In marketing we tend to focus on the benefits and that’s good. But an even better motivator is pain. When you promise benefits, you’re offering something in the future for the customer. But when you offer to alleviate their pain or suffering, you’re offering to relieve them of something negative they’re experiencing right now.
Look at the chiropractic industry. Almost any chiropractor will tell you that regularly going to a chiropractor will prevent back problems. But when do people actually GO to the chiropractor? When they are currently experiencing back pain.
People will pay more money – and they will pay it faster – to get rid of a pain they are experiencing right now. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical pain, a financial pain or an emotional pain.
So watch for peoples’ pains that you can alleviate with simple, doable solutions. When you find them, you’ve got a winning product idea.
Start collecting pain points into a Google Doc or spreadsheet to potentially use later for product creation or sales copy. Look for lines you find in emails and on forums where the customer is telling you exactly what is wrong. In fact, you might even think of them as cries for help, because they’re in essence telling you exactly where it hurts and why.
By collecting these pain points you will know what they want and how to give it to them. And by using their own words you’ll build rapport and establish trust because you sound just like them.
Here are some example pain points gathered from an Internet marketing forum:
- “I’ve spent thousands and as yet I haven’t made my first dollar.”
- “Every time I think I’ve got it right and I start making money, it just fizzles and I don’t know why.”
- “I can’t seem to get started and I don’t know why.”
- “I think I have marketing ADD – I can’t get focused.”
- “I’ve been working this system for 4 hours a day for a week, and I only just now made my first sale. $11.21 profit. I sure hope this gets better.”
- “I just can’t seem to stick to one thing because every new thing seems better than what I’m currently doing.”
- “I’ve written nearly a hundred articles and I’m just not seeing much traffic and no sales yet.”
And forums aren’t the only place to find these pain points. You can also go to Twitter and search using formulas like these:
[your keywords] mad -filter:links
[your keywords] frustrated -filter:links
[your keywords] help -filter:links
“keyword” help frustrated -filter:links
The end part where it has -filter:links is to remove tweets from your results that have links in them, as those are typically tweets linking to blog posts and resources. You just want raw tweets from customers actually asking for help.
These raw calls for help and assistance with a topic are a copywriting goldmine.
