Known Pain Points vs. Unknown Pain Points

Use known pain points for your marketing. Use unknown pain points for your stories.

Last week at XYPN Live, I attended Taylor Schulte’s marketing presentation. One concept he laid out simply is the difference between known and unknown pain points, and how to use each in your marketing.

Known pain points are the problems people already recognize they have. These are the reasons they’re looking for an advisor in the first place:

• I’m not sure how to turn my life savings into retirement income.

• My spouse passed away and I need to get a handle on our finances.

Unknown pain points are the problems you as the advisor know they have, but they haven’t recognized yet:

• They’re going to have a significant tax burden in retirement because of the types of accounts they hold.

• Their assets are going to end up with unintended people because they haven’t set up a trust or reviewed their beneficiaries.

I always work with advisors to lead with the known pain points in their marketing, such as their website, elevator pitch, and LinkedIn profile. These are the problems your prospect is actively trying to solve. They already know they need help. Your job is to show them you understand the problem and you’re the one to solve it.

But what I liked about Taylor’s presentation is how he framed the unknown pain points that I find advisors often want to include in their primary marketing pieces. For these, you use case studies, stories, podcast episodes, articles, and videos to reveal them. You tell the story of a client who ran into a problem the prospect never even thought about but can see how it applies to them. That’s how you demonstrate expertise that goes beyond what they were searching for.

The takeaway: Known pain points go on your website and in your direct marketing. Unknown pain points go in your stories and content. Both matter, but they belong in different places.