100% Fact Free - Marketing in the Era of "Alternative Facts"

Forget what your maths teacher said. 900,000 doesn’t necessarily have to be smaller than 1.8 million. It can be bigger.

That’s a fact.

An alternative fact.

Unless you don’t watch, read, listen to or otherwise absorb news, you’ll know that there’s been a kerfuffle over President Trump’s press team rebranding outright falsehood as alternative fact.

If you’ve been within bargepole-reaching distance of LinkedIn, you’ll have seen at least one post claiming that this is a brave new world for marketers.

It’s not.

Don’t be stupid.

If you’ve got a mandate to do your job for four years, and a billion-dollar retirement fund, you can make up your own facts.

You don’t. You’ve got a service or a product to sell to clients.

And that requires honesty.

If you’re an SEO company promising page one rankings and you don’t deliver, you lose a client. And they tell ten other potential clients who steer clear.

If you’re a supermarket and you claim that beef is an alternate fact name for “horse trimmings and shoe leather,” you’re not going to sell any more lasagna. Especially not when the papers get wind of it.

If your product is good, tell the truth.

If your product isn’t good, improve it.

Leave the alt-facts to the people who don’t value trust.

Instead, focus on helping your customers to trust you.

You’ll still be in a job four years down the line if you do.