The case for making content “teeth-gritting” physically painful to consume

Something to think about: It is my contention, experience, and observation over many, many years that creating just a little bit of physical and/or emotional discomfort in content increases engagement, increases consumption & sales, and makes for a better experience than if consuming that content is painless, easy, and totally frictionless. I don’t care if we’re talking about consuming your content or whether we’re talking about something like product/packaging design. I’m not saying this is always going to be the case for every situation, every market, every person. I admit there are absolutely times where what I’m about to say will work against you. But in many cases it is worth at least experimenting with if nothing else — visually, audibly, and aesthetically. i.e., with written word, design of your sites, whatever it is. So, for example, take my business partner in the software world Troy Broussard. This guy is very, very good at design — it literally is in his blood & DNA. His family have been master quilters and artists going back several generations, and his dad was a superb craftsman, from what I can tell. A powerful combo. And so he’s very, very good at design when it comes to print and web and software especially as many of our BerserkerMail and Learnistic clients will attest to. He’s also very much an Apple fanboy. Or was, at least, I think they are starting to irritate him lately. But for the most part: He loves the way Apple products and devices are designed. And he and I have long debated this sort of thing (ugly vs pretty). Including how my emails are ugly (ugly, plain text-looking font) compared to his emails which are much easier on the eyes. And when I told him I like my font to be a bit ugly, a little hard to read, he thought I was joking or just saying it to argue once. But then I pointed out a guy who gave Troy a testimonial at around that same time. The guy raved about how easy Troy’s emails were to read. I got no such testimonial from the guy, but he had just recently spent something like $11,000 on Email Players back issues from my ugly ass emails that are hard to read. Does that mean ugly and harder to consume is always best? No. But it does illustrate the phenomenon I’ll be showing you starting with, ironically, an example from Troy. If it seems like I am picking on him, I’m not — I admire his design skills & craftsmanship quite a bit — and when it comes to software design especially everything I am saying here should be thrown out the window. Anyway, that said: When I finished my elBenbo Press book teaching my entire book and newsletter publishing model I gifted Troy a copy. Which he was happy about. But, what he was not happy about was… how physically painful it was for him to read. This ain’t no exaggeration, neither. Troy has severe neck pain where he is in like 7 or 8 out of 10 pain on a typical day. Literally his first thought when opening his eyes each days is a pain assessment check. “Oh, only 4 out of 10 pain today, that’s not too bad…” or “Aaah! 9 out of 10 pain…!” and heads for the bathroom as such pain can be vomit inducing. Anyway, elBenbo Press is a BIG, heavy, even clunky book. And holding that thing for him is legitimately physically painful. And the only way he could read it was in his SUV where he has a little table on which he can read it with minimal discomfort. And he did. And I can tell you, out of all my customers who have that book, he is easily one of the most successful with it. Not just in learning it, but in applying it, from which he created his book-of-the-month deal. Troy just plowed right through that sonofabitch of a book, again, even though it was painful for him to read. But originally, I specifically remember Troy cursing me for not offering it to him as a PDF or audio book and insisting he read it physically. But it’s like I told him: “No, I don’t do any of that. First of all, it’s not my strength. Second of all, this content is way better, more engaging, more likely to be consumed, engaged with, applied, succeeded with, because of its inherent clumsiness and its inherent difficulty.” The irony? I originally wanted the book to be a lot bigger. My original plan was to make it an 11x17 size (newspaper size) book instead of just 10x13. But to do that the printer would have had to outsource some of it, which would just potentially slow things down so I compromised on the size. Whatever the case: My point here is that discomfort, NOT giving it to him in an easily scannable PDF of passive audio book, is what helped the engagement of that book with him. I believe that slight discomfort didn’t hurt the engagement it amplified it. Something else I believe to be true with this: A lot of reading, a lot of videos, audios are very passive. They don’t engage naturally, and it’s very hard to stay focused for most. But when there’s slight discomfort there… it imposes the power of Forward Intent (i.e., doing a little more than you have to or that is required to do something) which I believe ratchets up engagement, ratchets up consumption, ratchets up the chances of somebody reading it, applying it, going through it than if it was just some PDF or easy-reading book. Now, you may be saying: “Well, Ben, that’s a nice anecdote, nice anecdotal story. I still call bullshit on that” And that’s fine. I would argue that people who call bullshit on this, if you look at their businesses, usually for most of them, it speaks for itself compared to mine and others I know who have tapped into this phenomenon. So to appease that nasty skeptic on your shoulder, here’s another example: A few years ago, your pal and daily email horror host was accused of discriminating against blind people. No, I didn’t actually discriminate against any blind people. I was merely accused of it. And I was accused of it by a guy who bought my Copy Troll book — which is a physical book, 8x10 book, with butt fugly courier font. Not nearly as hard to read, by the way, as elBenbo Press. But this guy wanted it in PDF. And I said, “No, I don’t sell it as a PDF. These books are not meant to be eBooks,” for all the reasons I explained earlier. And so he shoots back with, “Well, I’m legally blind, and you’re discriminating against me by not giving it to me as a PDF so I can magnify it!” Now, first of all, the font in the book is fine. It’s Courier 12 pt. Just like Hollywood screenplays (which have those specs for multiple reasons —including readability, judging movie run time, clarity, etc). So there’s that. But the fact that this low-class jackass did that prompted me to write an email about it. After all, as the great Matt Furey has been teaching since the early 2000’s and probably even earlier… “nothing bad happens to a writer” — it’s all fodder. So I wrote an email about that to sell Copy Troll. And one of the replies I got back was from an Email Players subscriber who is totally blind. Not just legally blind, but blind as a bat, from what I could tell. I didn’t know there was a blind Email Players subscriber… I knew there was at least two legally blind Email Players subscribers, and neither of them ever complained. But this person wrote me a very long email saying that the guy who accused me of discrimination was a pussy. Remember, this guy’s actually blind, and he said when he gets a book or course or Email Players issue he has somebody read it to him, and… he he said that it is better for him for the reasons I explained earlier. Now, do what you want with that information. I know these are anecdotal. And again, I’m not saying this applies across the board with every offer, every business, every situation. I can think of many situations where everything I am saying here is the exact opposite, like with mobile app and software design especially. More: I talk about more examples of this inside my new book: “The Count of Content” There is much more to this phenomenon to learn from if it interests you. As for the details: This nearly 250-page book primarily consists of the December 2021, July 2022, November 2022, October 2023, and this past April & May 2024 Email Players issues. So if you have all or some of those you will have to determine if you want to buy this book or not. It is also on sale this week until tomorrow, Friday, 10/11 at midnight EDT during the launch at a $300 discount off the listed price. You can read about it here: [( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2024 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 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