What does “shilling” mean in marketing?
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The concept of shill marketing is simple. People tend to feel more comfortable with a product or service if they know someone else who has a good experience with it. If someone who isn’t associated with the company tells you how good it is, the claim will probably be more convincing than if it came from the company spokesman. A shill marketing worker is actually employed by the company, but pretends not to be. The marketer acts like a regular customer and tries to encourage people to buy the product. Oftentimes, multiple shills work together, reinforcing each other’s story and engaging in a conversation about how great the product is.
Someone who works for a business but pretends not to in order to seem like a reliable source is a shill. Shill marketing is the act of using a shill to try and convince the public that a product is worth buying. Sometimes illegal, this practice is usually considered dishonest. If customers find out that they have been targeted with shill marketing, they often feel cheated.