Christine Shannon

One of my all-time favorite questions to ask is, "If you could wave a magic wand and have something magically change about this [pain point, situation], what would it be?" This open-ended question gets interviewees to think creatively about their ideal state and offers solutions you may not have considered. Here are a few other great questions: * Why do you keep doing [the alternative]? * What are you currently doing to make [pain point] easier? * Are you currently looking for a solution/alternative? Why or why not?

Userinterviews.com helps you get a panel of qualified users very fast. We often get more qualified applicants than we need in 24 hours or less. We have used it for 1:1 moderated interviews and unmoderated product feedback - it delivered high-quality participants for both of these research formats. We also use lookback.com for unmoderated interviews. This is an amazing, easy-to-use tool for product feedback. It integrates very nicely with userinterviews.com. I also like Wynter for B2B user interviews. I used it specifically for landing page/website feedback, but they have expanded to 1:1 and other research formats. It's another very easy-to-use tool with super-fast response times.

Identify the problem you're aiming to solve (their pain point), discuss the ideal state (what could it be like if it were solved), and how you can solve it. Then distill this down and down and down until you have a short statement that you can use in marketing. When thinking about your marketing as a whole, it's helpful to think about the key questions your customers may ask and need to have answered before buying your product. Make a list of these and break them out into groups: 1) essential and must be answered to buy, 2) helpful, and 3) nice to have. Then, make sure you are addressing all of the essential questions throughout your marketing funnel, and sprinkle in as much of the helpful and nice to have as you can. For example, your top-of-funnel message (maybe it's a social ad) may start with an attention-grabbing statement that addresses their key pain point, then start to address their key questions (how much is it, how does it work, does it work for other people, how can I pay, is it safe, etc, etc) throughout all of your marketing messaging as the user moves from that first interaction into other marketing material (landing pages, emails, etc). You want your buyer to have all of their information so that when they get to the conversion button, they are ready to hit "buy". Here's a template I like for ad copy: (Insert Clever Hook) (Social Proof) ✓ Benefit 1 ✓ Benefit 2 ✓ Benefit 3 ✓ (optional) benefit 4 (Social Proof) (CTA) Example: We’ll let you in on a little secret—you don’t have to go to the salon to get salon-quality hair color. Our 55+ shades are: ✨Vibrant and multi-dimensional 🌿Full of luxurious, nourishing ingredients 👏🏽Quick and easy to apply “I’m so happy with how my results turned out. Feeling like myself again, thank you so much!” -Heather F. Skip the salon. Get gorgeous hair color at home, starting at only $22.