Dan and I had our first date at a coffee shop, followed by gourmet tacos…and it was clear we had an instant bond.
What initially drew us together was an idea:
“Us against the world.”
It was romantic — Bonnie and Clyde-esque — and it intrigued him.
That exact phrase was written on my dating profile on OKCupid. It was the very first thing Dan commented on, when he first emailed me!
Months into our relationship, I realized our philosophy was creating problems.
In order for it to be “us against the world,” we needed to have something to disagree with about our world.
If we were always at odds with our world, we’d have to constantly be battling something in our world. That’s exhausting.
We knew we needed to revise our motto.
“What if we could create our world exactly the way we want it be? What if we could make our entire world FUCKING AWESOME at every nook and cranny?” I pondered.
…Now our new motto is “Us together in a world that’s fucking awesome.”
(It’s not quite as eloquent, but hey it works!)
Same principle applies to anti-marketing.
By definition, “anti-marketing” is against all marketing.
I am constantly puking at the fakeness I see in ads, commercials, and promos. (See: any prescription drug ad, any GMO food ad, and most ads on Facebook.) It’s exhausting!
Legit, truth-based business owners don’t need to mimic all the bullshit “marketing” that’s out there.
…What if you could simply create content that helps people create a more awesome world for themselves?
That would be the shit!
Nobody needs marketing. Nobody needs all the junk that’s marketed 24/7.
And no legit business needs to sink to the level of “marketers.”
The world needs intelligent, well-crafted, funny, uplifting, emotionally intense content that offers genuinely good insights, genuinely good products — and is genuinely wanted. Period.
Today we live in a world where each person has total power over what they experience.
Users can opt out of everything that doesn’t interest them, with a click of a button. There are no excuses.
Readers are responsible for the shit that comes into their world. If they don’t like it, they can peace out by hitting the “unsubscribe” button. (And if they refuse to do that, you do it for them by blocking them from your database!)
We can all custom-design our entire world, down to the last detail, so that it matches our exact intention.
That’s pretty fucking cool!
When you do that, there’s no need for “us against the world.” That becomes a moot point.
That’s why now, more than ever, as home business owners it’s time to broadcast great content that helps users create a better world.
If you aren’t already doing this, get started!
Michelle
Anti-Marketing Manifesto
P.S. The pic above is of Dan and me at the Trump National Golf Club in Mooresville, NC, on a dock at Lake Norman. Beautiful area! We both judged 99% of the people there as arrogant, narcissistic assholes… and I told everyone at the mic I was judging them, and cried. (Because I know deep down that being judgmental kinda sucks…and I could let it go! Maybe!) It was one step closer to “Us together in a world that’s fucking awesome.”
Michelle Lopez Boggs is a copywriter, copywriting mentor, and author of "The Anti-Marketing Manifesto: How to Sell Without Being a Sellout." She's helped her clients sell millions of dollars' worth of products and services online by using the MEI(S) principle — motivate, educate, and inspire, and sell. 