"Our product may not be right for you": honesty in marketing

It's easy to assume that marketing and honesty are antithetical to each other. From billboards to smartphones, we're surrounded by ads that showcase gleaming utopias and promise life-changing benefits but fail to deliver. There are even product categories where marketing has crossed over completely into the realm of fantasy, such as fashion and fragrances, where it's sometimes hard to find a single word at all. Even in product categories that have essentially hit the ceiling of technological advancements, every year, the products are somehow magically "new and improved."

We've come to accept that marketing is fiction with a sprinkling of truth. But what if a brand took the counterintuitive route, actually telling the truth, and *gasp*...admitting to flaws? Surely, that would make people never want to buy from them again, right?

Not true—on the contrary, it seems like there might be some money in honesty.

So, how does honesty in marketing help?

It shocks you into paying attention  

As the constant barrage of marketing has become a feature of modern life, we've adapted to this media landscape in two chief ways:

1. We've developed the ability to tune out most of it.

2. We've become skeptical of brands and what they promise.

The prerequisite for success in marketing is no different from that of standup comedy — it's to grab attention. Whether it's a rib-tickling punchline or a sweet deal, if what you're saying fails to grab attention, then it's all for nothing. The sheer saturation of marketing messages we're surrounded by means that everything has become a blur.

Brands try to stand out through various means: creative concepts, wacky aesthetics, star power, celebrity endorsements, etc. But, once other brands start emulating these methods, their effectiveness diminishes.

It's in these scenarios that a hint of honesty will make the audience sit up and take notice. A brand acknowledging shortcomings or recognizing a competitor's success is not part of the familiar script. As such, honesty does the job of cutting through the noise for you.

It wins your trust 

Sales spiels and marketing campaigns are result-oriented. The result in question has less to do with meeting customer needs than with the company being able to close a sale. This is the outcome most marketing is optimized for.

When you're used to overly polished marketing, any deviation from that instantly feels like a sign of sincerity.

In honest marketing, the audience feels as if the outcome is more about the user finding the right solution to their problems. The brand wants to help even if it comes at the cost of making the sale. This is a great example of NOT following a short-term-thinking outlook, and it's a tactic that some successful salespeople actually use. A salesperson who has dissuaded you from buying a particular product might have lost an immediate sale, but they have won our confidence. By acknowledging negatives and being transparent, any positive claims become much more powerful.

Product benefits are usually perceived as marketing speak by potential customers. But these same benefits become statements of truth in the context of honesty. By admitting flaws, you turn your claims/marketing into facts.

Sometimes, losing customers is...a good thing? 

Sometimes, it's difficult for a product or a service to tick all the boxes. When you take all the brands in the market for a particular product, some might be good at x but bad at y, and vice versa.

Let's take online book shopping with imaginary ecommerce brand, Fastfolio, as an example.

Fastfolio might be great at quick delivery but bad at other things. For example, a customer might have ordered a copy of Lord of the Flies from Fastfolio not merely because they were interested in reading the book but because they found the cover design of the particular edition displayed on the website attractive. Now imagine their disappointment when Lord of the Flies arrives at their doorstep with a different cover and an extremely generic one at that. They immediately visit the site and leave a bad review.

Now, if Fastfolio was upfront about the fact that product appearance may vary, the first customer might have never made the order in the first place. Meaning that their review would not have gone up to deter other potential customers from using their service.

A different customer might be very eager to read the novel but might not care about the product's appearance. In which case, Fastfolio might be perfect for them.

The above example might not have been strictly marketing per se but it serves to explain the overall point. When it comes to advertising, it's often best to let your marketing filter out the customers who may find your offering unsatisfactory, keeping only ones whose needs are aligned with what you're selling: which means less negative word of mouth and more good karma for your brand!

Putting our money where our mouth is 

You might think that all of this is easy to preach but hard, or even unwise, to do. But it's something our team at Zoho Bookings has put into practice.

The marketing team for Bookings conducted a thorough study of the competitive landscape for their product, an appointment scheduling app. They then launched a webpage that evaluated the top scheduling software on the market, ranking them according to their features and capabilities. Of course, they also mentioned the benefits of Zoho Bookings and outlined the groups that would benefit most:

"For a sales manager looking to automate customer appointments with their team, Calendly or Zoho Bookings are the best options. Their features suit sales teams well, and sales managers don't have to spend the whole day setting up the app."

But they also acknowledged areas where competing products perform better than Zoho Bookings:

"However, if you're in the service industry and your revenue depends on the appointments, you need to look at Setmore, Acuity, Appointy, Sign In Scheduling, Square Appointments, or SimplyBook.me."

By acknowledging its shortcomings, it's clear to the audience that the brand actually cares about the user's experience, which increases their credibility. This helps make every positive claim a statement of truth.

The page is a true exercise in honest marketing; over the course of the list's annual updates, since first being published in 2021, we even dropped a spot in our own rankings (although we regained our earlier position the next year!)

Despite highlighting its own shortcomings, Zoho Bookings has been able to accelerate customer sign-ups drastically thanks to the page. Despite being a newer entrant in the space, the product was able to rank extremely highly for important search queries, like "best appointment scheduling app," where competition is fierce. This happened because the team was able to build trust and credibility with our target audience.

The truth of the matter

Honesty is counterintuitive in marketing— often being seen as a risky move—so it can be difficult to get multiple stakeholders in an organization to sign off on an honest marketing campaign. We fully admit that honesty in marketing is not a weapon you can brandish willy-nilly at every opportunity; it has its time and its place.

Trust is a rare commodity in a world where you're being sold to 24/7. So, when you can build it with your prospects and customers, you can expect special things to follow. A little bit of honesty can go a long way.