When you’ve got something to sell—be it a product or a service—it’s tempting to look on the sunny-side. To think that your ideal customers will instantly love the thing you’re selling, know exactly how to use it, when to use it and (importantly) how to buy the thing you’re promoting.
That’s the dream.
The reality for most of us small business owners is… Well, it’s not that.
No matter how hard we plan something and try to cover every eventuality, there will always be someone who finds a bump in the road that we didn’t think of. It’s why many larger businesses test, refine and retest their processes. Before refining them again.
Rather than seeing these overlooked bumps as a pain in the backside, you should treat them as a learning opportunity.
Problems that customers or prospects run into are called customer pain points. And you can use what you know about your customer’s pain points to refine your copy, answer their questions and put their fears to rest.
What are customer pain points?
Pain points are the problems (or perceived problems) and obstacles that customers experience when using your product or service. In a best case scenario, they’ll try to find the answer to their problem or contact you about it.
In a worst case scenario, they’ll go elsewhere to find and buy the thing they need.
It’s up to your businesses and marketers to understand the pain and barriers that are stopping someone from using your thing over someone else’s and address those challenges.
Examples
Pain point: A business owner needs marketing emails to support their product launch.
Solution: They need a writer and email marketer to create those things for them, within their small budget.
Marketing message: We write and schedule your business emails. (Even if you’ve got a shoestring budget.)
Pain Point: A bride is eloping and needs to organise her wedding flowers from afar.
Solution: They need an experienced florist in the area where they’re getting married.
Marketing message: With over 20 years of experience and a winner of local wedding awards, place the creation of your wedding flowers in safe hands.
6 types of pain points
Through the experience of working with clients and in my own business, I’ve identified six common customer pain points.
- Financial
- Risk and trust
- Ease and convenience
- Productivity and time
- Processes and journey
- Communication and support
1. Financial
Financial pain points are the need to save money or reduce spend to protect a budget.
2. Risk and trust
This is a hesitancy to invest because a customer struggles to see the value of what they’re paying for. They feel there’s risk involved, so need reassurance they can trust you, your company, product or service.
3. Ease and convenience
For service-based businesses, customers could do the thing you’re offering but probably not as well. To get a problem off their plate it’s easier to get someone else to do it. For product-based businesses, customers want your thing to be easy to use and fit in seamlessly with their life.
4. Productivity and time
Customers want to use their time more productively. Time is being wasted when using their current product/system and so they’re searching for an alternative that returns better results.
5. Processes and journey
Internal company processes or user journeys aren’t smooth or working efficiently. As a result, money and sales are being lost.
6. Communication and support
Customers struggle to contact your business when they need support and help with your product/service. Or they can’t easily find the information they need to overcome their problem.
Customers may experience one or more of these pain points. Your next task is identifying which ones your customers and potential customers are battling. Only then can you work out how your products and services fix the problem.
Finding your customer’s pain points
Identifying which pain point categories a customer is facing means talking to your audience and listening to the feedback they give you. It’s about putting in some qualitative research time.
Qualitative research is not data-led. It relies on conversations and personal experiences, so it’s emotive and variable.
Making business decisions based on anecdotes and personal experience may sound unreliable and even risky. Compared to and compared to data-driven research, it is. But marketing is, above all else, about connecting with the people that matter. The better you understand what they’re thinking and feeling in relation to your products, services, and even your industry, the better you solve their pains and market to them — in the right way.
It’s about marketing with empathy. Your customers aren’t just a dollar sign. Or an analytic. They may need the opportunity to say more than a rigid ‘yes or no’ survey lets them.
This is why uncovering what’s at the very root of your client’s pain involves qualitative research. Qualitative research includes:
- Face to face interviews
- Reading email requests, queries and replies
- Listening to recorded phone calls from your customer call team
- Speaking with your sales team.
Analyse the conversations and feedback you have. Highlight anything that talks about why a customer needed the thing that you offer or any road blocks they came up against if they’re already a customer.
You should also put yourself in your clients’ position and go through the customer journey. Start right at the beginning by searching for the product/service. Then move through the journey taking note of what you find easy and what’s hard or confusing.
Using pain points in marketing
Knowing your customer’s pains helps you find the right cure and guides your messaging. For example, if the pain is financial and budget related point out your low prices, sale offers and payment plans. Wrap this in empathy writing—copy that relates to the emotive reasons for the pain—which you found out from your qualitative research.
Addressing pain points in your copy
When crafting your copy, speak right to the problem. A good place to start is with the headline. Going back to the email marketing example, the headline can be as on-the-nose as, ‘You have a new product and no time or budget to market it. We have the tools you need.’
When it comes to establishing trust and easing the pain of risk, draw on case studies, customer reviews and properly researched stats and facts that relate to your industry. Once you’ve introduced your product/service, talk about the outcomes. How does your remedy improve their life?
What are your customer’s pain points?
Now you know what a pain point is and how to identify them. You also know how getting to the root cause of someone’s pain helps you write copy that speaks directly to the reader.
What client pain points do you already know about? If you’re unsure, what form of qualitative research are you going to use in order to find out?
If you’re really struggling to get your copy to talk
Then you can ask me to review the copy for free. Highlight that you’re struggling with knowing your audience’s pain points and I’ll happily give you some pointers.
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