Category Archives for "Marketing"

0 One-Time, Occasional and Regular Purchases

There are two ways to think about one-time, occasional or regular purchases.  For the purchaser, a one-time purchase may be desirable, buy it and move on.  However, for the vendor, regular purchases are desirable as they guarantee a regular income.

For the Purchaser

One-time Purchases

Often a one-time solution appeals because the purchaser has resolved their problem and won’t need to think about it again.  Almost anything can be a one-time purchase, although they may be infrequent occasional purchases.

Perhaps an example is courses.  People are unlikely to pay for the same course twice.  Someone who markets courses may be able to sell different courses to the same customer but each course is likely to be a one-time purchase.

Occasional Purchases

Occasional purchases are perhaps most common.  Most of what I buy are occasional purchases because I buy them when something runs out or stops working.  Some things run out regularly but in principle I buy them when I remember to and they are not part of my daily routine.

Regular Purchases

Regular purchases are things like subscriptions.  The big advantage is you don’t need to think about them.  You set up a standing order or direct debit and forget about them.  I suppose this also covers routine purchases; “it’s Monday, so I must buy bananas”.  However, routine purchases are more like occasional because in principle I can skip a Monday if I have bananas left over.

For the Vendor

One-time Purchases

For one-time purchasers, think about how to extend your market.  There are two ways to do this.  One is to build your reputation and ask your customers to recommend you to other potential customers.  The other is to make new offers.

Someone selling online courses might do both.  They sell more through marketing, often via past customers, and at other times create new courses that might appeal to past customers.

Occasional Purchases

Occasional purchases are perhaps more of a headache, especially for businesses with few offers.  A supermarket probably benefits primarily from occasional purchases, although some people shop for the same things on the same day each week.

The occasional purchaser needs to be brought back and reminded you exist.  This is fairly easy to do online and emails from businesses who sold us something years ago and still send reminders, plague many of us.

My nephew is or was interested in skateboards and outdoor activities.  I get emails because I purchased relevant presents in the past.

Regular Purchases

The regular purchaser is like gold.  If they sign up to a monthly subscription, however small, it is guaranteed income.  So long as you continue to provide the service, the chances are most people forget about it and continue to subscribe indefinitely.

Your main challenge is to increase the number of subscriptions.  There are some interesting approaches to this but I’ll leave those for another time.

How do you manage your customers’ journeys between one-time, occasional and regular purchasers?

0 How Your Location Benefits Your Business

On Wednesday 9 November, I shall lead the first of a series of 6 workshop in Sheffield, UK.  The series title is ”Shop Local! How to Improve The Local Economy”.  This link will take you to the Eventbrite page where you can register.  In my workshop, “It’s where your feet are: why a sense of place is important for your business”, I shall show how your location benefits business.

I’ve often written about how business contributes to community, helping build sustainable regeneration in our neighbourhoods.  In the workshop I’ll show how support for a locality can benefit your business!  By locality I mean a neighbourhood, city or possibly even a region.  What matters is being grounded somewhere.

Perhaps this is not important for all businesses.  Clearly as businesses grow they naturally loosen their moorings in their community of origin.

The Making of a Ruling Class

Part of the River Tyne, close to the earliest shipbuilding industry. 1681551 / Pixabay

I’ve lost my copy of “The Making of a Ruling Class: Two Centuries of Capital Development on Tyneside”.   Benwell (Newcastle upon Tyne) Community Development Project published it in 1978.  I doubt it is possible to get a copy now, so the link is to a library citation.  What follows is from memory.

The report, one of 12 final reports from Community Development Projects around the country, studies the ruling class.  There are statistical methods for studying poverty and they work because there are many poor people.  It isn’t possible to survey the ruling class statistically and so the report uses genealogies or family histories.

What the Report Says

The major trade in Benwell was ship-building and the housing in the area is at the top of the hill, overlooking the River Tyne.  Most of the terrace housing runs up or down the hill, their windows look along the hill at other houses.  However, a few large houses originally belonged to the families that  founded the ship-building industry and they face the River and the shipyards.  This enabled the owners to keep an eye on their shipyards and so make timely interventions.  I see similar houses in Sheffield overlooking the Lower Don Valley, where the large steelworks used to be.

I’m going to write loosely of generations.  It is possible at each stage several generations passed, the exact timescales may be in the report.  The point is if you follow the genealogies, the same family names appear in the same industries and they inter-marry.  However, their location moves first to market towns in Northumberland, eg Hexham, then to London and now they are distributed in financial centres all over the world.

