People love solving problems
People love solving problems. Our brains are hard-wired to solve problems. It's how, out in the wild, we'd survive at all.
So why do so few companies want to talk about them?
Today, most of us aren't constantly scanning for threats to our physical safety.
But we can't just turn that instinct off. Instead, for most of us, problems are how we stay engaged in whatever it is we're doing. We enjoy identifying a puzzle then figuring out how to solve it.
It's why so many businesses are built in the first place... yet so many marketing teams want to jump straight to solutions because they're afraid of sounding negative.
While this sounds like a good idea (we're optimists here), the resulting website:
❌ Doesn't explain what the product does
❌ Doesn't tell the reader why they should care
❌ Doesn't create any urgency
❌ Makes the product a "nice to have"
👆 All of this means your demo calls are largely unproductive because your sales team has to do all the heavy lifting with low-quality leads.
So, how do you talk about problems without sounding negative?
I could write a dissertation on this, but the biggest takeaway is:
💡 Act like a doctor and help people diagnose
If you're a marketer at a growth-stage startup, your primary job is to help people: A) Realize they have a problem B) Understand why that problem matters.
You get there by talking about the different, painful symptoms someone might be experiencing, then diagnosing why those symptoms exist in the first place. Once you get people bought into the diagnosis, you can then start talking about treatments (your product).
^ all of this is problem-based messaging. But when you think about it through the lens of symptoms and treatments, the tone automatically shifts from antagonistic to helpful. It gives you the space to talk about problems in a non-judgmental way (if that's your thing).
Problems can be pretty powerful in marketing. And when you combine them with a fleshed-out brand voice + copy, there's no telling what you can do.
