Find user pain points accurately in 3 steps and solve marketing problems!

In the previous article "The Essence of Marketing Has Never Changed: Insight into Demand", we talked about demand. There is a very important concept in demand: desire.

The desire in this article is actually the same concept as the pain point. The pain point is the front-end part of the demand. Only when there is a pain point will there be demand.

What we need to understand at this time is: demand is the purpose of a thing, and pain point is the cause of a thing.

1. What are the pain points?

I did a quick search on Baidu and learned the definition of pain point: pain point is a kind of "pain" caused by the gap between consumers' psychological expectations of products or services and the actual products or services.

There are several key words among them: product, service, comparison, and gap. From the perspective of consumers, it is a sense of gap.

What is the difference between pain points and needs?

When we are hungry, we want to eat. Hunger is the pain point and eating is the need.

For example: I sell water purifiers. Obviously, my target customers want to use my water purifier to make their drinking water cleaner.

So what is the pain point?

The water we drink is not clean, yes, but it’s useless, this pain point is not painful enough!

Think about the situations in which people feel pain? As a mother, do you love your newborn baby? Love, doesn’t it mean you don’t want him to be sick and suffer? So how can children become sick and suffer?

You have eaten unclean things and drunk unclean water. Do you need a water purifier? Of course you do! So the pain point is: the mother's newborn baby has weak resistance, and the bacteria in the water can easily harm the baby and cause illness. The corresponding demand is that I want to buy a water purifier.

In our marketing process, many people are unable to truly find the user's pain points, or the pain points they find are what the company thinks are the pain points. So we need to think from the beginning, from the surface to the essence of things.

Here we want to introduce the classification of pain points:

After our company has sorted out all the pain points, we can try to classify all the pain points: primary classification, secondary classification, and tertiary classification.

1. First-level classification: refers to the core pain point of users, the point for which users are willing to spend real money, and also the difficulty that consumers need to solve most.
2. Secondary classification: refers to the differentiated pain points of users, for which users are willing to pay more. This pain point is not the pain point of general market consumers, but a differentiated pain point found by enterprises, and the market is smaller than the first-level classification pain point.
3. Level 3 classification: refers to the user's value-added pain points, for which the user is willing to pay for the value-added. This may be the pain point for some individual groups, such as delivery speed, purchase convenience, etc.

Let’s take a simple example: many ordinary people need electric vehicles when traveling, because taxis are too expensive and buses are inconvenient, and electric vehicles can just meet their commuting needs. Then, the user's need to commute to get off work is his core pain point, so electric vehicles become his need. To solve this core pain point, you may go to a store to buy an electric car.

When you buy a car, the store manager tells you: Car A has a positioning anti-theft function, which can alarm and see the location of the vehicle, so you no longer have to worry about it being lost; Car B does not have this function.

At this time, "fear of being stolen" becomes your pain point, so "anti-theft electric vehicle" becomes your need.

Once the demand for anti-theft smart cars emerges, the store manager tells you that the battery has a 2-year warranty and payment can be made in installments, etc. These may be value-added pain points.

It should be explained in detail here that the three types of pain points can be transformed in different scenarios. Or buying an electric car. If a person’s electric car has been stolen once or twice, and he makes the requirement of “an anti-theft electric car” when buying the car, then anti-theft becomes his core demand.

Niu electric vehicle case example:

For example, at the NIU C AR E conference held on November 25, 2015, Niu Technologies announced the launch of the NIU electric winter maintenance plan, putting electric vehicle maintenance and insurance claims on the agenda. To realize the plan, NIU Electric will give back 50 million yuan to old users, provide free vehicle maintenance services, as well as theft and personal injury insurance, announce the "NIU You Bao" insurance, and announce the commitment that NIU Electric will compensate for every lost vehicle. His test impressed consumers with differentiated pain points.

For a red ocean market: differentiated pain points can become the core pain points of the enterprise, because only differentiated core pain points can stand out in the fiercely competitive market through the positioning of differentiated pain points.

For the blue ocean market: If there is a market, and there is no scale in the market or there are no competitors at all, then you can directly address the pain points of the primary classification and quickly become a leading brand in the blue ocean market.

