In this insight, we’ll walk you through practical steps to uncover your audience’s pain points, so you can create marketing strategies that actually work. Spoiler alert: it’s not mind-reading (though that would be cool).
What are ‘Pain Points’, and why should you care?
Pain points are the problems, frustrations, or challenges your audience faces. Think of them as the ‘ouch’ moments in their customer journey.
Pain points can lead to negative experiences for customers, influencing their decision-making process and potentially dissuading them from making a purchase.
Pain points are essentially your way into business. You have a solution that could solve your target audience’s needs. If you don’t know what’s keeping your audience up at night, how can you swoop in with a solution?
Research, research, research
This is THE most important step in identifying your audience’s pain points.
Do your detective work
Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and surveys to gather data.
For example, if your audience is constantly Googling, ‘how to fix slow website loading time’, bingo- you’ve found a pain point.
Now you know how you can target your audience groups with these pain points. Creating insightful, engaging content with actionable insights. This builds your credibility and trust between yourself and your target audience.
Listen to social media chatter
Monitor comments, reviews and what people are complaining about. People are more candid on social media than in surveys or interviews. Look into your segmented audiences’ social channels. What are they talking about and how could we leverage this into a solution or content?
Focus on the platforms where your audience hangs out.
Talk to your customers
Yes, directly talk to your current customers. There are multiple ways to approach this, conducting a meeting to chat, or sending out an email survey to ask them about their challenges. One way we like to do this is by conducting a training call with our client after we go live and also by sending out questions for our case studies. This highlights what challenges they faced and how we helped them to overcome these challenges. We are always actively seeking feedback.
A simple email to say ‘What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing right now with your marketing and website?’ can reveal a lot!
Spy on your competitors
Analyse competitor’s reviews and forums to see what their customers are complaining about. Consider it competitive intelligence, not stalking. However, remember different competitors will have different target audiences depending on their services and industry niche so keep this in mind. Not all of their customer pain points may be relevant to your solutions.
How to use pain points to your advantage
Once you know their pain points, speak directly to them in your marketing. Develop products, services and content that address these pain points head-on.
When you show you understand their struggles, they’ll trust you to solve them.
Whether it is through your marketing content or direct customer outreach, make sure you are really highlighting how you can resolve their pain points and make sure you are targeting this content at the right audience and on the right platforms through different types of marketing. Show them you are taking action and be personal.
To really hit home, share case studies and success stories. Nothing convinces potential customers better than hearing real people who faced the same issue and how your solutions transformed their lives.
Common mistakes to avoid
One of the most common mistakes you are making is assuming you know their pain points.
Don’t guess, just ask!
Data can be such a useful tool. I your analytics say one thing and your gut is saying another, trust the data. Assumptions can happen easily, especially if you have been in the industry for a long time. You may think you know what they want and therefore skip out on research because it feels like extra work. But this then means you are projecting your preferences onto your audience.
Another common mistake that people make is overcomplicating things. Pain points don’t need to be rocket science. Avoid trying to account for every variable and using fancy terms that confuse everyone, including yourself!
Focus on the big picture by identifying 2-3 pain points that matter most to your audience. Use plain language and start small by testing simple solutions before diving into complex strategies.
Conclusion
Identifying your audience’s pain points doesn’t have to be a headache. With the right tools and a little detective work, you can uncover what’s really bothering them and create marketing that hits the mark.
