Traditional marketing, like traditional sales, often makes use of features and benefits. While there's a time and place during the marketing and sales process to let prospects know about what your product or service does, it's not something you should lead with.

Instead, we recommend using the four different types of pain. People usually move away from pain or toward pleasure. In sales, you'll actually use questioning methods to uncover this information for your prospects on an individual basis, but it works a bit differently in marketing.

First, we define "pain" as an emotional, compelling reason to do business together. That doesn't always mean literal pain. In fact, as we go through the four different types, you'll see that one is the polar opposite of literal pain.

Pain

Your product or service may solve an immediate pain. For example, if you sell payroll software and services, a headline on your website or brochure that appeals to a pain could be:

• Fed up with the time it takes to run your payroll?
• Worried about the risk to your company if you do payroll wrong?

Pleasure

Perhaps what you sell actually provides pleasure rather than solving pain. Places like coffee shops and restaurants are frequently selling and marketing pleasure. They can use headlines like:

• Fire up your appetite with these dinner specials.
• Relax and enjoy at our cozy cafe.

Present

You may take care of pain or pleasure immediately. That's one reason people still shop in physical stores instead of buying everything online. It's immediate! That's why one of the most common phrases searched for online is "near me." A local bookstore can use headlines like:

• Find a new favorite author today!
• Join us for an author signing!

Future

The insurance industry is the perfect example of solving future pain. An insurance agency could use a headline like the following:

• Concerned you don't have the right coverage for your business?
• Are you worried about what your loved ones will do after you die?

You then end up with four different types of what we call "pain":

1. Present pain
2. Future pain
3. Present pleasure
4. Future pleasure

It's likely what you sell falls into more than one of these categories. In general, it's easier to market and sell to the present than the future, and it's easier to sell products and services that solve pain than those that provide pleasure.

So, if you can find a present pain that you solve, try focusing on that in your marketing.