Create Content for Customer Pain Points

If you want to make content that turns your audience into customers, or simply reaches and engages more people, try creating content that addresses and solves customer pain points.

This article will break how to do it, starting from what pain points are, how to identify and understand them, the tools and techniques you can use, and how to adapt those pain points into great content.

In this Article

• What are ‘pain points’?
• Why solve customer pain points with content?
• The four types of pain points
• What are the most common customer pain points? (And how to solve them)
• 4 ways to discover customer pain points
• How to use Mandala Analytics to discover your customer pain points

First, what do we mean by ‘pain points’? 

In the sales and marketing world, ‘pain points’ are concerns or doubts which stop a potential customer from buying, or general problems a consumer has that may be solved by your product or service. A good salesperson or marketer knows how to discover and understand a customer pain point, provide a solution that best solves it, and win over the customer. 

Many websites are full of content that addresses a wide variety of pain points. FAQs and informative blogs are aimed at providing answers to customers questions with videos and how-to, even content about a company’s social or environmental responsibility is designed to alleviate doubts the customer might have.

We see pain points in advertising all the time… a woman looking in the mirror notices acne on her face. Almost everybody’s had a similar experience and understands exactly how the woman is feeling. She looks upset and disappointed, and we feel her pain. This is a very common and generic pain point, but the same principle applies to almost any problem or issue that you can think of, and through the magic of the internet, people are expressing all kinds of specific issues and queries and searching for solutions online millions of times per day. This is where your content comes in!  

Be a Superhero!

By addressing and solving someone’s pain point, you provide something of great value and help them to overcome an obstacle. You solve an issue they were stuck on; you fill an important gap in their knowledge, or maybe you just settle a question that’s been bugging them.  Whichever it is, they will be grateful, and they will reward you by giving you their time, their attention, and their trust; all the things content marketers are desperately seeking from their audience. When you solve customers’ pain points, become a superhero.

Why solve customer pain points with content? 

1. Excel in customer satisfaction

Satisfied customers are essential to the success of any business. But how can you satisfy your customers through content? By answering customer questions and offering helpful advice to make their lives easier. When you understand and anticipate your customers' frustrations and worries, you can create content that addresses these problems. 

And if your content successfully helps them overcome their challenges, they will easily trust your brand and be motivated to return in the future. A HubSpot research has shown that 93 percent of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service. 

2. Save money on your content marketing strategy 

When you create content for customer pain points, you'll be able to target your content marketing strategy more effectively, saving you money on your marketing budget. You'll identify your most effective marketing channels and focus your efforts there. You can avoid creating irrelevant content by understanding your customers' pain points and addressing them in your content. 

The average cost of creating content is within a price range of $500-$3,000. You don't want to spend any of that money on content that doesn't resonate with your target market. Ultimately, customer-centric content is the key to creating a successful inbound marketing strategy. If your content can make a customer return after their first interaction with your brand, you will save extra money from retargeting. 

3. Prove that you care

When you solve customer pain points with content, you do more than just render help. You also show that you listen to them and are interested in solving their problems. Customers who perceive that you genuinely care about their well-being will easily trust your brand and remain loyal. 

A recent survey has shown that 83 percent of customers agree that they feel more loyal to brands that respond to and resolve their complaints. Ultimately, your customers notice when you provide value to them and help them out with pressing challenges. 

4. Increase organic traffic 

Publishing helpful, informative content that helps your target audience increases your site's chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). A higher ranking means more people will see your content. This can help you attract more website visitors and convert them into customers. Google intentionally rewards websites that publish high-quality content with higher rankings. 

According to Search Engine Journal, increasing content quality is the number 1 ranking factor in improving your content's search engine optimization (SEO). To make the most of your SEO, you'll also need to use the correct keywords and phrases in your titles, headings, and body text and build backlinks to your site from other authoritative sites. These actions will help you rank higher in SERPs and drive more traffic to your site. 

5. Increase conversions 

When you solve customer pain points with content, you can quickly boost your conversion rate. This is because customers who are pleased with your content are more likely to purchase the solution (your product or service) you offer in that content. Solving common pain points with your content shows potential customers that you understand what they are going through and that you have the perfect solution. This can help to increase your conversion rate and encourage more people to buy from you. 

Although advertising may bring you plenty of leads, if these leads don't see helpful content on your website, they may not interact with your business enough to convert. You'll need excellent copywriting to nail customer pain points in your content and increase conversions. 

6. Improve brand reputation

Addressing customer needs and concerns through content shows that the brand is interested in more than just making a sale; it demonstrates a commitment to providing a positive customer experience that can lead to lasting relationships. 