Presumably, these moves reflect changes in communication.  In the early years, they would walk down the hill, then travel in by car and now use telecommunications.  The same family names persist from generation to generation and from place to place.

Business and Community

Many of us will recognise this happened in our towns and cities.  There is some inevitability about it.  The moves ever further away reflect changes to business contacts and the need to mix with other similar businesses.  For many today, these families will be directors of multi-national corporations.

However, it is not inevitable, many businesses remain rooted in their place and I shall explore their experience in the workshop.  It is not inevitable that a successful business should cease to play a part in its community of origin.  You can trade with anyone in the world these days and it does not necessarily mean you lose your local presence.

But how and when does commitment to a particular place become a liability or irrelevant?  More to the point, is there an advantage for businesses that stay in one place and become central to its economy, building sustainable business relationships?

This is the question my talk will cover, so please go over to Eventbrite Shop Local! page and book a ticket now.  It’s on Wednesday 9 November, 12 noon to 2 at a Sheffield City Centre venue.

0 Alternative Solutions to Your Market’s Problem

Alternative solutions are an important step in your sales funnel or marketing campaign.  On the Awareness Ladder, rung 2 is awareness of solutions to your problem.

Any prospective customer will know they have a problem and right or wrong, they will set out to find solutions.  They may find several solutions, possibly including yours.

Rung 2 is interesting because it best illustrates why marketing is important.  Your prospect has not necessarily identified the right problem.  If they have, how do they choose between the solutions on offer?

You can see why it is important to educate your market.  Identifying the wrong problem can be an expensive mistake.  Trying the wrong solution can be frustrating at best and may have serious consequences.

The Dash for a Solution

It is worth pausing here to recognise something I’ve experienced many times as a development worker.  Often when someone has a problem, what they present to me is a solution.  They will approach me to help them with their solution: “Chris, can you show me how to …”.

Often they are aware of a problem and reach for the first available solution.  It is worth back-tracking to the original problem.  The first solution to hand is not always the best, even assuming they have correctly identified the problem.

This question in the circuit questionnaire challenges you to consider all the solutions available and it is worth taking time to consider which is best under the circumstances.  The circumstances include costs, effectiveness, the skills of the people involved, long-term versus short-term consequences and there will be more.  It is always worth doing this, even if you stick with the original solution in the end.

A common example is: “We need a website”.  My first question, which can be asked in many ways is: “What for?”  This is a good example of a solution to a non-existent problem.  “Everyone else has a website” is not a reason to have a website.  If you do want a website, it has to be a good idea to design it to solve some problem.  Even better to solve the problem some other but better way!

Identifying Possible Solutions

Part of your marketing approach is to find alternative solutions to the problem and show how yours differs from them.  Some alternatives may be better for some prospects and that is fine.  Your task is to find the customers for whom your solution is most appropriate.

Helping people find the right solution to their problem is a valuable service any business can offer.  You will meet people who have come to the wrong person and it is better to move them on in their search for the right solution.

So, assuming we know what the problem is, here are some solutions to consider:

Do It Yourself

This is an attractive solution for businesses and organisations that are not cash rich.  They still need to consider whether this is their best use of time.  Another issue is whether they have the necessary skills in-house.

One option is to pay for training and development so that work can continue in-house once someone has developed the skills.  This may work so long as it is a good use of time.  Similarly, appointing a member of staff with the skills may be another option, so long as the attendant overheads are less than using a commercial service.

It is possible DIY is a false economy but not necessarily so.  After all most organisations do some things in-house.  Sorting out what needs to be bought in is a challenge.

Commercial Competition

Another thing to consider is whether your competitors can offer a solution.  For some prospects a referral is the best service you can offer.  If you understand their problem and know someone who can offer the solution they need, that’s fine.

If it is a good referral you will have impressed both the prospect and your competitor.  Another advantage of doing this is it helps clarify what you offer in the eyes of the world.  If you take on prospects who don’t really fit your offer, not only are you likely to disappoint them, you confuse your genuine market.

Of course, if you are with a prospect, reviewing the competition can be helpful as they may see you are the best offer for them.  If not, make the referral!

Doing Nothing

It is tempting to say this is the worse option but it depends.  Is the problem real?  Is it urgent?  Are there other priorities?  It might be desirable to have a website but is it worth it?

If something is desirable it may be worth scheduling it.  This means you may put it in for review in a few months’ time.  You don’t have to forget about it but recognise there are not enough hours in the day to do everything.

