I love Marvin the Martian.

Marvin’s nemesis was Bugs Bunny, who typically got the best of Marvin, which would make him upset and say, “This makes me very angry, very angry indeed!” He’d say this while pacing back and forth frantically and puffing out his chest. Too funny!

However, you have prospects who are “very, very angry” and there is a way to focus on that in order to position your offering as an attractive choice.

How to use anger in your marketing

Anger is a very strong emotion.

When people are angry, it’s usually not a good time to make any type of important decision. The emotions are running too high. But once your prospect simmers down, believe me, they’ll be open to making a change.

Think about how angry people were at Netflix when they changed their service. Or think about what happened when Dave Carroll got angry after United failed to reimburse him for his broken guitar.

(I have to post this video because I adore this song Carroll wrote after wasting a year trying to get United to reimburse him.)

Target the emotion of anger

When using anger, you need to name a target. Dave Carroll did an excellent job in naming his. As a result, the whole country was staring straight at United and wondering what they were going to do about it (after being so publically shamed, United did try to give Carroll vouchers but Carroll told them to give it to charity).

Think about what would make your prospect angry about your industry.

Is it the fact that car repair shops overcharge or don’t stay within their estimate? Is it software that is buggy and then the help desk can’t be found to fix things? Or maybe it’s service providers who double-book their schedules which makes you wait longer than you expected.

What makes your prospect angry

People generally feel angry when they think something was unfair, unjust, or expectations were unfulfilled.

I was one of those Netflix users who were upset that they changed their service. Just because some PR person said their service of  a mailing a DVD and streaming video was “unsustainable” wasn’t my problem. They were the ones who came up with that model.

To suddenly switch to two separate services and expect the customer to go along with a 60% increase in pricing was ridiculous. Netflix knew it stepped into it when they started to get hammered on social media and people started cancelling their subscriptions in droves.

You don’t want to be in that position.

But when your competition is getting hammered like that, take advantage by offering your service or product as something that respects the customer. Redbox jumped on the Netflix controversy and came out ahead.

Answer your prospect’s anger with positive emotion

Your prospect is angry and ready to take action. You identify the target and then… position your product or service as giving her justice, fairness, and service and performance that exceeds expectations.

Of course you have to make sure your offering can do all of this.

It does no good to put these claims in your marketing and then when the rubber hits the road, you don’t honor them.

If you’re able to hone in on the anger by identifying the target, emphasizing how this target is really blowing it, and then position yourself as someone the prospect can trust… then you’ve made the emotion actionable. This is what the prospect wants.

They’re so angry that they want to make a change, but they don’t know yet what that change could be…

Until you came along.