More specifically: How can we get people to try PEMF?
This is the question that has been in the back of my mind for some time, and I was hoping I could get some actionable feedback in a brainstorm thread.
With all the hype and hyperbole about pemf already in the market, how do we rise above that to get people to check out or even try PEMF?
Any thoughts?
First thing to do is to define who you are trying to communicate with. This is very specific for ICES-PEMF.
Answer: First (and maybe second) adopters, not the general public, people intelligent or open minded enough to realize that PEMF is experimental, and people who do not need assurances that are not possible to give (see “Details” below). In my opinion, it is crucial to communicate the truth, and only the truth, and the limits of our knowledge, and this only works with a small subset of people.
With this in mind, I think the communication needs to be targeted appropriately and grown in a grass-roots manner. If it grows too fast, then other forces begin to dominate, the message gets distorted and you run afoul of both the truth and federal law.
– that’s my 2 cents
Details:
In my experience, it’s important to know how people view reality. The main problem here is that the general public uses very different definitions for specific words than the FDA and CDC use.
“Safe” to the FDA and CDC means a favorable risk ratio, and therefore a certain number of people will not benefit and may be harmed by any given medical drug or device, whereas people in the general public define “safety” as an absolute assurance that something is 100% safe and they will not and can not be harmed by it. By this definition, there are precisely zero “safe” things in the universe.
“Effective” to the FDA and CDC, once again, is a statistical judgement call, and depends on the threshold that is set: how many people will benefit (sometimes this is as low as 20%), and how much will they benefit (sometimes this can also be as low as 20% improvement). A person in the general population, however, thinks that the definition of “effective” means that a drug or device will work, it will always work, for everyone, and the use of it will result in a 100% cure. They view things as either “effective” or “not effective”. By this definition, absolutely zero things in the known universe actually are “effective”.
ok thanks… from this, my key takeaway is to get familiar with the laws of health, claims, and setting expectations. i am right there with you Dr Bob on wanting more clarity and awareness of the potential and availability of pemf in health.
CBD has gotten so much attention and acceptance over the last decade and i wonder if the same can happen for ices pemf. i would specifically stand behind this tech because you are capable and ready to prove the tech under scientific scrutiny… AND pemf just works using your tech.
i genuinely want to find an effective way to move this tech into mainstream awareness. while i would love to get paid for that, the idea of gaining awareness is even more exciting to me.
thanks for your feedback.
I’ll come back to this thread as i explore and try options to brainstorm as needed.
Well, I guess I failed to communicate it clearly. My main message is to identify the correct audience. Talking to some of my closest colleagues in PEMF, lately, in a desperate bid to grow their business, they cast a very broad net to snag as many customers as possible. This draws in a very large number of people who have the wrong expectations, and an over-simplified, distorted view of scientific reality IMO. I know this very well: we get a lot of their over-flow. These people are very difficult customers because they are firmly wrong-minded. Typically, marketers just lie to them and tell them what they want to hear, so no matter how true the message was to begin with, it gets distorted eventually.
If you try to get the PEMF message out to this very large consumer group, regardless of your good intentions, the honest message will be completely ineffective.
I think this is at least in part because PEMF is not just a pill you can swallow and forget. It is a tool that requires intelligence, persistence, and acquired skill to use effectively.
I have forever lost a significant fraction of my life trying to explain PEMF to the wrong people. Some of these people are ostensibly intelligent: scientists and surgeons, but even some of these people are irrationally resistant. No amount of fact or proof or reason will sway them to even consider something outside their comfort zone.
So, my conclusion, and maybe this will only apply to me, but to be effective, first: identify and know your audience. Second, do not waste time on other people until they are ready to listen. And realize, you cannot make them ready to listen. And finally, some people will take their biases to the grave rather than open their minds to anything new.
Keep in mind that things like CBD have recently benefited from more than a half century of honest and pretty low-key pressure from mounting evidence, as well s a large and supportive counter-culture stretching back to the 1960’s. More people gravitated to it eventually because they (1) had no effective alternative, and (2) it still fits the common model of “take a pill and forget it”. PEMF takes much more skill and persistence to use than a pill or an oil.
So, my basic strategy is more like: “when you are finally ready for the truth, here it is. And it isn’t simple, but it works.”
But you know, I have had very narrow effectiveness. I am not a marketer, so maybe I am missing something. But marketing seems to me to be the art of selling people things that they do not need. PEMF seems to be the opposite, as far as I can tell.
Also worth keeping in mind: many, many people have tried marketing PEMF using every possible angle. I don’t know of any ground that has not been covered by PEMF marketers many times already.
As far as I can see, the only way that seems to work is a grass-roots truth movement plus a product that works and is affordable. Maybe a different approach would work better, but I honestly have not been able to find one.
But I would say that there is a huge opportunity for anyone who can solve this challenge. They would have to be independent, because selling or working for someone else who pays you means that you do things the way they want them done. I think the only way to realize this opportunity is to break free of the people who are running the PEMF market (including me).
