Working for a small business, you know your offerings like the back of your hand. You care about their quality and value; that’s great! The harsh reality, however, is that no one else cares quite like you do. So, how can you make people understand just how great your business is?! Well, it’s crucial that your clients understand how you can help them. They need to know what problem you solve for them and why they need you in their life. You can accomplish all of this by shifting your strategy slightly. When promoting your business, rather than focusing on the key features of your offerings, tout the key ways your offerings benefit your customers. You can do this most effectively by connecting your benefits with the pain points of your target audience.

Let’s first nail down what pain points are and why they matter in marketing.

What Are Pain Points?

Pain points are the specific problems, challenges, or frustrations that your target customers face. These could be related to their daily lives, their work, anything really! And they can range in size. They’re points of friction – real or perceived barriers that creep up in our lives. Before you start incorporating your customers’ pain points into your marketing, you first need to identify what they might be struggling with and how your product solves that problem.

Why Do Pain Points Matter?

By tailoring your business to best meet the needs of your target audience, you’ll truly be taking the customer-centric approach that many business gurus talk about. Demonstrating knowledge of your customers’ pain points let’s them know that you are in touch with what’s on their minds in the day-to-day. You’re empathetic to their joys and struggles and you want to solve problems for them where you can, making their lives easier and you more dependable in their eyes. You command attention by adding value to their life.

Your business will be more agile and relevant by keeping these key needs in mind. By presenting your audience with the right solution, in the right way, at the right time, you’ll be so much more relevant to them. For example, think of a sign advertising the satisfaction of a clean car right as you exit a muddy stretch of road. It’s solving a problem right when needed most, see? You can do that for your customers too.

As you strengthen your customer-centric approach, increase your relevance, and become more relatable to your consumers, potential buyers will be more likely to see your offering as the solution to their problems. They are more likely to purchase from you – the brand that “gets” it.

How To Gather Your Client’s Pain Points

• Social Listening: Developing offerings and messaging around customer pain points require that you actually listen to what your audience is saying! Peruse social media and online forums (like Reddit) to see what causes the most headaches within your target audience and why. This approach also allows you the opportunity to see how your audience describes their issues so you can match their tone and vocabulary in your marketing and communications.
• Customer Feedback: Actively seeking feedback from your customers in the form of surveys, reviews, or simply direct conversation will help you better address client pain points. If you want to know more about what’s helpful to them, why not just ask? Use their feedback to refine your products or services and adapt your marketing strategies.
• Data analytics: What areas of your website get the most visits? What topics on your social media get the most engagement? What is the most clicked on in your email newsletter? Sometimes people can’t quite articulate what their pain point is specifically but their behavior will point to it. Don’t ignore these signals.

How You Can Implement Them Today

Review how you usually talk about your business. When you discuss the features of your offering, like superior craftsmanship, 15 years of experience, and your attention to detail, you’re talking all about YOU. Balance those points with benefits for THEM. Tell them why all of those things make the difference. The thought behind writing to connect with pain points is to take the thinking to the next level for the reader, asking yourself: Why does this matter to the consumer? Why should they care? What does this mean for them? Spell it out for the reader so they don’t have to do the thinking. Help them connect the dots and lead them down a thought path.

Here are a few more examples:

This way of writing – thinking – about your business is a powerful step in putting the customer first and driving sales. Need help positioning your business this way? We’re here for you.