The 2022 winner of 'Social Selling Spammer of the Year' was a close call...
Malcolm Auld
Marketer, advertiser, educator, author, commentator, keynote speaker, Host of The BIG Marketing Show - You get better results, or else...
Like most of you, I get unsolicited sales pitches almost daily on LinkedIn from cyber-hustlers and amateur sales people flogging their wares.
Their language is almost always about them or how they can help me get spectacular results that I've never achieved in my career.
The copy generally reflects that they haven't read my profile or even have any clue what I do. They've used keywords from marketing automation tools to do their thinking for them.
So, my No.1 social spammer for 2022 is this message:
I know you’re busy so let me jump right into it…
Looking at business performance, people typically come to us when they:
> Are on a mission for fast growth
> Are experiencing a long sales cycle
> Know they’re leaving money on the table
PwC for example increased sales by 20-30% in one city within a year and decided to roll out our program across the country. Another example is SAGE automation, which saw a 21x return on investment within 14 months. Several real estate agents we trained to sell as much as 8 of their peers combined.
To prove the difference we can make, I invite you to complete our Sales Explosion Scorecard to identify your blindspots and opportunities for massive business growth. It only takes 3 minutes and our system automatically provides you with a clear score and practical suggestions to transform your sales results.
Firstly, how does he know if I'm busy or not? Secondly, I'm not on any mission, let alone one for fast growth. Thirdly, I'm not experiencing a long sales cycle, or any sales cycle for that matter, and lastly I'm not leaving money on the table - except when I tip waiters.
The rest of the copy is an unproven bragfest about what "they" have allegedly done, without any supporting proof. Then I have to spend 3 minutes of my time completing their Sales Explosion Scorecard to find the proof myself - I have no idea WTF a Sales Explosion Scorecard is, or what it will do for me, nor where it will find "opportunities for massive business growth" in my industry.
When you have to use a jargoniser to pitch yourself, your reader automatically mistrusts you - and so it is with this social selling spam. I'm sure if there are "opportunities for massive business growth" in my industry, I'd probably know something about it.
I suggested to the author that he might like to read my profile, as he obviously hadn't, and suggested I could probably help his organisation - I could certainly improve the sales copy.
He hasn't taken up my offer...
领英推荐
A close second:
I've included this one as a close second for reasons which will become obvious to you:
Hi Malcolm, LinkedIn suggested you as a good connection, so I clicked on your profile and I think the LinkedIn robot actually got it right for a change. Check out my profile and mutual connections and if you agree, let's connect. Warm regards,
Hey Malcolm, I was having a look at The Marketing Campus and it looks interesting. We've been helping businesses like yours to stop burning money on facebook ads and get great results with YouTube advertising. Any chance you would like some more information on how this could work for you?
If the social seller had read my profile, he would have noticed that The Marketing Campus has been closed since 2019. So, what does he find so interesting? That I've closed the company?
I've never run any ads for The Marketing Campus on Facebook (note correct spelling) let alone YouTube, so I haven't burnt any funds. And the final soft close - "any chance" - suggests the writer isn't an experienced salesperson. he is just sending volumes of social selling spam hoping something sticks.
In simple terms he hasn't read my profile, but relied on "the LinkedIn robot".
Personally, I think the LinkedIn robot is one of the worst things about LinkedIn. It doesn't understand context and regularly suggests incorrect connections. Its suggestions waste executive's time and frustrates them. I don't understand why LinkedIn bothers, as more often than not the results leave cigarette burns on the arms of the prospective connections.
So they are my two winners for 2022 - am sure you have even worse examples dear reader.
Let's hope in 2023 we see a decline in the cyber-hustlers and their social selling spam, though I wouldn't bet on it.
The rush is on towards intellectual laziness via AI, and I suspect as more social sellers use computers to write their sales pitch, the more that every piece of social selling spam will sound the same.
And it will just appear more frequently in larger volumes - Happy New Year!
#socialsellingspam #cyberhustlers #amateursalespeople #AI
.
Head of Innovation @ Orange Digital
2 年Between this, recruiters or outsourcing folks from Bratislavia…. I’m at the point to totally ignore my LinkedIn INBOX and only check it once a fortnight….
Helping businesses grow by leveraging technology and relationships
2 年Your article made me smile Malcolm. So many people get sucked into the slippery slope of automating their personal or business LinkedIn. Like the connection that I have with you, my LinkedIn is a list of people that I have actually met. I wonder of there will ever be a blue tick "verified" icon for those that: 1) don't use automation tools to broadcast as them on LinkedIn and 2) Don't accept any old connection in the hope that quantity will somehow miraculously become a high quality 'sales explosion'.
Now, if one of the social selling spammers wrote the headline LinkedIn = SPAM I would definitely read it. Naturally they would never do that because they are not particularly interested in the surprisingly noble craft of selling. Or they are too lazy to put the effort in. Being a fundamentally lazy person myself I can see the attraction of AI. Someone tells you a 0.5% response rate can be perfectly acceptable in direct mail (add a few zeroes for anything online) and they conclude throwing any old shit at as many walls as possible is what success looks like. They would no more spend time trying to understand their audience than fly in the air, hence the lists of reasons one might consider their product or service (one of them might be relevant). Or the empty hyperbole of the best ever results known to man (people who go for that pitch are of course the spammers legitimate prey). Myself, I prefer the measurably effective wonders of copy beautifully crafted by an actual copywriter that simply lodges itself in your mind. Like: “Frankly, the American Express Card is not for everyone”. Maybe one day the proverbial 1000 spamming-monkeys will come up with such a timeless beauty. But if they do, I will be long gone. Thank goodness.