For ten years, I worked as a dental practice management consultant. My job was to teach dentists to be better communicators – both with their teams and with their patients.
Being a dentist is a tough gig. Most people ‘hate going to the dentist’ and will openly tell the dentist about it when they visit. Nobody is excited about spending money on dentistry; nobody tells their friends about their trip to the dentist.
Going to the dentist is just something we all want to avoid.
Unless we are in pain.
If we have a toothache, we will take the first available appointment and pay whatever it costs to get out of pain.
After we are out of pain, we revert to our previous behavior of avoiding the dentist at all costs.
The same thing happens for professions such as tax accountants, divorce lawyers, and exterminators. Unless we need them, we ignore them.
This behavior doesn’t mean we are all horrible humans. It just means we are incredibly motivated when we have a problem.
And when it comes to marketing your products or services, targeting pain is the very best way to get immediate attention.
The Greatest Motivator
In marketing terms, there is nothing more valuable than finding a group of people who have pain of some kind. Another word for pain could be ‘necessity.’
It can be either physical or emotional pain. Either type is motivating enough for them to be actively searching for a solution.
When there is a lack of pain (or necessity), then a person loses interest in any marketing messages that they see. They might laugh at a funny ad, or shed a tear at an overly sentimental ad, but they won’t take any action.
It’s only when there is pain that a person actively looks for and is willing to be sold on a solution.
Finding Your Prospect’s Pain
It might sound like some evil scheme to actively look for ways that your customers experience pain. However, it’s also the doorway to how you can help.
To find your prospective customer’s pain points, you can think through:
The situation: what are the events that lead them into this painful situation?
The conditions: what are the specific details that are part of the problem?
The mindsets: what are the ways of thinking that led them to this circumstance?
The physical: what are the tangible negative aspects of the problem?
The emotional: what are the negative feelings that the problem creates?
Try to write out each of these in detail and ask one of your customers if they sound accurate. If they relate to the pain you are describing you are getting closer to a strong marketing message.
The clearer you can describe the pain, the more your prospect will assume you are the best person to solve it.
Aim to Solve The Problem Directly
Once you clearly understand the pain that a person is feeling, you can tailor your solutions to solve that problem. Not a whole pile of problems. Just that one painful problem.
If your solutions to pain are compelling, you won’t even need to do much marketing to attract them. A simple Google Business profile will usually do the trick once a person knows you can solve their problem.
Many businesses forget that their entire existence is predicated on solving problems for their customers and clients.
They get caught up in features and benefits, branding, positioning, strategy, and a whole slew of other concepts. These ideas can be fun to talk about at a conference but know that your customers don’t care. They just want their problem solved.
If you aim to solve a problem better than everyone else, you will soon rise to the top of your marketing niche.
Whenever I work with a new business on their website, or to create ad campaigns, the first question is whether or not there is pain for their customers.
If the answer is no, then we must keep digging until we find real pain or necessity. This can mean simply adjusting the marketing message. Or sometimes it means changing the focus of the business.
Once you hit upon the direct pain a person is feeling, and you can offer to solve it, you are sitting on a goldmine of opportunity.
And best of all, you can actively help a lot more people overcome their pain.
That, after all, is the real purpose of any business.