Friday, September 13, 2019

How to identify your audience's biggest pain points | Advertising Age

As an entrepreneur, if you don’t pay full attention to your audience’s problems, you’ll never be able to cater to their needs (which is kind of the whole point). Your target market holds the key to the success or failure of your business. Without them, you have no one to market to, and if you aren’t adding value or insight into how your brand benefits them, they’ll lose interest and go elsewhere.

Pain points are the issues your target market is currently facing and needs help to resolve before they can commit to making a purchase. When their questions aren’t answered and their needs are not met, it leaves room for confusion and doubt and makes it difficult to become a loyal, paying customer.

There are different types of pain points your customers might experience, including:

• Productivity: Customers are wasting too much time.

• Financial: Customers are spending too much money.

• Process: Customers are failing to make progress.

• Support: Customers aren’t receiving the support they need.

Let’s dive into a few different ways you can identify your target audience’s pain points and serve them better.

Ask the right questions.

This might seem like too simple of a step, but it’s the most valuable and direct method to get answers about your audience’s pain points. If you want to know the answer to something, ask. People who want to learn more and trust you as a reliable source of information won’t hesitate to share what they’re struggling with and want answers to.

There are several ways to go about asking your audience for feedback:

• Send out customer surveys.

• Put a feedback button on your website.

• Pose the question on social media.

• Email users requesting direct feedback.

The key to getting survey answers that help you create a better strategy is to ask open-ended questions. Instead of asking customers if there’s more your business can do to help them, ask them how your brand can do it. Instead of asking if they need more content on certain topics, ask them which topics they’d like more information about.

Sift through blog comments.

Blog posts are an essential part of your content marketing strategy, as they can drive organic traffic to your website and teach your audience something new. What too many marketers fail to realize, however, is that the comments section of their blog posts is just as valuable as the content itself. Why? Because it tells you exactly what your audience is struggling with.

Many user comments simply tell the author that they love their post and can’t wait to hear from them again, but a vast number of them also include questions that people still have regarding the topic. If one person has this question, there’s a good chance others are asking the same thing. You can use this to create more content that pleases readers and relieves their pain points.

Over at my company, the comments we receive on our blog posts allow us to see what questions customers have about our products so we can develop a plan to solve them. For example, a recent blog post received a question from a user asking how to add internal links to their website. Not only were we able to reply directly to the comment, but we also created a blog post sharing exactly how to accomplish this so other users could learn, too. 

Evaluate customer reviews.

When customers write reviews, they’re telling the world that the product was something they either truly enjoyed or could do without. It takes time and effort to leave a review, which is why you can use them as a reliable source of information to improve the relationship you have with customers.

It’s always great to hear that someone used your product or service and found that it solved their problem and helped them move on from it. On the other hand, it’s especially important to pay attention to any negative reviews you receive because they tell you where your business lacks and how things could improve. In other words, reviews are where your customers tell you in plain words what their pain points are.

For example, anyone can leave a review of our new plugin, which is where we gain insight into how users feel about our product. When customers complained about our old interface, we created a new drag-and-drop builder that was user-friendly and easier for beginners to work with. As a result, we were able to solve a major pain point with customers and help them create campaigns they’re proud of.

Go through your product reviews, and make a list of all the negative points customers made. Was there something missing in your product that would’ve been a good addition? Did your website offer a negative user experience that was difficult to navigate? Whatever the issue is, customer reviews are an easy way to find the most pressing problems plaguing your audience. 

Identifying your audience’s pain points is a crucial step to creating a successful business with happy customers. When you take time to evaluate what prospects need help with, you’re showing them you care about their issues and that you’re reliable as a business. How will you identify your target market’s pain points?

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