Is using controversy a good sales strategy?

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
Referencing:

Controversy

Can you use controversy to increase your sales? This is actually used quite frequently, especially in titles, to draw attention to the intended product or service. Books, magazines, websites, forums and blogs are great at tapping into controversy. Right way – wrong way. What it can do – what it can’t do. What’s expected – what’s not expected. What works – what doesn’t work.

A lot of folks question the benefit of using controversy in sales pitches, and you certainly carry a double-edged sword when doing so, but it can work well if professionally presented. What prospects really look for is solutions to their specific issue or pain. If your product or service offers that solution at a competitive price point (not necessarily the lowest price), then your closing ratios will improve.

I'm exploring how to best utilize controversy as a sales strategy in selling to the web hosting industry. I think a great example years ago was advertising unlimited bandwidth.
 
There's a lot of people that do the controversial end of things. We wrote a blog on this back in 2014 and it got quite a bit of traffic. There were three parts to the article on pulling the reader into the post;
1) Start with a Question
2) Start with a Statistic
3) Start with a Controversial Claim

Using any of those methods are quickfire ways to get a user to read an article.

It's the reason "Click Bait" type articles work so well on Facebook. It's the reason you see "You'll never guess what happened next" type posts. And you know what? They work.

I have a youtube video from 3 years ago on our channel that the title is "WordPress Sucks! or WordPress Sucks?" and that video still gets views today. And there's good arguments for both sides of the statement too!

In the hosting world, there were just a TON of articles written about how cPanel was cheating the hosting industry by raising their prices. Talk about a firestorm! Heck, we even saw it here on HD - lots of opinions.

As far as driving traffic to a website using the pitch however, that's harder I think. You can still use titles like "Unlimted Bandwidth Exists, But Here's The Problem You Will Face" and variations like that. The title must be "shocking" enough to be true, and at the same time, have enough holes in it so you're not brought up on libel statements. It's a tough line to walk sometimes.

"X Is A Terrible Idea, Prepare To Lose Money"
"X Cost Me $100k, But I Still Love It"
"I Lost 50lbs Overnight; A Hosting Nightmare!" (I sold a dedicated server)

Controversy definitely gets the eyes on a story - just be careful how big of a bite you take!
 
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