How to find potential pain points, we have some common methods:

After talking about the classification of pain points, let’s talk about finding pain points.

The methods we commonly use to find pain points are as follows:

1. Through a large number of online user surveys;
2. Through user feedback from frontline personnel;
3. Through the rapid feedback analysis of the background;
4. Through observation of consumer scenarios.

Through the above four methods, we can get a lot of information about users’ pain points, including that users feel the product is expensive, after-sales service is poor, there are few purchasing channels , transactions are inconvenient, product functions are defective, etc.

In fact, the problem with many companies is that they spend a lot of time and energy, but the only pain points they find are superficial pain points such as value, quality, speed, etc.

2. How do marketers find user pain points?

Many people fail to find the user's pain points, not because they lack the above information, but because they fail to make good use of this information. Conduct a comprehensive analysis based on consumer behavior + consumer expectations + competitor pain points. Once you conduct a specific analysis, you can truly find the user's pain points.

Analysis Element 1: Consumer Behavior Analysis

Consumer behavior analysis refers to the stages of the entire consumption process, because people consider and expect different things at each stage, and every point in each stage can become the consumer's expectation.

Analysis factor 2: Consumer expectation analysis (cost, experience, performance, convenience, emotion, safety, image, etc.)

Consumer expectations refer to the points that consumers consider at each stage of their behavior, and these expectations are intended to reduce the cost of consumer decision-making. If a business provides a perfect solution at the point where consumers expect it, then it has the potential to become a core pain point.

Analysis Element 3: Competitor Pain Point Analysis

From analysis factors one and two, we can find many pain points of consumers. We need to analyze which competitors in the market have solved the pain points of consumers. If it is a startup, it is best to avoid homogeneous competition on pain points, because the chances of you defeating your competitors may be relatively small.

The above may be a bit complicated. I will explain my point of view by looking for pain points in the toothpaste industry in life:

1. Consumer behavior analysis

The scenarios in which consumers purchase toothpaste basically fall into four behavioral categories: understanding, purchasing, using, and discarding.

The way consumers purchase and the sales scenarios of sales staff are not taken into consideration, because these are issues related to the company's channel layout and personnel professionalism, and are not related to consumer pain points.

Based on consumer behavior, we can create relevant analysis tables:

1. Consumer Expectation Analysis

Consumers have expectations for products. Their expectations for toothpaste are nothing more than that the price of the toothpaste should be low, the brushing experience should be great, the toothpaste should have good functions, and the toothpaste should be safe, etc.

(1) Cost

Can you provide cheaper products and services, can you lower the cost of meeting user needs, or even provide free products?

Customers are more willing to pursue products with higher cost-effectiveness. Customers expect lower prices and buy products of great value. As consumption upgrades, consumers feel that the price of toothpaste is getting lower and lower. For example, Crest and Colgate target the high-end toothpaste market, while domestic toothpaste brands such as Liangmianzhen target the mid- and low-end market.

(2) Performance

Performance is also called function. What most customers first pursue is whether the product can solve their needs, what the product performance is like, and whether the effect of use can meet their requirements.

If a product’s functions do not satisfy consumers, how can consumers buy it? Different consumers pursue different functions and effects. The main toothpaste properties that consumers are concerned about include: whitening effect, repairing effect, anti-caries effect, breath removal effect, anti-sensitivity effect, etc. Therefore, you can see that the costs of various toothpastes are different, there are herbal ones, fluoride-containing ones, etc.

(3) Experience

Can the product save users trouble when using it? For example, every time Three Squirrels sells a corresponding product, it will provide tools for cracking pine nuts, as well as paper towels before and after eating, garbage bags for fruit shells , etc. By providing these supporting tools, users can save a lot of trouble, thereby improving the user experience .

For toothpaste, in addition to the performance of the product, the main user experience of consumers is whether the packaging is easy to open, whether it is convenient to squeeze the toothpaste, whether the toothpaste can be squeezed cleanly, and whether the toothpaste on the toothpaste head is solidified.

(4) Safety

Is toothpaste safe? Are there any safety hazards? For toothpaste, this is not a user pain point.