I have talk to people very often. I tell everyone about it. I usually state that it just assists the body with blood flow and also tell them my experience and people I know. At first people are very interested. Then I cover the cost and application of different kinds and they immediately react that what I have said is not true.
I think CBD also has the advantage that is relatively inexpensive. Any PEMF device is quite expensive to someone with no experience.
It’s also very foreign. Our culture of ingesting solutions leaves no room for a solution that can’t be felt or tasted.
The other thing I think is that CBD oil is tremendously helpful for many people, but not so helpful for others. Unfortunately, most people have a mentality of:
“It works (for everything), or it does not work (for anything at all)”
This is of course true for everything you could try. How people respond to something depends entirely on their unique circumstances and biology. I try to help people to avoid thinking about PEMF this way.
That is a great point. I often come across this mentality but I hadn’t consciously realized it until you pointed it out. As far as I know PEMF works, to some degree, with all body types, in a similar way.
I think red/infrared light therapy, which is now becoming mainstream, might be currently the closest proxy for comparing how ICES PEMF might transition out of the innovator stage of the adoption curve (traditionally the first 2.5%) to the early adopters curve (the next 13.5% of adopters). However, photobiomodulation or red/infrared light therapy has benefited from hundreds of studies that have been published for decades. I don’t know if this level of research was required for it to become mainstream.
I perceive there to be two primary use case drivers for red/infrared light therapy- one is athletics and another is dermatological (less wrinkles, improved skin/looks). I also think there is very little remaining uncertainty/ wiggle room for marketers to exploit in the red/infrared light space. I perceive the frequency or frequencies of light, irradiance, and coverage area of of bulb or panel on the body to be the three primary parameters.
In the case of PEMF, as @Bob points out, there are many snake oil salesman ready to say whatever a buyer wants to hear. There hasn’t yet been a “normalization” of parameters in the broader field of marketing noise about PEMF. @Bob has been a steady and consistent voice in this noisy landscape.
I think the key right now is for the innovators (those on this forum) to spread the word to everyone they know. I find it works best to ask if the person I am talking to has heard of red/infrared light and if they have a positive opinion on it. If they do, I say that there is another energy based modality that also has positive effects, that works deeper in the body tissues (both hard and soft) and have helped our family with a plethora of items.
I find common ailments like tennis elbow, wrist tendonitis, and neuropathic pain could be primary use cases for more frequent discussion and use of ICES PEMF as a gateway into experiencing the incredible positive effects it has on tissue healing. I have also seen older gentleman have extreme gratitude for ICES PEMF positive effects on prostate health. I am sure there are many others as evidenced by the incredible range of first hand reported use cases on this forum.
I think cost benefit calculators are not obvious given we can only go on what is self reported and there can’t be claims of cures. One would need to derive their own cost benefit calculator after experimenting with ICES PEMF or by reading the forum posts and assessing the likelihood of resolution for a similar, self-reported issue. For me, repairing my rotator cuff, or accelerating the repair of a bone break, or stopping migraine headaches, each have a real benefit and a cost to resolve without ICES PEMF- either replacement cost (physical therapy, doctor’s visit, pain killers, etc) or opportunity cost (not able to work as well or not able to be as physically active).
The cost of a ~$400 (A9) ~$600 (M1) device that
makes the calculation now a no brainer for me based on my many positive experiences with ICES PEMF.
I often imagine a “READ THIS FIRST” Sticky post on the forum that guides users through all the common questions combined with a series of videos from @Bob that addresses them with his incredible engineering excellence and candor. I understand there are limitations as to the documentation that can be put together as there can be no claims of treatments or cures, just self reporting. I think a chronicled list of use cases of self reported experiences (all outcomes) discussed on this forum can be quite helpful. I think less than 15% of new users to the forum take the time to really search and read a bunch of old posts. I think they could be facilitated with a forum crowd-sourced sticky post.
Does pemf help with wrinkles and improved skin/looks?
I haven’t noticed that particularly in a local sense. However, systemically, ICIES PEMF is my number one device for "aging gracefully or “anti-aging.” For wrinkles, skin/looks, I really I think you’ll get more mileage from 660-850nm red/infrared length. But from the studies I read and my own experiments, using it daily for 120 days is how long it takes to see results because of the natural turn over of skin cells and production of collagen.
Thanks for responding. I’m particularly asking because I haven’t seen anyone talk about it or any studies. Seems like pemf is seeked for pain/more medical reasons and I assumed if it has a regenerative effect then it could work for anti-aging. I have a hooga RLT panel, but what the rl/nir length is. My intention was to use both devices.
ICES PEMF and red/infrared light are definitely synergistic devices in my opinion. I personally encourage friends and family to use both. I haven’t tried putting the coils on say a spot on the face with more wrinkles (below the eyes for example) and not sure anyone else has based on lack of anecdotal reports on this. If you want to try it, I would for sure be interested in your findings.