What’s crackin’, Inbox Hackers. My half-day Friday is about to conclude. Hope you can ride the clock into the weekend doing as little work as humanly possible.

Today’s Main Thing is simply a warning to help you avoid getting caught up in a trend that’s so overplayed even casual users of the internet can spot it and be annoyed by it. After that take, we’ll hit This Week’s Marketing Wrap-Up.

We’ll start off with why trends are a problem generally…

Appetizer: The #1 pitfall of following trends.

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The Main Thing

Contrarian (But Toothless) Marketing Tactics

Hard to remember where I started noticing the overwhelming number of marketers overdoing the contrarian stuff.

Was it LinkedIn?

Or was it tricky influencers?

On LinkedIn, which I spend as little time as possible due to the mental decline unavoidable via ALL social media, you’ll see endless post headlines aimed to be… contrarian.

Not much substance to the articles beneath the headlines (examples coming up).

It’s like people don’t really even want to talk about the topic, but it made for an attention-grabbing headline. 

So, they waste everyone’s time by rambling about something that isn’t any help to the readers, except putting on a clinic for how to click-bait folks into reading something.

As for the influencers…

I noticed a good many of them doing the “non-influencing” angle. Acting like they’re promoting NOT buying stuff.

Very contrarian🙄. So, they’re basically cutting their nose off to spite their face?

Please. Any human who’s heard of influencers would know that pretty soon, that non-influencer is gonna be promoting something. 

And that’s fine. It’s a business. Don’t act like it’s not. Don’t act contrarian like it’s possible to make a living telling people not to “Avoid link in bio at all costs!”

Even the influencers who truly believe in minimalism would have to sell a book or course on minimalism to be worth their time creating so-called non-influencing content. 

The Bottom Line 

Some attention-grabbing marketing tactics get played out. They end up being a bad look for those riding said tactics into the ground. 

It’s easy to think only other marketers notice overused tactics like being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. But don’t underestimate John and Jane Q. Public. Especially if the posts allow comments.

The comment section can be pretty brutal on stuff like that. 

If you doubt it, try running an Instagram Ad with a contrarian headline, but not much substance below the headline. Allow comments. Then, stand back and watch the digital mob come out in full force.  

Now, onward to the Wrap-Up…

Please share Inbox Hacking with a fellow marketing genius or business owner. I appreciate you reading and sharing. 

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin.

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”  ~Jack Kerouac