Why Problems Are More Powerful Than Products Companies spend big budgets on promoting products, but sales come from focusing on what really drives decisions.
By Andrea Olson Edited by Micah Zimmerman
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
A study by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman showed that most decisions are based 90% on emotion and only 10% on logic. However, when companies promote their products and services, the message almost always focuses on logic, highlighting generic features, benefits and statistics. The result is often lackluster because emotion isn't addressed.
Take the example of promoting a technical product for an industrial audience. A social media post or traditional advertisement will likely highlight efficiency and safety, outlining features such as seamless connectivity and reduced downtime. It will likely include common terms, including "game-changing," "intuitive design," and "robust solution." It will also highlight generic benefits such as "built for demanding environments," "elevates workflow," and "maximizes efficiency."
This generic content and messaging fail to provide two things — one, a clear and compelling problem the audience needs to solve, and two, an emotional thread to build relatability and a sense of urgency. Often overlooked, these two basic elements are critical to communication success. However, most organizations get caught up in an internal mindset — where internal language and terminology get applied to external messaging. This includes all those generic benefits, which mean very little to both employees and customers.
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Originally, when a product was designed and developed, there was an objective. Even if this objective was to create something to address the competition or even develop something groundbreaking, a clear set of functions and features was defined. The team took countless hours to design and test it. Then – when handed off to marketing – the focus often becomes an exercise of product developers sharing what they've accomplished rather than what the customer needs.
But businesses don't buy products and services – people do. These people face a multitude of daily challenges which put their business, employees or customers at risk, daily opportunities to improve organizational competitiveness or efficiency, to daily operational needs to keep the business running. These pressures are what keeps them up at night. These pressures are top of mind, which is a marketer's opportunity to capitalize on if you understand your customer's problems as deeply as they do.
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Consider a product that is designed to reduce downtime and increase safety. Many marketers would simply highlight these two features in an advertisement or social media post. Yet a more engaging and impactful message can be designed by taking some time to understand the more specific problem and challenge being addressed.
The first step is to break down the target audience's problem. For instance, what is the cost of downtime to this audience? Is it dollars or man-hours or something else? What specific safety risks occur without this product? What are the downstream impacts of those safety risks? Are there recent incidents that have occurred, making this highly topical/relevant? Is this the most important problem to this audience or simply a 'nice to have'?
The second step is to identify the most emotionally compelling aspect of those problems, whether positive or negative. In this example, reducing downtime might significantly increase profitability, which could be framed as an emotionally positive outcome. Alternatively, increasing safety may help eliminate loss of life or significant injury, which could be framed as avoiding a negative outcome.
The objective is to shift from "talking at customers" to "talking to customers." This provides the ability to position not just the product distinctly but also the organization as one which deeply understands the audience's business and its challenges. A stronger emotional association is made by building a more relevant connection to their needs, making the most of the audience's natural decision-making behaviors.
Organizations must spend more time connecting with customers on a deeper level, as this is the essence of differentiation. Even if your product is heads-and-tails above what the competitor offers, if it's not communicated effectively, customers won't see or understand those differences. This isn't limited to content but also visuals, graphics and product illustrations. Ineffective messaging begins to limit your pricing power, market positioning and, in the long term, downstream sales.
Many so-called product launch 'failures' can be traced back to communication that didn't effectively connect emotionally with the target audience or didn't even have a clear target audience to begin with. Of course, there are cases where the product itself was sub-par. Still, the key to successful marketing isn't simply promotion but finding those essential customer pain points and capitalizing on the feelings they generate.
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When companies fail to address and highlight their understanding of a customer's problem, they end up promoting the identical features and benefits as their competitors, minimizing their differentiation and getting lost in a sea of sameness. Yet focusing on the audience's specific problems and emotions, which are born from them, marketers can connect on a deeper level and truly impact the bottom line.
