Do I Need To Focus On Just One Struggle?
You’ve done the work of finding some struggling moments which cause your customers to seek you out, to say goodbye to the past, and welcome change.
But you’ve found more than one struggle, more than one situation you could be addressing with your offerings.
Do you need to focus on just one? “Can I use all of them, or do I need to find the one main struggle?” “How do I work that into my page copy?”
Option 1: Communicating a Single Struggle
The benefit of stating the struggles on your website is that people will see that you understand their situation. “I’m in the right spot.” Sticking to a single struggle has that appeal: your visitors will feel heard and will dig to learn more.
But once you’ve got their attention, you could cover a few more struggles.
Option 2: One Main Struggle, and “Maybe”
For this, you start off the page stating the main struggle, describing in vivid details what they might be experiencing.
Shortly after, to make sure you catch people who don’t connect with the main struggle, you list a few maybes.
Or maybe you find yourself in these situations:
“I’ve been trying to do it myself, but I just don’t have the time and energy to learn something new”
“Something is coming up very shortly where we need this done, and our past two attempts have failed. We totally underestimated the work that was needed. We need someone to get us off the ground, quick.”
By using those maybes, you add extra words on the page that they can connect with as they scroll down the page. Using multiple takes on a longer page gives you more opportunities to make them feel they’re in the right spot.
But maybe the struggles you found are a little different than the main one. So different that you’re thinking you could make them into their own sub-page.
Option 3: Address Each Struggle In Separate Offerings
If your struggles are too different, it might mean you’re trying to help too many different types of clients. Careful not to spread yourself too thin.
But, if in your field you find distinct struggling moments occuring at different stages of your customer’s evolution, that means you’ve found a great opportunity to have separate offerings:
Struggle: “I don’t understand all of the variables yet, and the major players aren’t sharing their knowledge. Surely there are others like us.”
Offering: Access to a community of peers, through a chat tool or a forum.
Struggle: “There’s an urgency to get this out of the way, quick!”
Offering: A one-off deliverable, charged extra for quick turnaround.
Struggle: “We’ve tried our best internally, and we’ve hit a situation that no one seems to have come across in the industry.”
Offering: A consulting call, offering tips on moving forward.
Each offering would have its own sub-page, stating the main struggle right at the top.
Struggles might be offshoots of other offerings, and so one offering page might point to another offering with another “maybe” statement.
Or maybe you’re just in a hurry to get something very specific out the door, quickly.
If so, check out our (name of your one-off package) …
This way, your site creates a natural trail through which your visitors will navigate your site, from one offering to the next. They’ll feel understood, they’ll feel they don’t have to read every word, they’ll be able to scan, and be caught further down the pages as they clarify what it is they’d like to do next, with you.
Communicating you can help with one main struggle helps get your visitors to instantly feel like they’re in the right place. But once you got their attention, use “maybe’s” to help cover small off-shoot struggles. Or maybe you can offer different offerings for the different struggles your clients would be coming across as they get more sophisticated in your field.
Stay Sharp!
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Pascal Laliberté
@pascallaliberte