An Ounce of Cure – RIGHT?

Here's an amazing fact I once learned while researching a copywriting project:

82% of runners get injured every year.

Imagine if 4 out of 5 drivers had some kind of car accident every year.

Crazy stuff.

The client I was doing this research for sold videos that teach runners how to strengthen their muscles, open up their stiff joints and fix their form so they're not getting hurt constantly.

There's this little problem, though.

The client's products are focused on *preventing* injuries.

Why is that a problem?

Well, everyone knows that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

And so you'd think that you could sell that ounce of prevention for WAY more than the cure.

After all, the prevention actually allows you to AVOID pain.

The cure only fixes the pain you're already experiencing.

But that's not how human nature works.

Let's face it, we're all guilty of ignoring problems in our lives until the screaming pain forces us to pay attention. I know I do that all the time.

It's not necessarily laziness, either. It's just that we all have 10X more to do every day than we can ever hope to accomplish. So we have to have filters.

And one of those filters is, "How bad does it hurt?"

If the answer is, "It doesn't," well, that's a tough sale.

So what's a marketer to do?

Here's one option:

Instead of pitching this product as a whole-body workout that prevents injuries...

You could break it up into small pieces that help reverse one specific point of actual CURRENT pain that the customer is feeling.

So maybe you'd carve off a smaller product for people with runner's knee. And another for people with shin splints.

Much of the content will be the same.

But by targeting ouch-it-hurts-right-THERE pain instead of hoped-for prevention, the sales pitch becomes MUCH more compelling.

So what's the lesson here?

Do a quick "pain check" on your product, and see if there's not a way to redefine it so you're selling *cure* instead of prevention.

Your customers (and your bank account) will thank you.