Create Content That Focuses on Your Customers' Pain

Did you wake up this morning thinking, "I really need to buy insurance today."

Probably not. Nor, in all probability, did you wake up thinking, "I need to buy a new widget (of any sort) today."

Yet marketers seem convinced that buying their product or service is your dominant thought all day, every day. This is evidenced by the types of ads, sales letters and website content we see all around us.

But what we do wake up thinking is, "I really need to solve this problem today."

The lesson here is that if the insurance sales person or the widget marketer would think in terms of solving my problems, they would be a lot more likely to get me to buy their product.

There are things that keep us all awake at night. A marketer's job is to find the people who are worrying about a certain problem and show that what they sell is a solution to that problem.

I read a tag line recently that said, "No Pain, No Change."

If we do not position what we sell as a solution to someone's problem, we are unlikely to get them to change what they are already doing.

The simple fact is that all any of us really sell are aspirins.

Our prospects do not want to hear about the pretty coating we have over our aspirins. Nor do they want to hear about the attractive bottle we package our aspirins in. And they do not even want to hear that our aspirin company has been in business for 100 years and has won all kinds of awards for our pretty, attractively-packaged aspirins.

They just want to know that our aspirins will make their pain go away.

It really isn't any more complicated than that.

All this came to mind recently in two conversations I have had recently.

Yesterday I met with a lady who sells a service that offers a wide variety of protection services for families and businesses. She was having a difficult time getting to people to see the need for this service, mainly because they had not had this particular type of headache before.

But the more I questioned her, it came out that one of her company's main services was to protect people from identity theft. She was really knowledgeable about identity theft becoming the fastest-growing crime in America. She also informed me that the number one target for identity theft is now children, because they might not discover the theft until they reach college age.

So I pointed out that this identity theft protection was her "low hanging fruit."

We discussed a workshop she could put together about identity theft and present to parent-teacher organizations, retirement communities, civic organizations, etc. In other words, educating people about a headache they don't yet have, but could have very soon.

Another conversation I had was in a question-answer session after talking about LinkedIn (and social media in general) to a local chamber of commerce group.

One lady, who worked for a printing company, asked about broadcasting information about the printing business to her connections on LinkedIn. After shuddering slightly, I suggested instead that she identify her top customers by industry and address their reality. What problems (headaches) do these businesses face that her printing services can solve?

In other words, address her customers' realities. Don't focus on what you want to sell, but on the pain they are experiencing. Offer solutions to their problems, even if these solutions do not directly relate to selling printing services.

The whole concept of content marketing is about addressing the needs, problems and goals of the people you are trying to reach. This kind of content builds relationships, trust and credibility.

In other words, never lose sight of the fact that all you really sell is aspirin.

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