Of course, some problems are really tempting to ignore but must be tackled.  You need to name these and make sure they are not in the “do nothing” category.

What’s your experience of solutions masquerading as problems?

0 On Finding Your Voice

Perhaps the biggest challenge any solo entrepreneur faces is how to find their voice.  Last Friday, I wrote about personal branding and this follows on.  There are two senses in which you may need help finding your voice.

Public Speaking

The obvious dimension is having the courage to speak out.  This challenges many people, be they entrepreneurs, politicians, religious leaders or anyone with a message they need to convey.

The underlying principle is confidence.  Not only confidence in the message but confidence to stand up and speak.  For many, fear of speaking inhibits their voice.

Actually, once you find your voice as a public speaker, you will find expression through other media becomes easier.  Once I can stand up and speak about a personal experience, it becomes less of a challenge to write about it and publish online.

I headed this section “public speaking” because it is perhaps the most challenging approach to communication most of us encounter.  But many business people worry about everything they put out, particularly if it means telling their own story.  There is something empowering about speaking to others because that way you get feedback and through feedback perhaps hear yourself for the first time.

Personal and Business Voices

Everyone in business has both a personal and a business voice.  It is possible to unpick the two but it is not always beneficial.

Let’s say you’ve studied for many years and deliver a coaching service based on your studies.  You are brilliant at what you do.  Your problem is finding clients.  How do you put the message out?  You can list your qualifications, explain how you work and point to testimonials from happy clients.

We fear yawns when we are finding our voice! (Why are there no pictures of business people yawning?) mattysimpson / Pixabay

Yawn!!

Why does any of this matter to me?  Tell me a story about how you solved a problem like mine and now I’m listening.

That is of course too simple.  But the point is you need to find a voice that does justice to who you are as well as what you offer.

You can be entertaining, educational, inspirational, challenging and the chances are your business is none of those things without the essential element that is you!

Ah ha – I hear you ejaculate – but doesn’t that mean you are selling yourself?  Precisely!

Finding your voice is hearing what is unique in your delivery and integrating it with your offer, to make something people want to hear and some may be willing to pay to follow-up further.

The chances are you don’t know your own voice or if you do, you do not how to use it to become most effective.

Maybe now is the time to gather the fragments of your life together and make something of it that people will pay to hear because they need to hear it.

What is unique about your voice?

0 Finding Attractive Opportunities

Whilst naming problems and showing how to solve them is bread and butter for marketing campaigns, there is another way to think about them.  An attractive opportunity can be just as compelling as a solution to a problem.  Many solutions are equally attractive opportunities.

The mousetrap may solve a problem but it is not an opportunity for me or the mice. steinchen / Pixabay

This doesn’t always work.  I have mice, on and off and from time to time contemplate mouse control products.  Mice are a problem and there are several possible solutions.  All of then involve killing mice, hardly scope for an attractive opportunity!  A house without mice is an attractive concept I experienced before the mice arrived!  Mice are a problem that requires a solution, not an opportunity.

I mentioned Utility Warehouse (affiliate link) in my post, Indirect Benefits of Your Offer and they are an example of an attractive opportunity.  Like all genuine business opportunities, they are an opportunity subject to you putting in the work.  Usually people become distributors for Utility Warehouse to build up their income through assets.  They receive rewards for the work they put in and soon discover they are part of a supportive community.

An attractive opportunity can be a solution to some problem.  The challenge to any marketing campaign is to ask, is it better to emphasise the opportunity or the problem?  This will depend on your audience.  Anyone who responds to your offer will get everything you offer.  Some may opt for it because it solves their problem and others because they find the opportunity attractive.

You have options when you market your offer and you are fully equipped when you know what they are!

Website Design: An Example

Many organisations benefit from a website designed to meet their purpose.  The problem is they don’t always know their purpose or see they have something to market online.  A website can present an overview of their work but they won’t necessarily understand how a generic presentation of the opportunities they offer can work for them.

The challenge for a website designer is getting across how online activity opens up a world of possibility for most organisations.   They may need help to see the potential to uncover and meet their desired outcomes.

Sometimes this is a problem.  One prospect could not see how building lists now would benefit them in the future.  Their attention was on the developmental phase of their project and taking on a website was an additional burden.  They have improved their site but still have no list.

Another prospect has the potential to generate much-needed income online but has a designer who is not interested in what they’re doing and has other priorities.  In a few years their projections show they will have to close because they will run out of money.

These examples show how immediate problems can lead to neglected opportunities, no matter how favourable those opportunities may be.

