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At first I thought it was a joke, particularly given my post yesterday about the appalling social selling spammers on LinkedIn.
But alas, no. Today I get an unsolicited “LinkedIn Offer” in my personal messages – which is nothing near an offer at all.
An offer has two parts:
- What the prospect gets
- What the prospect must do to get it
It is as rank-amateurish as it is insulting. It is from someone I don’t know and am not connected to on the platform. And the author didn’t include his mug shot, to make his effort seriously low-rent.
Let’s dissect this anti-social selling message shall we:
There are a bunch of marketing words under the author’s name – Digital Marketing | Performance Marketing | E-Commerce | Paid Media |
I’ve never understood the term “Performance Marketing” – as against Under-Performance Marketing; Cancelled-Performance Marketing; Non-Performance Marketing; Matinee-Performance Marketing? We work in “marketing” – be proud of the fact you are a Marketing Manager/Director et al. You don’t need to put adjectives in front of your job title to big yourself up – it works against your reputation, not for it.
There is “LinkedIn Offer” in the margin above the message.
The salutation is a dead giveaway it’s amateur hour – “Hi Malcolm!” – well the exclamation mark is the giveaway.
There are only two sentences that are supposed to sway me to part with my cash. The first breaks most rules of selling:
“Are you ready to start achieving your marketing goals?“
Never ask a question with a yes/no answer. The majority of readers will answer “no” and ignore the rest of the message. If you are going to lead with a question, use a rhetorical one.
What does this mean – “Am I ready to start achieving…” Well maybe I’m ready to start, maybe I’m not? Maybe I’m almost ready to start, but need to think about it? Or I maybe I’m ready to start but not really ready to kick-on to achievement, because I prefer to under-achieve?
The sentence should never have been written, but makes more sense as, “Are you ready to achieve your marketing goals?” Though it still uses passive language with a yes/no answer.
The second sentence is also abominable:
“With LinkedIn ads, you can generate higher quality leads for your business and build lasting impact.“
Higher quality than what? Higher quality than lower quality leads? Higher quality than the best quality leads I’ve ever generated? Higher quality at ten times the price, or half the price?
There is no support for this vacuous claim – no social proof that LinkedIn ads work for any business similar to mine. Nothing. Just a glib statement from someone whose job it is to sell advertising on LinkedIn and hasn’t bothered to understand their market.
Who trains these people? Why are they let loose in the marketing industry without any skills?
LinkedIn should be ashamed of itself, it this is what passes off as a professional way to generate high quality leads.
In case you’re wondering here is a rough breakdown LinkedIn’s revenue streams:
- 65% recruitment advertising
- 20% direct advertising by companies
- 15% Premium subscriptions
So I am assuming he is selling the direct advertising service? I have no idea, as he doesn’t say.
The three calls to action aren’t worth commenting on, as they are so lame.
I repeat what I said yesterday: “Sending unsolicited spam through marketing automation tools, under the guise of social selling on LinkedIn, is a disgraceful reflection on our industry – and it needs to stop now.
Just because a marketing clerk can type doesn’t mean they can write. Hire professionals to write your copy, as you damage your brand every time you use amateurs.
And please LinkedIn, stop this nonsense, if only for the sake of the marketing industry’s reputation and we poor sods who work in it. You’re embarrassing us all…
The Malcolm Auld Blog 