There’s a wealth of advice on the internet on how to position yourself, your offers, and make yourself ‘stand out’ from your competitors.
Some of that advice is really good and comes from people genuinely trying to help you connect with your audience so you can grow your business.
Some comes from marketing bros who are trying to teach you to do anything possible to separate your audience from their money.
There’s a lot of manipulative marketing out there, and some of it is done so well that it’s hard to tell the difference between real and false urgency.
Some examples of manipulative marketing include:
- countdowns and timers to evergreen products
- 🚨 FLASH SALE 🚨 to something that’s going to be on sale again next week
- "I made $500k in 3 seconds by saying 1 word"
These tactics work, which is why they’re used all of the time. But they’re usually full of empty promises.
Sometimes, language like this creeps into websites, especially when you’re trying to draw a line to your audience’s pain points.
On websites, you’ll see things like:
- "Your competitors are already ahead of you."
- "You’ll stay stuck forever if you don’t invest."
- "What the top 1% know that you don’t."
This is manipulative because there’s literally no way to quantify these claims. It’s leaning so far into pain points and false authority that it’s designed to make you feel like a failure, hoping that you’ll pay anything to stop that feeling.
I have a very hard line against that kind of marketing.
It is important to talk about pain points, because that shows that you understand the problem, just like it’s important to show your authority in your space.
But there’s a difference between clarity and coercion.
Clarity sounds like:
- "If you’re overwhelmed by your website, here’s what’s actually causing that."
- "This works best for service providers who already have consistent leads."
- "If this isn’t a priority right now, doors will open again in the fall."
In marketing, your goal isn’t to corner someone into buying. It’s to help the right people recognize themselves, give them enough context to make a decision, and let them choose when the timing makes sense.
Yes, you can create momentum, set real deadlines, and make a compelling case to work with you sooner rather than later, but you’re still letting them make the choice.
Your website can acknowledge pain without exaggerating it, show authority without overstating it, and invite someone to take the next step without making them feel pressured.
Sometimes, though, we swing too far the other way. We’re so careful not to sound pushy that we end up sounding… blurry.
Being ethical doesn’t mean being vague.
You still need to make your point and say who this is for and who it isn’t. You still need to explain why your approach works.
When someone understands what you do and why it matters, they don’t feel pressured. They can decide to work with you without feeling backed into a corner.