Prevent in the Present — Kelford Labs Daily

“People will do anything to cure a trouble, but little to prevent it. Countless advertising ideas have been wrecked by not understanding that phase of human nature. Prevention offers slight appeal to humanity in general.

Folks give little thought to warding off disasters. Their main ambition is to attain more success, more happiness, more beauty, more cheer.”

— Claude C. Hopkins, Scientific Advertising

Is it a good thing that people do very little to prevent problems? No, obviously not.

But it is a thing. It is reality.

Why? As Tali Sharot wrote in The Influential Mind, “The problem lies in the ‘maybe’. It is difficult to make people work for something that may or may not happen. ... Even if a threat is certain and immediate (like a definite time-out or negative feedback), it may still be less effective than promising an immediate reliable reward, because of the ‘Go’ circuit in the brain, which ties pleasure with action.”

Which means, if our service or product offering is singularly focused on preventing future problems, we might be missing the marketing mark.

Instead, we want to look for ways to frame our prevention of a future problem as solving a real, immediate problem right now.

Let’s say your product prevents deterioration of another product or process. If someone buys your stuff, it keeps something else working well for longer.

How would we apply the idea that we should focus on present problems rather than preventing future ones?

By positioning the product as a solver of a current problem: Like the stress and worry over the deterioration of the other item.

The real problem is not the future loss of quality, but the current and immediate stress about its potential.

So instead of saying, “Buy my thing and it’ll keep your stuff working well into the future,” you can say, “My thing keeps you from worrying about the future of your stuff.”

You’re not preventing a future problem (well, you are, but that’s not what you’re selling)—you’re solving an existing problem now: The worry, the stress.

So, in what ways does your product or service treat or remove an immediate problem because it prevents a future one?

And how can you frame your offering to highlight that?

Kelford Inc. shows you the way to always knowing what to say. Finely crafted marketing messages for hands-on entrepreneurs.