“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.”
— Apocryphal Ernest Shackleton ad
I had a miserable hike up a mountain yesterday.
Right at the start, I had to scramble up steep boulders. I was soon out of breath. Then the wind picked up, and whipped my ears until my head hurt. Then the fog rolled in, and it got cold and damp. Large frost crystals appeared on the occasional plants. And yet I, along with a growing mass of other people around me, trudged up in silence to the top of the mountain.
At the top, all that waited for me was a tiny and steamy hut, where they served hot tea. It was great, and totally worth it.
My point being:
A good number of human beings want a chance to prove themselves, to test their strength, even to suffer in order to achieve some goal.
And yet direct response marketing is all about making things easy and push-button, and appealing to the greedy sloth in people.
Is there space for a little noble sado-masochism in the slothful world of marketing?
Maybe.
I remember reading how marketer Sean D’Souza accidentally made his article-writing course much harder than he first intended it to be. I forget the details, but he mistakenly told his course attendants to write much more, in a much shorter period of time, than what was reasonable.
People taking the course suffered… lost sleep… got tense and nervous.
And when it was all over, they raved about the course, and became evangelists for it. Sean now has a waiting list for the course, which he markets as being famously difficult.
Direct marketing industry norms say that you have to provide easier, cheaper, faster solutions. But as marketer Dan Kennedy says, norms reinforce average.
So maybe, if you are looking for a market position that gets you above-average results, then promising your clients and customers struggle, expense, and many weeks and months of it, well, maybe it’s not a crazy idea to try.
Speaking of which:
Men (and women) wanted to subscribe to my daily email newsletter. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours spent reading the emails I send each day. Marketing lessons doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success. If interested, apply here.