Exaggerating the Problem to Define the Solution

A strong B2B marketing strategy is predicated on a clear understanding of your target market’s pain points. For this episode of B2B Marketing Agency Insights, our CEO Austin LaRoche explains why you should emphasize a problem to drive your brand messaging.

Video transcription below:

Welcome back to B2B Marketing Agency Insights. I’m your host, Austin LaRoche. Today, we are gonna talk about exaggerating problems to define your solution. One of my favorite marketing case studies of the last 10-20 years has to be Casper Mattress. For anyone unfamiliar with Casper Mattress, they were the mattress company that disrupted the entire mattress industry. They came along with a simple premise (brand messaging) of “Why on earth would you want to go into a mattress store when you can buy your mattress online?”

To me, this was preposterous. I love going to the mattress store. You go in, you lay on a million beds, you find which one is the most comfortable for you, and then, you purchase. You are good to go from there. But to many people, Casper said, “Yeah, that is a big problem. Oh man, do you really want mattress salespeople to come in and talk to you?” It never bothered me, but obviously, it was bothering other people. They disrupted an industry.

Where it’s really interesting, I think, is so many times in our day-to-day lives, we become prisoners to our own messed up way of living. For instance, I like to cook, and I currently have a can opener. It doesn’t work really well, so I have to do all these things to make it work. I go to the grocery store every single week. There are can openers there. There are certain ones in my budget, and yet, for some reason, I don’t go and buy a new can opener. I’m so used to living in my messed up world.

What happens a lot of times is your consumers, your target market, live in a messed up world. They know they are living in a messed-up world. They kind of accepted it, so they need to keep being pushed to see what the better world looks like; what is the promised land?

By exaggerating the problem and saying, “Look, you might think it’s not a big deal, but it really is. Your life could be so much better if you just did this, if you just did that.” That is a solid marketing strategy because of what you are doing and what you are saying to your target market, which is your brand messaging, is this: “Stop living in this messed up world when things could be so much better. All you have to do is go with me.” That’s it.

If you are out there, I want you to start thinking, “What problems are my customers facing that maybe they are just living with that maybe they are okay with it right now?” But they shouldn’t be because if they invest in you and invest in your product or your service, their life will be a lot better. What you have to do is convert them to the notion that their life will be a lot better with your product and service. A great way to do that is to exaggerate that problem and drive that brand messaging about how your solution will make it all better.

That’s it today. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate your time. For everybody else at ATAK Interactive, I’m Austin LaRoche saying, “Good luck growing.”