What you can learn from a Canadian comedy troupe

Once upon a time in Canada, there was a brilliant sketch comedy show called The Kids in The Hall.

Sometimes, when I need a break from the daily grind, I like to watch clips on YouTube. (If you’ve never seen KITH, do yourself a favor and get your head crushed.)

Well, today when I was rewatching some clips, I stumbled upon their collection of advertising and sales skits. (Here, for example, is a smug, slick slimeball named Evan selling sound.)

For me, they’re hilarious because they really capture the “salesman” tone. They nail the “too good to be true” offers and the “flat out lying about what the product is” type of sales pitch that we often think of as ensnaring unsuspecting customers.

And typically, in each sketch, the customer eventually catches on, making fun of the salesperson or else ruining the deceptive pitch in some other way.

This got me thinking about email marketing and the tactics that organizations sometimes use to sell themselves.

Here’s the point: if you’re not telling the truth, your stakeholders will smell the lie from a mile away. They can tell when you’re selling to them and not trying to build a relationship.

That’s one of the reasons it’s important to be authentic in your messaging and tell people what you offer and why it helps them—not to make bogus claims or sell all the time. Relationships are built on honesty.

So with the next email or newsletter you write, take a moment to review it. Ask yourself, “Am I selling something, or am I sharing a real story with my stakeholders?”

Your honesty will help build a deeper and stronger connection and help you more quickly and easily convert people to donors, volunteers, and advocates… Through investment in trust.

Want to learn how we use authenticity in our marketing? Download our book Mission Uncomfortable: How nonprofits can embrace purpose-driven marketing to survive and thrive at https://missionuncomfortablebook.com/.