Moreover, solving pain points with content is a great way to differentiate yourself from the competition and stand out in a crowded market. It also positions you as an authority in your industry, showing buyers that you understand their needs and have the right resources to help them. Additionally, high-quality, informative content is more likely to be shared by customers on social media and other online platforms, spreading positive word-of-mouth about the brand. 

The 4 types of customer pain points

1. Finances

Financial pain points are money- and cost-related difficulties customers experience while interacting with your business. These pain points may manifest as a need to save money, make more cash, or reduce expenses. The areas of a company most commonly associated with financial pain points are marketing, sales, and operations. Some business decisions that may constitute economic pain include a sudden price increase, a shortage of products, or a change in billing or shipping procedures.

2. Process

Process pain points are issues that customers encounter when trying to interact with a company. These issues can include confusing or overly complicated procedures, long wait times on the phone, having to fill out multiple forms, or navigating a problematic website. Anything that makes it hard for customers to do what they want can be a process pain point.

3. Productivity

Productivity pain points are challenges that make customers unable to complete their tasks as efficiently as they would like. These problems can be due to a lack of features or functionality in the product or a website interface that's difficult to navigate. In either case, the customer cannot get the most out of the product. If you find out that your customers are struggling with the functional aspects of your product, consider creating a tutorial video that shows them how to use it.

4. Support

Support pain points are areas where customers need help, but the company's support system is either inadequate or inaccessible. These pain points can include the inability to find help documentation to delayed customer service. Whatever the reason, support pain points can be a significant frustration for customers and cause them to abandon a company's products or services. 

What are the most common customer pain points? (And how to solve them) 

1. Poor quality products and services

Customers hate when they purchase a product that is not described as low quality or does not function as expected. This outcome can be due to inadequate attention to detail or a poor manufacturing process. Moreover, customers don't appreciate poor customer service, including long wait times, incorrect information, and unprofessional behaviour from customer service representatives. 

Learning how to find customer pain points will help you spot the flaws in your product that customers complain about most. Then you can improve your product and align it with customers' expectations. There are a few ways to address this issue. The first is to provide quality training for your team. The second is to implement effective quality control measures to catch any errors in your product before they reach the customer. 

2. Delayed support responses

A HubSpot research found that 33 percent of customers get frustrated when they have to wait on hold for a long time or repeat themselves to multiple support reps. The most common reason why customers experience support challenges is malfunctioning support infrastructure. Another possibility is that the company's support staff is not adequately trained or is reluctant to provide good customer service. 

Additionally, customers may be unhappy with the company's support policies or procedures. To resolve these issues, ensure that your support team is adequately staffed to provide timely assistance. You may hire customer assistance staff in different time zones to ensure 24/7 availability. Also, consider using help desk software to manage and track customer support tickets. This software helps your support team quickly address new customer complaints or follow up on older tickets. 

3. Complicated buying process

One of your customers' most common pain points is the complicated buying process. This problem can include a long or complex checkout process, a confusing or challenging product selection, or insufficient information about the product or service. 

Sometimes, their confusion may be due to the sheer number of choices they have to make. Customers dislike complicated buying processes because they are time-consuming and frustrating. They must go through many steps to purchase a product and contact customer service multiple times to process the order. 

You can do some things to simplify the buying process and make it more customer-friendly. One of them is to streamline the checkout process. Enable guest checkout on your website to allow customers to purchase without creating an account and provide clear and concise instructions at each stage of the checkout process. 

4. Website navigation

A recent survey has shown that 73.1 percent of web designers believe that a non-responsive design is a top reason why visitors leave a website without completing a purchase. These hard-to-navigate components may include complex menus, unclear labels, tiny fonts, or disorganized pages. When customers can't easily find what they're looking for on a website, they get frustrated and leave. 

To keep your customers happy, you must improve your website's navigation and make it as straightforward as possible. The first thing to do is to use clear and concise labels for your buttons and links. Second, add a search box widget to help customers find their needs. Finally, optimize your website for mobile devices. 

5. Delivery issues

Customers often face many challenges, such as delayed or wrong delivery and damaged or missing items. These delivery issues can cause a great deal of inconvenience and frustration for customers. Delivery fees can also be a problem. Customers often complain about delivery fees being too high, especially when compared to the cost of the items being delivered. 

The challenges that come with delivery can significantly impact customers' experience. For example, if a customer's order arrives late or is incomplete, they may be disappointed or annoyed. One effective way to avoid customer delivery issues is to communicate proactively. Use a reliable delivery tracking service to keep the customers updated on the order status, and if there are any delays or problems, let them know immediately. Finally, consider integrating a delivery service directly to your point of sale. 

