If you're selling live chat software like Intercom, you're not really selling live chat software (fun fact). You're selling a new and better way to acquire customers.
It’s easy to think that we sell products based on the functional job it accomplishes.
Businesses need live chat software, right? No, businesses don’t need live chat software, but they need a new and better way to acquire customers.
The difference is innovating on the pain.
Businesses need to acquire customers. If not, they experience the pain of not hitting marketing goals or meeting payroll. This type of pain is product-agnostic and, well, sucks.
Yet, pain is beautiful because it inspires change, and we can avoid or prevent it altogether.
Ask yourself: what core pain does your product solve?
Most brands don't understand pain. They get caught up in the features and don't really know why people buy their product.
So, they create web pages such as the one below.
From the copy, we know what Userlike sells, but why choose Userlike's live chat software over Intercom?
The copy assumes we know what pain live chat software solves for. This is not good marketing or good for your conversion rate.
To avoid this, you must go beyond what the product is and highlight the emotional and social jobs people hire your product for. And that’s exactly what Userlike did with its most recent website redesign.
Now, instead of letting the headline do all the talking, Userlike includes a brief paragraph along with four bullet points. It’s not a lot of content, but it’s more than enough to explain the pain that its product solves: keeping customers close.
What Are Pain Points in Marketing?
Pain points in marketing are specific problems faced by customers or prospects. In other words, pain points are problems that your target audience is experiencing.
Examples of Pain Points
For instance, if users buy live chat software, they might be trying to fulfill a social job such as appearing more accessible to their customers. Or perhaps they want to have more meaningful conversations with their customers without having them fill out a form.
These are pain points, and there's always more than one reason why we buy a solution.
But, lucky for us, there are only three main reasons people buy products, and they are:
- Functional Jobs: The core tasks that customers want to get done.
- Emotional Jobs: How customers want to feel or avoid feeling as a result of executing the core functional job.
- Social Jobs: How customers want to be perceived by others.
If you can understand what pain your users are trying to overcome and their reasons for buying your SaaS product, you can boost conversion rates and get more customers.
Pain Points vs. Solutions vs. Features
On the surface, it’s easy to confuse pain points and solutions, and they often appear to be the same. And that’s especially true if you’re new to identifying what your customers are seeking from your business.
Think about pain points as the tasks that need to be done. Solutions, on the other hand, are the tools you use to accomplish this goal.
Let’s look at Mailchimp for inspiration.
It’s safe to assume that Mailchimp has done plenty of research to pin down its target audience. And with that, they found that users are looking for more “ways to get more opens, clicks, and sales.” Those are the pain points.
There are four images below the text (but still above the fold). These images take the user to individual pages with more information on features and solutions.
The Benefits of Addressing Pain Points in Your Marketing
Discovering customer pain points will impact your marketing strategy in various ways, ranging from website copy to design to your use of advertising to support your efforts.
The benefits of addressing pain points in your marketing run deep, but these three generally standout from the crowd:
- Increased engagement: Whether it’s a lower bounce rate, more pages per visit, or a higher conversion rate, engagement is the name of the game.
- Greater focus: When you know a customer’s pain points you also know where to focus your attention. This allows you to properly allocate resources.
- Useful for other departments: The pain points you unearth can be shared with sales, customer service, and product development among other departments.
How to Apply Customer Pain Points In Your Marketing
It’s not good enough to know that you can use pain points in your marketing. You must know how to accomplish this. Use these five steps as your foundation.
1. Identify Your Customer's Pain Points
You know what pain points are. The next essential step is identifying the specific pain points relevant to your users to use them effectively within your marketing strategy.
Prospects generally share the same pain points, but the reasons may differ. Research, as a result, plays a big part in how pain points are effectively used in marketing.
Through qualitative research –which allows you to obtain individualized responses to open-ended questions –you can unearth the root causes of your prospects’ pain points.
Expert Tip: In addition to information collected from your customers and prospects, turn to your sales and support teams for feedback and guidance.
2. Find Out What Problem Your Product Is Trying to Solve
The simplest way to discover your customers’ problems is to ask them. Sticking with the PR example above, you could ask questions such as:
- What’s your biggest roadblock when attempting to grow your brand?
- What’s your top challenge in spreading the word about your company?
Maybe you learn that your customers’ most significant problem is the inability to connect with media professionals interested in covering their brand. If so, you can solve this problem by creating a comprehensive strategy for connecting with local and national news outlets.
Expert Tip: Don’t assume that you know what your customers are thinking. Conduct as much research as necessary to understand what they’re up against.
3. Analyze the Needs Your Product Meets
Your product can’t be everything to everyone. Analyzing the specific needs that your product meets is crucial for incorporating pain points into SaaS marketing.
Do so by deciding on the common set of needs that your product can fulfill. Examples include:
- A Sense of Getting Ahead: When using your product, customers want to feel like they’re getting ahead of the competition. For instance, if you have a SaaS product for securing more online reviews — such as FreshLime — customers can be confident that it’ll help them overcome their competitors.
- Responsiveness: Feedback and guidance from customers is only the start. Be responsive to what you hear. If your customers share that your product is too slow, implement changes with speed in mind. Neglecting to do so will increase your churn rate.
- Reassurance: Take steps to gain the confidence of your customers. Go above and beyond to provide reassurance, such as via 24/7 live chat support. Letting your customers “know you’re there” is often enough to win them over.
4. Identify the Value Your Product Offers
Your team needs to understand the value your product offers users. This know-how will drive your SaaS product-led strategy, from marketing and onboarding to customer support.
Knowing your product’s value also helps generate actionable information to customers that boosts credibility, increases authority, and positions your brand as a thought leader within your industry.
A common example is creating content, such as blog posts and videos, to share on your website, social media, and email newsletter. Each piece of content should drive home the value that your product offers, leading readers to the solution – purchasing your product.
5. Understand How Your Product Solves Customer Problems
This step goes hand in hand with identifying the value your product offers. Extending upon this, you must understand precisely how your product solves the customer’s problems.
Local, small businesses often struggle to generate positive online reviews that attract new customers. You’ve found the key if your SaaS product is designed to help businesses garner more reviews, you’ve found the key. You now know how your product solves customer problems.
As your product evolves, you may find that it solves problems that you’ve never thought of before. Use these findings to develop a more comprehensive solution moving forward.
Are You Ready to Embrace the Pain?
This advice should help you use pain points to take your marketing to the next level. And by following the five steps above, you can begin to apply pain points within your strategy today. Sign up for the Product-Led Fundamentals free training course for additional product-led guidance and resources