Can anyone suggest an attractive opportunity that does not solve a problem?

0 What If You Do Not Address Your Customers’ Problem?

In my last post, I discussed the costs of your customers’ problem.  This post considers your long-term business prospects and consequences, if you do not address your customers’ problem.  This applies equally to your own business and your customer’s, if your customer is a business that needs to  understand its customer’s problem.

Local Marketing – Worked Example

A cost is something that can be directly assessed, such as income or membership.  In my last post I looked at the impact of poor marketing on organisations.  I considered some indirect consequences such as stress and bureaucracy.  Poor marketing matters because it implies you do not understand your customers’ problem.

The long-term consequences of bad practice is likely to be failure.  For a business, this is likely to mean closure at some stage.

Can You Manage Without Marketing?

However, many organisations continue for years without worrying about marketing.  This is common in community and voluntary sectors, where activity is not so cash dependent.  Many organisations keep going on membership fees and annual fund-raisers because volunteers run them.  It can also be true of businesses that have a proven product or service that maintains income.

So, let’s assume cash flow is not a problem and your organisation is financially secure although not marketing.  It may have established customers that spread the word by word of mouth.  A shop-front or a few ads in Yellow Pages may be enough for some businesses.

This can be a stable state of affairs.  Everyone needs plumbers from time to time and so it may not be necessary to market plumbing.  Most people know they need to call one if water is coming through the ceiling.  They are also likely to be very much aware of prospects and consequences of not calling a plumber.

But are they fully aware of all the services a plumber can offer?  Are they aware of the benefits of calling in a professional and not trying to do it yourself?  Or perhaps of some basic tips if you do attempt something yourself?

For a business such as a plumber, it may be possible to do well with minimal marketing.  So, it is important to understand not all prospects and consequences apply equally to all businesses or organisations.

Likely Prospects and Consequences When You Ignore Marketing

You will note most of these are community prospects and consequences.  This is why all organisations should prioritise marketing for the benefit of the community and not solely to protect their future.  The benefits of marketing are not solely to the business; lose the business and you lose the benefits it brings to the community.

The General Challenge

This question challenges all businesses to think beyond their immediate interests and consider the prospects and consequences of having a business actively solve the problem it has identified.

If you can name the benefits you bring to the wider community, then you can use this in your marketing.  Just as selling double-glazing or solar panels reduced carbon consumption, your business will bring benefits to the wider community.

These benefits are part of your marketing strategy.  After all many people will purchase double-glazing because it reduces fuel bills and keeps their house warmer.  However, they may tell their friends that it reduced carbon consumption and this may encourage some of their friends to consider buying them too.

Marketing is not an exact science.  Something that sells to many people may turn a few people off.  But understanding your customer’s problem, the benefits you bring and a commitment to educating the public about them, is the aim of any considered marketing campaign.

Can you think of examples of prospects and consequences from your marketing campaign?

0 Why Coaches Must Love Marketing

Coaching and running a business are not the same thing.  To do the former you need to be a good coach and enjoy the work.  To market you need other skills that may not be nearly so attractive.  The problem is without those skills you don’t have a business and don’t get to do any coaching!  Is it possible you could love marketing as much as coaching?

Here are a couple of thoughts you might find helpful when facing the challenges of marketing your coaching or consultancy business.

Marketing can Enhance Your Coaching

Many coaches are wary of marketing because they see it as selling.  Selling is a part of marketing and obviously essential to your business.  It is not the entirety of marketing.

Marketing is essentially educational.  It is an opportunity to spread your message, to explain what you offer and why it is of value to your market.  Remember, even though you may not be addressing your market direct; an engaging and entertaining talk, for example, may help people understand your offer and think of contacts who may be interested.

And don’t forget, if you are good at educating your audience, it will raise your profile.

Marketing is Your Priority

The trap many coaches fall into is their pursuit of brilliance.  The concept of imperfect action is lost on them.

Let me illustrate with a keynote talk.  You develop your keynote talk and set aside 5 days to perfect it.  You already have an adequate talk; you know the type of talk that says what it needs to say but is not terribly compelling.

The temptation is to spend your time developing the talk.  But the big question is, who is going to hear it?  Would it not be better spending the time promoting the talk, ensuring you have opportunities to deliver it to a viable audience?  The biggest reason talks fail is because no-one turns up!

And if you know 30 – 100 people are going to turn up, you’ll find time to improve that talk!

How have you found congruence between your coaching and your marketing?

