monitor:

    "... monstrous economic delusions have never once, in history, been removed by being exposed in printed form by thinkers upon the subject."
    [Freeman Tilden -- A World in Debt]

    "Nothing has been more amply demonstrated during the past three thousand years than this: that the great majority of men do not esteem, or understand, or even desire personal liberty."
    [Freeman Tilden -- A World in Debt]

    "My business in life is to save myself. That's a tremendous job. I shall not dirty my hands trying to save the masses."
    [John Fante, to H.L. Mencken]

    Here's another one to keep in mind:
    "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b..s.." Modify that to: "Don't even try for the brilliance..."

    Best regards,
    David Bean

    Posted by e-gold exchange news on July 3, 2008 5:08 PM

  2.  

    Okay, I'll bite. What do the inverse properties of the log and exponential functions have to do with cream and crap? I'm sure you had something in mind! :-)

    Posted by Lulu Barbarian on July 3, 2008 9:30 PM

  3.  
    From Fred...

    Hey David!
    Thanks for the comments and quotes!

    Lulu - thanks for stopping by... I wish I had a really great answer for you, but I don't. I just wanted something that showed "inverse" and looked smart! There I go again trying to be smart!

    Posted by Fred Black on July 3, 2008 11:16 PM

  4.  

    Heh, you're on a rant, Fred! This is the type of post I start to write and then usually delete. :-)

    I think it was Ted Nicholas who said, "Rich people have big libraries, poor people have big TV's".

    Part of what you're saying dovetails into something I'm about to write, which is basically that most people today don't seem to feel the need to sacrifice anything now for their future. And if you're not investing in yourself or working towards something, well... where are you going to end up??

    As Dan Kennedy says, if you want to be successful, just do the opposite of what most people do. :-)

    Posted by Tim on July 4, 2008 3:43 AM

  5.  

    No, it was smart, Fred! I liked the "inverse" relationship! In fact, I don't often leave comments on non-food blogs, but I was so intrigued that I just had to find out if there was something more complicated that I was missing. :-)

    Posted by Lulu Barbarian on July 4, 2008 12:34 PM

  6.  

    Go for it Fred!

    A small counter-argument: It's also possible to focus your business on a "smart niche". Personally, I really dn't enjoy dumbing down what I do or the messages I communicate to my customers. The reality is that if I want to sell to a general population I'll have to. But I can also do quite well selling to a smarter niche who do want to dig deeper, understand a bit more, and not just listen to simplistic sound-bites.

    Ian

    Posted by Ian Brodie | Professional Services Sales on July 4, 2008 5:33 PM

  7.  

    Even if your audience is smart, they would like things presented simply, with the benefits to them to the forefront.

    Keeping things simple is _always_ good engineering.

    Posted by TigerTom on July 7, 2008 4:37 AM

  8.  

    Fred, first time to your blog - very entertaining and accurate post! Being an import from Canada I have to say that my observations of the general masses IQ in this country especially are pretty sad and definitely managed by the corporate pirates running this government.
    Your article reminds me of a simple acronym I learned from my grade 7 english teacher - The KISS principle - Keep It Simple Stupid - very appropo in the arena of internet marketing and dealing with the hords of uneducated, immediate gratification, Dorito eating ,Bud drinking , sports junkies and Oprah and Ellen watching 'tards'

    Posted by Internet Business Broker on July 8, 2008 2:44 AM

  9.  

    This was great. I love the way you tell it in plain simple English.

    Posted by Russell on July 8, 2008 11:34 PM

 


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