What is Psychic Numbing in Marketing?

“One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” – Joseph Stalin

Psychic numbing is a psychological phenomenon that causes us to feel indifferent to the suffering of large numbers of people.

There have been almost 2,800,000 Worldwide deaths from COVID-19 to date and yet, you likely feel that the scariest time of this pandemic was the early deaths.

Psychic numbing causes a compassion collapse.

Sorry if this is bumming you out. It’s a sad reality. But there is something we can learn from this…

Psychic Numbing & Marketing

Psychic numbing doesn’t just happen in scenarios regarding human lives.

It happens in marketing, too.

Our team recently put together a list of 1,000 local keywords for counselors, psychiatrists, and therapists.

The monthly average search volume for all of those keywords in the United States combined is nearly 3,000,000 (and the list is certainly not exhaustive).

It would be easy for me to use the “3 million monthly searches” number to point out the reality that organizations in the mental health industry need good SEO. And as an SEO agency owner, I have something to gain from that.

The issue is, for those that have something to gain, it’s easy to see these numbers and become numb, naive, or just plain ignorant of the reality that:

These are real, unique humans with real problems that are looking for help.

It’s far too easy to see numbers for what you can GET out of them, not what you can GIVE them.

And the numbers give us absolutely no context.

We don’t know the individual story, the online and offline journey that brought them to a place in space and in time where they search for a “therapist near me” or any of the other 999+ variations.

Give A Little Bit

(If that title just put the Supertramp song in your head, I’ve done my job!)
Here’s what you need to do to start caring more so that you aren’t numb to the numbers of SEO keyword data:

1. Look at keywords contextually.
   Look at keywords in groups of related keywords and topics to get a better understanding of the who, what, where, when, and why someone might be searching that exact keyword.
2. Ask more questions.
   For any keyword or topic, ask more questions and think about helping EVERYONE that could be searching for your keywords/topics, not just the people you WANT to be searching those terms. I often hear, “our customers know that stuff that you want to write about.” Okay, but not all 100% of the people searching for that keyword know “that stuff.” Write for every person that could be searching, not just the percentage you want to be searching.
3. Be more human.
   Listen to your customers individually. Write down every question or concern you hear from each one. Hear their individual stories. Do your best to feel their pain then start creating an experience on your website that alleviates that pain.
   Use the numbers to validate. Use your humanity to create.

Want to Get Un-numbed (not a word) to the Numbers?

Get a 10-minute video audit of your website 👇

For $40, I’ll show you what to do to your website to get more traffic and conversions (using your website, SEMRush, and Google).

Just reply to this email to say you’re interested in the video audit. I’m only offering this to the first 5 people that want it.