insights.
When your product closely resembles another company’s product, the difference in which company earns the prospect’s business is often the company that can make the prospect feel enough pain to switch services to their company.
While many salespeople are trained to find pain, copywriters, account executives, and corporate marketers aren’t. This is demonstrated when you flip through a stack of direct mail or magazine of ads. You’ll notice very few direct mail pieces that move prospects to the next level of the pain funnel.
Understanding how to push the “pain” buttons of prospects in your direct mail copy and other marketing or sales materials will help you better position your offer drive towards a sale, according to sales trainer Jason Dixon of Neuberger and Company.
Words that Describe Feeling of Pain
When trying to make a prospect remember just how many headaches, annoyances, and dollars a problem is causing them, use these words in your marketing messages:
| Aggravated | Exasperated | Left Out | Spiteful |
| Alarmed | Fed Up | Lost | Struggling |
| Angry | Flustered | Mad | Stunned |
| Annoyed | Foggy | Miserable | Stupid |
| Anxious | Frantic | Mixed-up | Tense |
| Apprehensive | Frightened | Muddled | Terrible |
| Baffled | Frustrated | Nervous | Terrified |
| Betrayed | Furious | On Edge | Thwarted |
| Bewildered | Guilty | Outraged | Timid |
| Blue | Helpless | Overwhelmed | Tired |
| Burdened | Horrible | Panicky | Trapped |
| Cheated | Horrified | Perturbed | Troubled |
| Confused | Hurt | Powerless | Unclear |
| Crushed | Ignored | Pressured | Undecided |
| Defeated | Imposed Upon | Put Out | Unqualified |
| Despairing | Ineffective | Put Upon | Unsure |
| Desperate | Inept | Revengeful | Victimized |
| Dissatisfied | Infuriated | Sad | Vulnerable |
| Distraught | Intimidated | Scared | Washed Up |
| Disturbed | Irritated | Shocked | Worried |
| Enraged | Isolated | Seething |
Headlines, Callouts, and Subheads that Bring the Pain
Flip through a newspaper, trade journal, magazine or direct mail piece and see how many companies are pushing pain well. I did and estimate that one in 35 headlines or advertisements appeal to a pain point.
These are the ones I found in a thirty-minute search. Just think how your company could improve your marketing and sales conversations or clickthroughs on your landing pages by being one of 35 companies in your niche to leverage the pain funnel.
Fear-based or pain-based advertising is one of the most effective forms available. People are either motivated by fear or desire. There is LOTS of research that points to the fact that people will move away from pain faster than they will move towards pleasure. Broadview Security uses fear-based advertising very effectively in this TV spot below.
Review your last few campaigns and if they aren’t focused on pain, you may be missing prospect engagement. Pull your team together and brainstorm about the downside of not using your product or buying an inferior product or service than yours. Describe in detail the type of pain or frustration your prospect will experience by not using your service at all. Let us know your results.
about 1 day ago - No comments
When a Dallas-based advertising agency, VLG, needed to engage prospects, it opted to show off its interactive technology through a sitelet or mini-site. The sitelet used a mock company called Crescent Bluffs to demonstrate the amount of time VLG could engage the prospect in the demo. I was engaged for 1 minute 41 seconds. I took VLG’s More >
about 3 days ago - No comments
Awards make nice office decorations and offer bragging rights, but they mean nothing if the work behind them didn’t achieve pre-set objectives. Nine times out of 10 those objectives are financially focused – more customers, more sales, more donations, more buy in, more attendance and more orders. Mail Print earned five AMBIT awards at the Kansas City Direct More >
about 2 weeks ago - 1 comment
Nine times out of ten, a donor receives a letter that starts with, “Thank you for your generous donation.” Because giving is an emotional response, it deserves an emotional thank you with more pep and personality than a typical, status quo thank you. Read Shannon Doolittle’s 22 Delightful Ways to Say Thank You. Here’s a sample More >
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Do you feel like you’re constantly playing catch up? If so it’s particularly hard to stay ahead of trends. We can relate; thus the reason we’re posting a 2013 marketing trends piece in late April. Take a breather and read the eight trends projected by Forbes and CIO Network magazines. 8 Marketing Trends Projected for More >
about 3 weeks ago - No comments
Other than identifying a known brand name and automatically knowing the size of the company, have you ever thumbed through a publication or web portal, become impressed by a company’s logo or tagline, only to learn that this company wasn’t nearly as large as you thought? It happens to me all the time. I see More >
about 1 month ago - 1 comment
Mail is still first class in the eyes of 73% of consumers in America who still prefer to receive direct mail for brand communications. So despite all the press and pixels that social and email marketing get, direct mail is still tops in the eyes of consumers. Despite the exposure of digital channels, direct mail More >
about 1 month ago - 2 comments
If you or your company loves Saturday postal delivery, rest easy. Saturday deliveries will continue based on a decision made April 9 by the Board of Governors of the United Postal Service. By using restrictive language in its resolution, the Board of Governors in essence have prohibited a new national delivery schedule that would have More >
about 1 month ago - 2 comments
Have you ever felt discouraged by data? Well never again! Today’s marketing is all about reaching your target market in an effective way. Whether that is by email, direct mail or social media, you need to target your communication and personalize it to the individual through data. However, collecting and analyzing data can be so More >
about 1 month ago - 1 comment
It’s tempting to skimp on segmenting because of the focus on results. Don’t. In a tight economy, or any economy, casting a bigger net doesn’t mean you’ll bring in more fish. It just means you’ll use more energy and use your resources ineffectively to cast that net. Blanket broadcasting or mass marketing are gone, but companies still More >
about 2 months ago - 1 comment
The demographic profile of America is vastly different today than it was in 1980 and certainly 1960. So much so that the shifting demographics of our nation, and many of the traditional assumptions, we often make as marketers lead to off target mailings and results. I don’t know of a time when this reality was More >
about 2 months ago
Interesting article and certainly makes sense from a consumer perspective. Do you have any examples of specific firms or ads where pain based advertising has performed better than the alternate and by how much?
about 2 months ago
Hi Taran! I do not have any specific examples that I can think of even though I know they are out there. I will try to find an A/B Split test that shows the difference in response.
In the meantime, you might be interested in more articles about this topic. It all goes back to Neuromarketing and how emotions play a role in our decision making process to buy or not. I think you might enjoy this Fast Company article.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3004800/basics-neuromarketing
Enjoy!
about 2 months ago
Good Post. Very interesting article in the other site for direct mail solutions and how to use this type of marketing strategy.