Things that make you go Arghhhhh...

Let’s talk fear and for once I’m not going to bore you with something ridiculous, like that time I jumped off Mont Blanc and threw up on my paragliding instructor. I want to talk about fear as a marketing tactic and how it can be used but whether it should.

As human beings we’re motivated by strong emotions – lust and fear are amongst the strongest there are. You’ve heard the saying that ‘sex sells’? Well so does scaring the heck out of your potential audience but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do – the sex or the scaring.

Let’s take an example. You’re selling a product that solves a problem. Customers don’t know what the problem is they only know that they have the symptoms or they know what the problem is but they think there isn’t a solution. It makes your marketing brain think – so we have to tell these people that there is a problem, we have to tell them that there is a solution.

Add into this mix the marketing landscape, there are other competitors out there, they’ve been about longer and their products aren’t as good. That means your customers may have been there, done that and are less interested in you solution.

Okay, so you’ve got a sceptic – let’s use real life case studies to show results.

To each objection there is a solution but somehow people just aren’t buying into it. So, you sit back and think, what is the pain point, what problem is it that ­­people need solved. At the heart of it, people want to look good to the outside world- hence the shiny, sexy car commercials. But just showing the result doesn’t work so you’ve only got one option left – fear.

Creating that fear in your customers that if they don’t buy into your product, they won’t be good enough, people will think less of them, they’ll look like a bad person… it makes sense, it’s a strong option but is it right?

Something about promoting this fear in people feels uncomfortable to me, imagine the audience we’re targeting start to feel guilty about not buying your product but actually they can’t afford it or they’ll put themselves in debt to get it; imagine your targeting someone who already has low self esteem and you’re just piling on more self-loathing.

I don’t mind being honest in my marketing copy – I don’t mind highlighting facts and truths but I just cannot get my head around the fear factor. Maybe I’m not built to a ruthless marketeer (thinking the guys off of Mad Men here), maybe my background in brands has taught be to build more long term strategies around truth, relatability and recognition.

Is it just me? How do you feel about making your potential customers (metaphorically) scream?