0 What Does Your Customer’s Problem Cost?

Remember the problem in this element of the Circuit Questionnaire is your customer’s problem. I invite you to ask: what does your customer’s problem cost?  In this post I use my business as a worked example.

What problem does my customer face?

They are organisations and businesses who have found they need to do more and better marketing.  They are good at what they do but fail to find new customers, members or supporters.  The nature of their problem is their need to move from working in their business, ie doing what they enjoy, to working on their business, ie focusing on what they need to do to generate support.

The short-term costs are failure of business. This can happen very quickly, where the business owner does not have enough resources while building their business.  The big issue for any business is cash flow.  Note this is not the same as annual profit.  Cash flow is money in hand at any time.  If finance is not available, a business can fail even if its books over a 12-month period balance.

Many smaller businesses fail the cash flow test because they neglect marketing.  A few customers who pay up-front can consume a lot time, reducing the time available to market the business for the next tranche of clients.

Long-Term Costs for Community Organisations

I’ve based this list on one I wrote some months ago.  It shows how community organisations with secure income and outgoings can be poor at marketing.  No marketing strategy can work if it can’t find and address these problems.

• Organisation does not meet its full potential. If it does not get its message across, it is unlikely to receive the support it needs
• Baroque organisational structures prevent effective decision-making. This is common in community organisations, where a lot of energy goes into democratic structures that are barriers to decision-making. This may be a balance difficult to maintain but if it is not right, it becomes harder for the organisation to get its message across.
• Spending money on solutions that reinforce the problem, eg wrong type of website designer. The more problems an organisation has in its decision-making, the more likely it is to make poor decisions.
• Poor relationships cause increased stress. The more unnecessary bureaucracy, the more likely members feel frustrated and frustration erodes relationships.
• Individuals become isolated as they become more difficult to work with.  With entrenched bureaucracy, people retreat into their own silos and so become less accountable.
• External relationships can become restricted.  Especially where no-one feels able to speak for the organisation.
• Duplication of effort inside and outside.  Poor communication can lead to several organisations attempting the same project.
• People feel unable to act on their own initiative.  The organisation develops a permission culture,

Remember marketing is essentially educational and for many organisations failure to engage with their markets, failure to educate their markets, means they lose direction themselves.  Marketing reminds organisations why they do what they do.  It is expresses their belief in their own purpose.  An organisation that does not market is not communicating externally or internally.

Hidden Costs

Sometimes symptoms of stress are more subtle. johnthan / Pixabay

Not all costs are financial.  An organisation that is not marketing is likely to encounter other difficulties.

• Stress can be positive where it enables people to generate the energy they need to make their case in the marketplace. But where vision is eroded, money is running short and their message is lost, stress becomes a problem.  Stress is not always easy to recognise.  There are occasionally physical symptoms, such as shaking, but more often it manifests as mistakes, poor judgement, fits of temper, etc.  In time extreme stress can result in physical health problems such as high blood pressure.
• Poor diet and lack of exercise. These can happen where a business owner is under stress and not paying attention to their own health.
• Challenged relationships with families and friends, where someone stressed manifests bad temper or neglect.
• A business that does not market is likely to miss opportunities to network and build partnerships as well as miss out on customers. It is not possible to measure how much business is actually missed through poor marketing.

Conclusion

This shows the costs of the problem my business addresses.  Not all organisations with poor marketing encounter all these issues.  These problems can be addressed if the business focuses on marketing.  Usually a focus on market draws attention away from internal conflict.

I chose community organisations because too much bureaucracy can be a real issue for them.  Businesses can find themselves in similar difficulties.  Granted businesses are often much clearer in terms of governance but a permission culture is always a possibility.

I can say in my marketing “if you are having these problems, the chances are your marketing needs attention”.  I can go on to argue that if you are new to marketing, you need my services to get orientated, understand the basics and plan a coherent marketing strategy.  Sometimes you need to resolve internal conflict by looking outwards!

What are the main costs of your customers’ problem?

0 Understanding Urgent Problems

It is interesting the Circuit Questionnaire suggests pain increases urgency (question 4.3).  Doubtless sometimes it does.  For example, where the pain is new and the person experiencing it wishes to return to the status quo ante.  Urgent problems are often new problems.

However, take care claiming pain always leads to urgency.  Where people or organisations live with pain for long periods, they may prefer the pain to the risks attendant on doing something about it.  They develop work arounds that lessen the pain without addressing the root problem.  These may become as much a problem as the original cause.

