X-Message-Number: 29619
From: 
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:55:22 EDT
Subject: More on marketing

Content-Language: en

 
At  the CI open house Sunday it was clear that there remains a lot of 

confusion  about    why don   t they    and    how can we    etc. Let me try 
again to clarify 
the  marketing problem and what we can do. 
Stating the problem succinctly is easy. A two-word  encapsulation is    
cultural inertia.    However, in order to be useful, this needs  fleshing out. 
Two  more words encapsulate important aspects of cultural inertia      
responsibility     and    uncertainty.     
Most  people are uncomfortable with responsibility, especially in areas where 

 tradition is strong and    professionals    hold sway. We ask people to accept
 personal responsibility for life and death decisions. They don   t feel up to 

it,  and they don   t want to rebuke or    betray    their spiritual leaders or
teachers or  their own prior convictions. 
Most  people are also uncomfortable with uncertainty, and would rather be in 
danger  than in doubt.  We ask people to  live with uncertainty, several kinds 
of uncertainty   and pay for the privilege.  In other words, we demand that 
they accept the full burden of adulthood, which  is very unwelcome. 
Another word captures another important element of  cultural inertia   

altruism. Altruism   to a certain degree, in certain contexts   is  built into 
us, 

hard-wired by evolution. It is also reinforced by our  conditioning, which 
generally 
frowns on    selfishness    and extols altruism and  loyalty to causes or 
principles.  
Saying all this makes it sound nearly hopeless, but it  isn   t. We can   t do 
as much as we would like, as quickly as we would like, but we  can do some 
things, old and new. 
First, it helps to get rid of the excess baggage some of  us carry. When 
people are illogical and suicidal, according to our lights, it is  tempting to 

blame them and scold them. This may make you feel a little better,  but it doesn
t really accomplish the task at hand, which is not to flaunt our  superiority 
or deplore the stupidity of others, but to take reasoned steps to  achieve the 
goal, or as much of it as feasible at present.  
Quite a few cryonicists, including Dave Pizer, who has  contributed 

substantially to the movement, still cling to the notion that we  have something
to 

gain by attacking religion. I   ve already said it over and  over, along with 
many 
others, but I   ll say it again: (1) Religion is not a major  part of our 

problem, and (2) We in cryonics could in any event at most  contribute only a 
trifle 
to any crusade against religion, and (3) We don   t need  to arouse hostility 
where it doesn   t exist. 
Next, as I have said repeatedly, we should continue, and  improve upon, what 
works, and exploit the data.  
The  data first of all show one striking fact   that it is easier to sell 

cryonics to  relatives and friends than to strangers. Not easy by a long shot, 
but 
easier,  much easier. I don   t have the figures at hand, but I know for sure 
that a family  member of a CI member is much more likely to be him/herself a 

member than is  someone chosen at random from the public. A patient   s family 
is 
overwhelmingly  more likely to include CI members than is the family of a 
random non-member.  Incidentally, this is in line with a well-known axiom of 

marketers, especially  charities, namely, that your best source of business is 
prior 
buyers or donors.  
To  get more from existing members, and to get new members from the families 
of  existing members, we need to do a better job of getting and keeping 

members  involved. Ben has taken several steps to this end, including sending 
Long 
Life  to all members, and yesterday the open house, which was more successful 
than I  had anticipated.  
The  open house suggests to some that we should try again for more 

socializing among  local members. I am still skeptical about the prospects here.
We are 
too thinly  scattered and too diverse. Many members don   t want to chat about 
cryonics, and  quite a few just aren   t very sociable. But the right 

personalities could  probably make a go of this. After all, lots of businesses 
and 

organizations have  social occasions where business is not discussed or at least
is 
subordinate.  Maybe we need, on a volunteer basis, something like a    human 

resources    leader.     Networking    has lots of aspects and variations. (On 
this 
particular topic, and  on others, I violate my own rule about do-it-yourself, 
with the excuse that I am  doing something, even though far from everything.) 
The  data also show us that many people are more motivated to save others 
than  themselves. Our patients include a considerable number of parents, 

especially  mothers, the contract having been signed by a child or children. 
Doing 
something  for your parent, at some cost to yourself, has cultural support and 
has the  altruism conditioning working for us.  
So,  looking back again: People dislike responsibility, but we can do a 

better job of  reducing their burden of decision. We need to make membership 
more 

nearly a     turnkey    decision. Our members are not just    customers    in 
the 

usual sense, but  most of them want the benefits of    customer    status, 
including 
a minimum of  effort. This aim is in conflict with the aim of getting more 
membership  participation in our activities, but the two nevertheless are not 
mutually  exclusive. Our membership is not monolithic. We need to encourage 
participation  of those willing and at the same time lighten the burden of 
responsibility for  those who need this. 
People generally dislike uncertainty, and while we must  acknowledge that the 
fact of uncertainty is built into life and death, we can in  practice reduce 
the feeling of uncertainty by building an aura of confidence and  sense of 
progress, and there is plenty of raw material for that. 
Sorry if I   ve rambled a bit. 
R.E.



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