Episode 78: How To Use Persuasion Without Compromising your Ethics with Tarzan Kay
THE ONLINE BUSINESS SHOW
How To Use Persuasion Without Compromising your Ethics
Show Notes
Can persuasion be engaging, efficient, AND ethical? It seems that everywhere you look these days, you'll find new tricks and tactics for pushing your audience towards the almighty checkout button. But one of the oldest pillars of online marketing has never stopped working - persuasive storytelling through email. On today's episode, I'm joined by Tarzan Kay, an email copywriting expert, as we talk about how to use persuasion in your marketing without compromising your ethics.
Episode Highlights:
One of the best things about email marketing is the intimacy, connection, and rich conversation that are hard to find in any other marketing channel.
Email marketing offers a level of versatility and customization that keeps your marketing and messaging fresh as your business evolves and grows.
What is Persuasion?
Robert Cialdini is an American psychologist and academic who co-defined the 6 Principles of Persuasion which Tarzan says most copywriters learn early on in their careers and continue to learn and navigate throughout their work.
Scarcity and urgency
Authority
Social Proof
Liking
Consistency
Reciprocity
Why is this an important conversation?
Sales can easily become an extractive process which can rely heavily on using tactics that manipulate and remove people’s ability to use critical thinking while making potentially high-risk decisions.
One of the lessons Tarzan learned from Dr. Michelle Mazer is about risk versus the level of persuasion you use. You have to be more careful as the risk is higher.
If you take away someone's ability to think critically, and they invest in your $15,000 program without looking at their finances, someone who is marginalized may not be able to recover as quickly from a bad spending decision.
One of the biggest questions people have is whether or not they can actually make sales if they strip away all of the persuasion tactics, and Tarzan’s answer is yes.
When you strip away the urgency for your subscribers, you also strip it away from yourself and improve everyone’s experience by making the launch calmer, softer, and more supportive.
Tweetable Quotes
“My business was profoundly changed when I sat down and figured out ‘what is our mission and values.’” - Tarzan Kay
“Mindset issues are used to paint over so many real systemic barriers that people actually have.” - Tarzan Kay
“I think we need to start thinking and talking more about what it would look like to grow more slowly and according to our own values. Like listening and tuning in when the voice says ‘this is not right.’” - Tarzan Kay
Episode Transcript
About the Host / Guests
Resources
Learn more about Dr. Michelle Mazur