How do I call out my customer's pain points as a non profit?
'Call out the pain points of your ideal customer!' You've probably seen this guidance as much as I have in advice posts and articles about writing high-converting copy to drive purchases. And it's definitely a great way to build affinity between businesses and consumers because it makes the consumer think "wow, this is for and about me!". It's precisely why I bought curly hair products from a Facebook ad last month - they called out my curl struggles and showed me how they could make my life easier.
But how do you call out pain points if you aren't trying to sell anything, but instead trying to increase awareness around your cause and drive donations to fund your work?
It's a tricky one, but understanding three things will help you crack this:
Firstly, that pain points are actually challenges, niggles, things that you aspire to but feel you haven't yet achieved - big or small.
Secondly, who your ideal supporter is and why they would want to engage with you.
And thirdly, what challenge your ideal supporter faces that you offer the solution to.
Let me give you hypothetical example...
You're a smallish development charity working in a specific part of Africa. Already your geographic location makes you niche, but your organisation was also founded by Christian missionaries and continues to be religiously-driven, so now you're really niche. You look at your existing donor base and identify from conversations, comments on posts etc that they typically fall into one of three categories:
highly informed people who dedicate time to educating themselves about world events
Christians
world travellers who have visited your African region
All good so far - but why would those people be interested in engaging with you? So you dig further.
highly informed people who dedicate time to educating themselves about world events > likely to engage because they are aware of the social-political landscape in your region and are interested in the development work that they know is crucial.
Christians > likely to engage because their values align with the work you are doing.
world travellers who have visited your African region > likely to engage because they remain interested in the region and want to see conditions improved.
So what challenges (or pain points) do they experience that you could fix?
highly informed people who dedicate time to educating themselves about world events > likely to engage because they are aware of the social-political landscape in your region and are interested in the development work that they know is crucial > they see a lot of terrible things happening in the world, and often feel helpless in the face of it all. They want to offer support where it really make a difference - your organisation gives them a simple and practical way of doing that (call out the pain point by showing what X amount of money would solve, with a personal story to showcase the difference that investment made)
Christians > likely to engage because their values align with the work you are doing > they want to see these Christian values in action and support those organisations who are bringing these to life - which is what you do (use faith-based language to demonstrate your value alignment)
world travellers who have visited your African region > likely to engage because they remain interested in the region and want to see the conditions improved > they saw first-hand the suffering of others and their return to a more privileged environment has further highlighted the contrast between their lives and those of others. They want to support charities who are actively working to reduce that suffering - which is what you do (personal stories will help paint a picture of life in the region and allow the reader to put themselves in the subject's shoes).
Once you have a good sense of what your ideal supporter needs from you, it's much easier to tailor your social post and ad copy to focus on the things you know your ideal supporters are interested in, and show that supporting your charity is a solution to the challenges they face.