A lot of clients, potential clients, naysayers, haters, lovers, and everyone else in the world commonly asks us, “But, do you REALLY think that what you’re doing is ethical? Why can’t you just do POSITIVE online marketing *so everyone just gets along*?”
I’ll tell you what: we would LOVE to just do positive online marketing! However, the world is a cruel, hard, cold place. Your competitors are ALREADY doing negative online marketing, tarnishing your brand, posting false reviews on social media sites, and talking smack, spreading lies, slander, and fake gossip about you and your products. The only difference between what they do and what we do is that we don’t delude ourselves or our clients. We don’t tell them that we’re going to run a traditional marketing campaign, and then go behind their backs and write slanderous blog posts on 3rd party websites while having our team in India spam Yelp with fake negative reviews.
The main difference between what they do and what we do is that we don’t lie in our negative SEO, Yelp, and TripAdvisor reviews. We don’t write a slanderous reviews on a competitor hotel, saying that their sheets have bed bugs, the concierge tried to molest our wives, and that we found ticks in the hotel omelette (unless this is all true, of course!)
We find the flaws in their business. The REAL, TRUE flaws. We find out the REAL, TRUE gossip and expose them for what they are! We don’t want to do business with sleaze bags, and neither do you or your customers.
Two of our personal rules that we live and do business by are:
#1: Always tell the truth. If it’s made up, don’t post it.
#2: We only take on high-quality clients, who develop the best products and give the highest quality customer service. We will never take on a client that wants us to lie for them and make it seem like their product is better than it really is.
If we (and you!) follow these two rules…then yes, negative online marketing is ethical. If you don’t…prepare to feel our wrath.