So, if you approach an organisation for the first time, it is possible its problems are symptoms of deeper issues, unaddressed for fear of the pain they would uncover.  For example, the staff may avoid bullying through elaborate strategies to keep out of the bully’s way.  Over time these strategies may become enshrined in organisational practice.  Anything is better than unleashing the wrath of the bully.

What Makes a Problem Urgent?

So, whilst pain can be a reason for urgency, there are others.  You may wish to argue all these reasons cause pain. This illustrates why pain is perhaps not always the clearest indicator of urgency.

What Difference Does Urgency Make?

If your customers have urgent problems they are most probably seeking an immediate solution.  It then depends on your solution.  If someone’s website stops working, it’s likely to be urgent and need a technical fix.  There may be some issue within the organisation, eg someone has messed around with something but that can be addressed.

However, some urgent problems are symptoms of something deeper and some businesses offer support to diagnose deeper problems.  A series of crises may mean something is going on under the surface that needs to be addressed.  It may not be urgent and to focus solely on urgent problems may overlook deeper issues.

It helps to be clear about the sort of problem you handle.  No-one expects a website designer to tackle deep-seated organisational conflict.  The website will never work properly while conflict persists. No-one expects the designer to raise it, let alone help resolve it.

A coach or consultant, working on deep-seated issues, may help resolve several urgent issues, as they address their causes.  The point is both approaches are valid and it helps to be clear about which approach you use.

Can you think of other causes of urgent problems?

0 Problems that Cause Pain

Problems that cause pain can be acute or chronic, frequent or persistent.  Indeed it is likely that some problems you encounter will cause some sort of pain.  Pain may be an incentive for a prospect to approach you but be aware they may need specialist attention.

The question suggests three types of pain: physical, psychological and emotional.  The first point to note is some problems can involve all three!  Physical pain will have an emotional and psychological impact.  Psychological and emotional pain can lead to physical pain in various ways.  So, let’s have a go at distinguishing them.

Physical Pain

This is perhaps the easiest to identify.  We all know what it is and what it feels like.  Physical pain may have an immediate and obvious cause or it may not be immediately clear what is causing it.

It is tempting to say leave it to medical practitioners.  If there is pain, get it treated by someone who knows what they’re doing.

However, there are circumstances where employers for example need to be concerned about physical pain.  Repetitive actions and posture are examples of workplace practices that can have a direct impact on the human body.  People will put up with discomfort without complaining for years!

How many managers try sitting in their secretaries’ chairs?  I once sat in my PA’s chair and could not believe how uncomfortable it was.  She was used to it and never complained.  This is not a medical issue, although it may become a medical issue if the problem is not identified and resolved.

Removing the cause of physical pain is not always a medical process.

Psychological Pain

This is about stress and anxiety; it is about how we perceive the world and respond to it.

Everyone benefits from some stress but if the stress never resolves and builds, it can become morbid.  Managers who support their staff by praising their work, through supportive meetings and so on can reduce stress in the workplace.

If psychological pain becomes a serious problem it is likely to be seen through a loss of higher faculties.  The person suffering psychological pain may not feel pain in any way they can articulate.  They will make mistakes, often trivial or frequent or their behaviour will become more abrasive or controlling.

In some ways this is the hardest of the three types of pain to identify, let alone resolve.  The problem can become embedded in the person.  Any change in their environment could be interpreted in a negative way.

Emotional Pain

It may be hard to disentangle emotional from psychological pain but usually with emotional pain there is a reason.  A bereavement, loss of a partner, serious illness are all examples of things that  cause emotional pain.

The problem here is often it is not possible to remove the cause.  For a bereaved person, for example, their grieving needs to take its course.  At least, it is easy to understand the reason and make allowances, provide support, etc.

Where the emotion exhibited arises from psychological pain, there may be no obvious reason for it.  An abrasive member of staff may be in psychological pain and it manifests as anger.  But even they may not work out the reason for it.

Conclusions

If your customers’ problem can be described as physical, psychological or emotional pain, it helps if you can describe it in your marketing material.  That way those who experience pain themselves or in close associates, will see you understand their problem.

It is worth finding out how people with the problem describe the pain themselves.  You may know the technical term for the problem you solve but some people with the problem will not recognise it.  If you can find out how they describe it and use their language in your marketing, this may be an advantage.

Whilst pain motivates many people, it is not always important.  Someone who is anxious about the problems they may encounter in a demanding role, may be motivated by fear of possible future pain.  Or are they?  They want to be at their best and maybe that is a better offer than alleviation of pain.

How important is pain to your customers?