The first question that your audience needs to answer for true B2B SaaS growth as they enter the customer journey is “Why change?”. Why should someone come out of a natural stage of inertia and engage with your content, listen to you, or take action? Why is what you have to offer relevant and worth their attention?
After you have nudged them into action, and they are aware of a need, they will ask “Why you?” Why should someone look at what you have to offer among the various options and alternatives?
And finally, “Why now?” After someone has decided they have a need, and you might be able to help, what’s the reason to not postpone the decision or action to tomorrow?
To take your audience by the hand on their customer journey, you need to tell the story that connects with their reality. You need to connect with their world view and they need to consider you as “one of them”.
Our team at Kalungi uses the Pain/Claim/Gain framework to support our storytelling. We use this to discover the questions that our audience asks as they travel through the customer journey, so that our content can help provide answers in the form of a blog, website, landing pages or email.
Pains
As mentioned before, a person’s awareness starts with a need. Something is keeping them up at night. They may not say it, but they’re afraid. They feel a very real pain. There may be pressure from above to improve efficiencies or lower costs. It could be the need on a professional level to improve their standing in the company or increase their income. It could even be personal, the need to be relevant, a fear of missing out, the need to belong to a special group.
This pain leads to the realization—or awareness—that something must be done to alleviate it. In other words, it answers the question: “Why should I change?”
We like to describe pains in the form of “fears and dreams”. Dreams can become painful if they are hard to realize, and fears are typical challenges, concerns etc.
Claims
Claims is another way to look at the consideration and engagement portion of the customer journey. What claims are you making to address their pain? What are the benefits of pursuing your service? How can you answer, “Why you?”
What are your superpowers? From your vantage point, are the claims you make original, unique, or special? Are they endorsed by others? Are they provable? Why should your audience choose you? Discovering your solution’s superpowers are the foundation for your claims.
Gains
Finally, gains are realized once your customer reaches the conversion and loyalty steps of the customer journey. By delivering on its promise, your service solves a major problem your customer had, not to mention relieved him or her of their very real pain point. Use vivid demonstrations, data and proof points, and endorsements from others. Create urgency to have them act now.