(5) Image

Does the product match my image? Toothpaste is a highly private product. There are no image-related pain points, let alone emotional pain points. There are only usage habits.

Through four methods: a large number of online user surveys, user feedback from front-line personnel, rapid feedback analysis in the background, and observation of consumer scenarios, we have learned about consumers' expectations. I sorted out and listed consumers' expectations for toothpaste.

Any user pain point can be summarized in the form of the above chart. Next, we will analyze which competitors have user pain points in each of the above stages. We need to avoid competitors’ core advantages and differentiate pain point marketing.

In the column of understanding and purchasing, solving these pain points of users basically depends on the enterprises themselves, such as advertising coverage, channel layout, sales channels, online marketing, etc., all depends on the enterprises themselves to solve. It is easier to solve for large enterprises, but more difficult for small enterprises.

As consumption upgrades, consumers feel that the price of toothpaste is getting lower and lower. Then whether the purchasing channel is convenient and whether the product is obtained quickly are all based on the channel. Although they are considered consumer pain points, they are not the pain points positioned by the company. These are specific sales channels and are also excluded.

The fourth step, disposal, is not something that toothpaste needs to consider, because all toothpaste companies are aware of the degree of contamination of toothpaste and whether it can be reused. It is not a strong pain point for users and is not considered here.

So when it comes to toothpaste, we return to the usage stage: the usage stage includes the performance of toothpaste and the usage experience.

1. Competitor Analysis

Let's take a look at the competitors of these features:

Regarding toothpaste brands, I found out the toothpaste brands corresponding to the major pain points and found that all the pain points were occupied.

Brands such as Crest and Colgate focus on the pain point of tooth decay. Crest focuses on the children's market, while Colgate focuses on the adult market. Products of domestic brands such as Liangmianzhen and Fangcao contain Chinese herbal medicine ingredients, and their main function is to reduce inflammation and relieve heat. Like Sensodyne, which focuses on protecting sensitive teeth, there are other brands that target different pain points listed in the table above.

Maybe the toothpaste market is a red ocean market with fierce competition. If it is aimed at the demand for other products, we will definitely be able to find a big differentiation.

Then, once the first-level pain points have been occupied, we will cross these pain points out of the table to see which pain points we have left that can be exploited.

The remaining pain points are all "third category pain points". So in this case, are there any pain points that can be exploited?

Here are some of my personal thoughts on toothpaste pain points:

1. For travel, business trips, etc.: provide consumers with good toothpaste that can be used once or a small number of times. Combined with a toothbrush, it forms a complete set of products, which is essential for travel and business trips. The toothpaste can be in mint and other flavors to freshen breath.
2. The toothpaste is divided into a morning use and evening use set: use refreshing toothpaste in the morning for fresher breath, the long-lasting cleansing formula deeply cleans tartar, fights against the root cause of bad breath, helps remove bad breath, brings a long-lasting and pleasant experience, and feels a refreshing breath; use antibacterial toothpaste at night. (At night, when people are asleep, the salivary glands secrete insufficiently, and the mouth becomes dry, which can lead to oral acidification and the inability to inhibit bacterial growth.)
3. Multifunctional toothpaste: Is there a toothpaste that can be used for both brushing teeth and washing face?
4. For the middle-aged and elderly: develop toothpaste for the middle-aged and elderly, focusing on preventing tooth loss, that is, a health-care toothpaste.

I gave the example of finding pain points in the toothpaste industry. I don’t know much about this industry, and the pain points may not have been collected clearly enough. Since the toothpaste industry is a red ocean industry, basically all consumers’ pain points have been occupied by major brands.

The purpose of this article is to give you an idea of ​​how to think about pain points, and to tell you the steps to really find the pain points.

The first step is consumer behavior analysis, the second step is consumer expectation analysis, and the third step is competitor pain point analysis. Then, based on your own business situation, find several pain points that are suitable for your business.

Final reminder: demand is the essence of marketing, and pain points are the prerequisite for demand. Only by identifying the pain points and understanding the needs can we do good marketing.

Source: Miao Liwei