Problem statements are key. By grounding your marketing in the challenges your audience faces, you lay the foundation for effective creative testing and growth. We break down how to identify problem statements the right way, turn them into actionable strategies, and run creative tests to accelerate your growth.
When it comes to marketing, it’s tempting to focus on features and benefits. After all, highlighting what makes your product or service unique seems like the most logical way to stand out.
But features mean nothing without context. And even the most persuasive benefits won’t resonate without a clear understanding of the problems they solve.
That’s why problem statements are key. By grounding your marketing in the challenges your audience faces, you lay the foundation for effective creative testing and growth.
Let’s break down how to identify problem statements the right way, turn them into actionable strategies, and run creative tests to accelerate your growth.
At the heart of every great product is a problem waiting to be solved.
Too often, teams skip over this. They get so focused on what they want to offer, they fail to go deep enough on how the person’s life will be different from having the product or service. Instead, marketing needs to be anchored to the deep pains and desires of your target, to motivate them to action.
Here’s why starting with problem statements is so powerful:
Imagine you’re in the market for a t-shirt.
A brand hits you with ads talking about product benefits like, “our loopwheel construction ensures durability with every wash.” Sure, the manufacturing method may be a great feature, and durability is a desirable benefit. But both of these lack context. They also lack emotional resonance, since there’s no clear problem being solved.
Now instead, let’s say that same brand leans into problem-focused messaging, with an ad that says, “stop wasting money on t-shirts that barely last through one wash!”
Suddenly, the features and benefits have meaning. If you’re like most people, you’re going to relate more to the ad that talks about how it can solve your specific problem. And you might now even care how they do it.
As we explored above, a well-defined problem statement pinpoints exactly what your audience is struggling with. This makes it much easier to craft messaging that resonates.
Talking about how most t-shirt buyers, “waste thousands of dollars trying to find the perfect t-shirt,“ speaks to a pain that’s highly relatable to avid t-shirt wearers. This experiential pain gives you a clear anchor point that you could pair with your product’s USP.
Once you have a list of problem statements relevant to your audience, use them to test different marketing angles.
Different problems will be important and relevant to different customer segments. You want to experiment with your messaging, and methodically uncover which messages drive the best results for each segment.
So how do you know what problem statements to focus on testing?
You want to start building up a list of common challenges that you hear from customers. Comb through the data you have. This can be in support tickets, customer feedback surveys, insights from sales calls, social media comments, or any customer learning activities you’re doing to better understand your audience.
If in your data collection, the problem statements you’re getting all sound really different, this just means your customer segment is too broad. Keep slicing your segment into smaller chunks and looking for signals until you hear patterns in the challenges, pains, goals, and desires that sound familiar.
You’re aiming for a long list of familiar challenges, that you can then turn into problem statements that fuel your marketing. Some examples of problem statements:
“I’ve tried every project management tool out there, but I still feel like my team is constantly overwhelmed and missing deadlines.”
This highlights a common pain point for project managers, where existing tools are failing to address their productivity challenges.
“I know we’re spending money on marketing, but I have no idea which campaigns are actually driving revenue.”
A very relatable frustration for marketing professionals and business owners. The pain and missed opportunities from unclear ROI is huge.
“I’m tired of buying eco-friendly products that don’t actually work or last, I want sustainability without sacrificing quality.”
This is packed with both a strong desire to move towards more eco-friendly options, and a strong frustration to move away from––the view that many eco products don’t hold up quality or performance-wise.
With a clear list of problem statements like this, you don’t need to guess what your audience needs, or what you should be highlighting in your marketing. You can craft messaging that speaks to their struggles, and positions your solutions as the best guide to overcome their pain.
With problem statements in hand, it’s time to turn them into marketing and creative assets.
Here’s a simple framework for how to do that:
For every problem, identify a product feature or benefit that is a solution. Make sure the connection is obvious, and provides clear value for them specifically.
Returning to our t-shirt example, this might sound like, “our loopwheel construction ensures your t-shirt holds its shape wash after wash.” A clear manufacturing feature is paired with the problem they face now: t-shirts that don’t hold their shape.
Build on the product-benefit pairs by adding an emotional and visual hook. This forms the basis of your marketing assets you’ll want to test. A strong hook grabs attention, connects emotionally, and makes the problem (and your solution) impossible to ignore.
A creative hook for t-shirts could look like showing a frustrated customer throwing a worn out t-shirt onto a pile of old shirts. And then pairing it with the messaging, “tired of tees that barely last a season? Meet the last t-shirt you’ll ever need!” This combines the emotional pain of wasting money with the promise of a long-lasting solution, is highly visual, and relatable.
Once you’ve crafted your marketing angles you’ll want to test them.
You want to aim for a diverse mix of media formats, like video, static images, carousels, or even interactive ads. You also want to cover a wide range of problem statements to really understand what resonates.
By expanding your problem sets and experimenting with the right medium, you’ll expand your audience reach and uncover new opportunities to grow.
Here’s why approaching creative diversity this way is so effective:
Vertical scaling, or targeting the same audience with the same message with ever increasing spend, leads to diminishing returns over time. New, sustainable growth comes from horizontal scale, where you’re tapping into new audience segments by tackling fresh problems.
If you’ve been marketing t-shirts for their durability and pairing it with the problem of wasted money on shirts for a while, you could consider pivoting to other problem statements on your list to expand your creative set and boost performance. For example, problem statements about sustainability, or even hiding a dad bod might resonate more with niche segments.
Not every problem resonates with every person. A diverse set of problem statements makes sure you’re not saturating one angle too quickly, becoming stale, or overly niched.
When you test different angles tied to distinct problems, you spread your spend across multiple pockets of opportunity. The result? With a dialed-in performance optimization process, this can lead to lower CACs, higher engagement rates, and a longer runway for sustained performance.
The beauty of testing and iterating is that it compounds over time.
As you uncover and address new problems, you end up with an ever-evolving library of insights and angles to fuel future campaigns. Having an iterative process like this helps you avoid hitting a wall as you grow. So instead of blasting through your list and running out of ideas, you’re always one step ahead.
In sum: focus on your problem statements. Shift your marketing from product-centered, to customer pain centered. Pair this approach with creative testing, and you’ll have a solid strategy in place to connect with your audience and uncover fresh opportunities to grow long-term.
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