In short, everything is in a pain point. “Pain point” is the business term for emotion, and emotion is a term that leads to business conversions. Whether you’re dealing with a B2B or B2C marketing style, the truth is that everyone involved is a human being. Even if you have to look deep, deep inside, you’re going to find a little heartstring in everyone.

Pulling that heartstring is going to help you grow your business, drive sales, and of course, increase revenue. Does that sentence make you feel kind of greasy? Well, it shouldn’t. Think about it… when you hit a pain point, you aren’t taking advantage of a client/customer. Instead, you draw their attention to something that needs to be corrected. And, you offer the ideal method.

The experts say so, too…

IQS Research has a terrific article that addresses this very issue. All too often, businesses focus on how great their product is, without getting into the nitty-gritty of why you can’t afford to miss out on it.

Grabbing hold of that can’t-miss-out factor and waving it in your customer’s face can get attention. When you have a great product you really believe in, you do your potential customers a favor by driving the pain point home.

So, are you ready to get started?

Defining a Pain Point

In order for your business to be successful, you have to define your pain points. Every successful product or service reveals a few pain points to the customer. If your product or service truly has no pain points, then it’s highly unlikely to be successful.

How do you discover the pain points? If they aren’t clear to you already, try asking yourself and your team some questions about your product or service from the customer’s perspective. Or, better yet, ask your customers.

Try filling in the blanks on these sentences:

  • If I didn’t have this widget, I would have to have x instead. X is awful because _____.
  • Having this widget saves me ___ and ____ by [its services].
  • Without this widget, my business can’t ____.

Are you finding any pain points yet?

Our company

If our company, for example, were to fill in the blanks on sentence two, we would say: “Having a content marketing service saves you money and time by replacing 80% of the sales cycle, and offering a huge return on interest.” Simple and effective. As a small business owner, that statement probably touches a pain point that makes a content marketing service hard to pass up.

Using a Pain Point

Style

How you use a pain point will vary greatly depending on what your business, audience, and industry is like. For example, when Apple launches a new Macbook with extended battery life, they address a pain point: short battery life. When they address this pain point, their style will be completely different from the kind of frustration-oriented advertising you see on made-for-TV product commercials.

While the TV products show a man fumbling with a hose in black and white with a big red X flashing across the screen, Apple will show how sleek and streamlined your life will be when you use their product – not the frustrations you’ll have without their product. Apple assumes the customer is smart enough to make the inference.

Effectiveness

When you choose the appropriate style for your audience and industry, you’re well on your way to driving an effective pain point. However, it’s essential that your pain point is legitimate. Don’t try to overload your marketing strategy by creating or including weak pain points. Real business conversions depend on the strength of your points.

Pick a few (it could be 2-3; it could be 5-6) of your most effective pain points and focus in on them. Potential customers are only going to give you so much of their attention span. When you try to drive 10 pain points in to their minds, it can be overwhelming and ineffective.

Balance

So, make sure you balance your pain points, and how you reveal them. Remember that not every pain point has to “give it to ‘em where it hurts.” A pain point can be equally effective by showing how easy your product or service would make a customer’s life. The customer can make the inference, and feel the “pain” himself.

Don’t Shy Away

The last point on using a pain point: don’t shy away. You aren’t being mean, or rude, you’re providing a terrific product. Don’t back off your customer’s pain points. Splay them out!

Uncovering & Fixing Pain Points in Market Research

While we’ve focused on how you can address pain points for your customers, pain points affect you, as well. Let’s say you’re developing a mobile app for your company. You come across this great Infographic that breaks down “The Mobile Advantage.” Loaded with plenty of positive statistics, you’re sold on creating that app you’ve been thinking about. (And, by the way, those are all pain points that are driving you!)

But, wait!

At the very bottom there, it’s clear that a lot of people have mobile apps that they don’t ever use. You do some further research, and you turn up an article on mobile apps that plainly shows that only 24% of consumers continue to use an app three months after they download it. That figure drops to a shocking 4% for 12 months after the download date!

Ouch!

While you still probably want to go ahead and create that great app, you’ve uncovered a serious pain point for someone in your shoes. Now, not only do you have an idea for an app, but you also have a business idea: how to address the crisis in the Land of Forgotten Apps.

Action

As you can see, uncovering pain points that hit your customers can also reveal some pain points that hit you, the producer. Multiple business ideas begin to develop from your research. So, while you’re finding out about the pain points you can drive home to your customers, you can also maximize your own potential as a businessperson!

At the end of the day…

There’s a lot to be said for pain points. Using them appropriately and effectively can drive your sales, bring tremendous growth, and boost that bottom line!

What have been some of the most effective ways for your business to use pain points?