Targeted Marketing: It Works When Prospects Are In Pain

Targeted Marketing + Pain = Sales

I just got an email from Mint.com, Mint pulls together all your financial accounts into one place. The subject line read, “Are you paying more than average for health insurance? Shopping around could help you save.” How did they know? Oh yes, I have a separate category for my personal health insurance on my Mint account.

They have now partnered with eHealthInsurance.com to offer customers the opportunity to compare health insurance providers- pure genius!  Whether Mint knows it or not, my rates are about to increase by over 14% in the upcoming months. I was infuriated when I got the letter telling me this, but just haven’t taken the time to research other providers. Mint just made this easier and encouraged me to work with their partner as a first step. I’ll own up to it, I wanted someone to hand feed me the steps I needed to take to compare providers because looking for a new one sounds about as much fun as having teeth pulled.

Good job Mint, you hit me when I was in pain and I took action. How can you hit your customers and prospects when they’re in pain and get them to take action?

Takeaways:

• People in pain will listen, don’t promote feature benefits- bring the pain to surface
• Provide the facts- mint showed me in my email how much I’m spending. That number was painful to look at. Provide facts and figures about the pain your prospects are feeling.
• Sometimes the perfect storm hits. Marketers can get lucky and hit someone with a message at exactly the right time. Mint did that!