Love vs Fear, in Marketing

The young child doesn’t walk toward her parent when they return home from military service.

Nor does she walk away from the scary dog heading towards her.

She runs.

And marketing is often about motivating people to run.

Either toward something we love.

Or away from something we fear.

One makes you feel full.

The other, empty.

And we need to know the difference

Because the mass email campaign with the 3% conversion rate we’re patting ourselves on the back for had a negative impact too.

We just forgot to measure it. 

We couldn't.

The people we needed to measure were running away.

And the more our marketing causes people to feel empty,

The more they’re going to ignore our marketing efforts entirely.

And that’s bad news for all of us with something worthwhile to say.

So, if you’re one of the ones looking to make a positive impact, we have to ask:

Are you filling people up?

Or emptying them out?

Because there’s a difference.