Customer pain points
Running a business brings with it a whole host of issues, problems and
anxieties. Some are general ones that every small business will face and
others are industry specific, like banking regulations or catering hygiene
rules. For every business there are things that must be done, things that
should be done, things that might be done and things that are on the Too
Difficult list.
Your first job is to start with the issues you face in your own business.
List all your own business issues, put them in a table and categorise
them:
-
Business critical
-
Legal requirements
-
Pipeline and customer facing
-
Good to do but not essential
-
If only there was time
When someone comes along to sell you something, you are most likely to
buy things that help with category 1 issues, then category 2 and so on.
Make sense?
So when you are working on your own marketing activities they should
address the highest category that your customer has. To do this you need
to have some idea of what those issues are for your customer and for that
to be achievable you will need to have segmented your customers into
groups with similar needs. Boiling a kettle of water is much easier than
boiling a whole ocean.
For all businesses there are a set of common needs and to simplify things
we are going to bring those needs down to as basic a level as possible.
The pain point any particular customer has will be more specific but that
is a good thing because it gives you a range of issues you can address all
around the one basic need.
This list is just a starter to get your own ideas flowing. You will need
to apply and expend them to be specific to your own target audience. Don’t
rush through this it really is the key to selling to people and
businesses. Identify their pain points and write about your own product in
terms of how it will address those pain points.
1.
Make money
a.
Selling to customers – find customers to sell to
b.
Collecting payments
c.
Tax reduction and rebate
d.
Getting grants and subsidies
e.
Selling more
2.
Reduce costs
a.
Do things more efficiently
b.
Pay less for things
c.
Improve margins
d.
Automating repetitive tasks
3.
Saving time
a.
Doing things faster
b.
Doing things more efficiently
c.
Outsourcing when it’s cost effective
d.
Not doing things at all if they don’t need to be done
4.
Know what’s happening – Specifically within a business
a.
Being able to track leads through the system
b.
Gathering customer intelligence
c.
Knowing who buys from you
d.
Know what staff are actually doing
How do you find out what your target customers pain points are?
-
Ask existing customers who are in the same target group
-
Look for blogs or sites where they gather to air their views
-
Read their trade/professional magazines
-
Commission a survey – WARNING most surveys produce garbage because
they were not properly thought out in the first place
Test the market – try small sample marketing and see what results you
get.
Now read Customer Segmentation>