6. Multi-channel shopping

Multi-channel shopping is when a customer uses multiple channels to interact with a business. This can include a website, mobile app, in-store, and phone interactions. Multi-channel shopping can be a challenge for customers because it's difficult to keep track of their orders when shopping across multiple channels. Additionally, it can be challenging to return items or make exchanges when purchases are made in multiple locations. Sometimes, customers have trouble accessing the same promotions or discounts when shopping across different channels. 

One way to resolve the multi-channel challenges your customers face is to optimize your website for mobile browsing, as mobile is becoming an increasingly popular way for people to shop. Another way is to update your inventory across all sales channels in real-time. Several applications can help synchronize inventory across platforms, so you don't have to do extra work. 

4 ways to discover customer pain points 

1. Conduct customer research and surveys 

The best way to find out what's causing your customers pain is to ask them directly. You can do this through surveys that help you know your customer better and optimize their experience with your brand. This involves sending out survey questions to customers to get feedback on their experience with your brand and their thoughts on potential improvements. This practice can help you to determine what features or services they would like to see from you, which can help you to develop new offerings. 

While creating your survey, remember to keep your questions short and simple to encourage participation. Personalize your survey questions and ensure that they are relevant to each individual. Customers are more likely to answer honestly if they feel the questions are tailored to them. Finally, pilot-test your survey with a small group of customers to ensure they are effective. 

2. Do keyword research 

Keyword research is the process of discovering what words and phrases people use to search for your business online. This information can help you create content that addresses your target audience's needs and pain points. Several tools are available to help you conduct adequate keyword research. The most popular among them include Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Neil Patel. 

When doing keyword research, brainstorming a list of potential keywords and phrases is the best place to start. When you feed these keywords into the research tool, it pulls up their SEO metrics. You can then use these keywords in your content creation strategy to address the needs and concerns of your target audience. 

3. Talk with your sales team 

Another great way to figure out your customer's pain points is by talking to your sales team. They speak to customers daily and know what problems they're experiencing. Plus, they can direct you to the areas of your website or product that need the most improvement. 

So, make sure you talk to your sales team and find out what pain points they're seeing. Then, you can start creating content that will help your customers solve those problems. Ideally, your customer support data will reveal which issues are causing the most complaints or negative feedback. 

4. Track your competitors' reviews 

Another brilliant way to discover your customers' pain points is by tracking your competitors' reviews. This practice will give you a good sense of the problems their customers are experiencing. You can also use this information to create content that addresses your competitors' solutions. This can be a great way to attract customers who are already interested in your competitors' products. 

Finally, you can use your competitors' reviews to come up with new pain points to focus on. This can be a great way to stay ahead of the curve and ensure that you're always addressing the most relevant problems for your customers. 

5. Conduct sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis is the process of identifying and categorizing the emotions expressed in a piece of text. And you can use the method to improve your customer service, content creation strategy, and even product development. You'll need software to perform sentiment analysis. This type of software typically uses natural language processing technology to look for patterns in customer feedback and categorize them based on context. 

Several sentiment analysis tools are available on the market, so it can be challenging to make the right choice. Not to worry, though; you can count on Mandala Analytics to track customers' content about your product or service. 

How to use Mandala Analytics to discover your customer pain points 

Mandala is an excellent market intelligence tool that can help you source reliable data to boost your creativity, enhance productivity, and assist superior decision-making. We monitor millions of channels daily, capturing billions of mentions from all your existing and potential customers. 

Our data technology allows you to find customer comments that are relevant to your business. Then it categorizes these comments and posts based on the context: whether they are positive or negative. The steps below will teach you how to research for pain points of customers and build an efficient content creation strategy from these pain points. 

The first step in identifying pain using Mandala’s platform is to find mentions (posts or content from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc that include keywords you’ve selected) which have a negative sentiment. Mandala’s AI can determine the sentiment behind each mention. Mentions with negative sentiment will include complaints and negative comments from users.  From these mentions, identify specific problems, read all of the comments to find out what others think, and find recurring or common complaints.

Compiling pain points in this way gives a basis and starting point for your content strategy as well knowing which channels are best for reaching those users whoa rea experiencing the pain points. 

To try this method for yourself, you can use Mandala for free for 7 days. Watch the video above to see a quick breakdown, and there are plenty of tutorials at Mandala Academy to get you started as well.

Content based on real pain points of real customers and created in a way that solves their issues quickly, is an excellent way to build trust, convert to a sale, or build your audience.