What is a target group’s main pain point?

“Our target group has little time.” That may be true, but it does not tell you where people get stuck. Is it gathering information, comparing options or getting a decision through the organisation? Without that context, a pain point remains a general complaint.

The Main pain point field identifies the concrete problem that matters most to the target group in the situation being studied. Describe the barrier, its consequence and why this problem takes priority. This provides a useful starting point for research, service design and communication.

In the target group profile, the main pain point is the principal problem, supported by evidence, that prevents a defined target group from achieving a relevant goal in a specific context. Its priority needs support from research into consequences, occurrence and relevance to trade-offs or behaviour.

This is Neurofactor’s practical working definition for this profile field. A pain point means an experienced problem or barrier. “Main” does not automatically mean mentioned most often, expressed most emotionally or easiest for your offering to solve.

The profile has separate fields because a problem has several aspects. The examples below are fictional.

A cause is an explanation and requires its own evidence. A feeling describes the experience. Keep both separate from the principal statement about the problem. A missing product feature also becomes a useful pain point only when it is clear what someone cannot do as a result.

This article does not attribute the term pain point to a single originator. The publications consulted support aspects of the research, not a historical origin for the marketing term.

Investigating concrete events. Flanagan described the Critical Incident Technique: systematically collecting relevant behavioural incidents, considering the situation, purpose and consequences. Flanagan, 1954.

Structuring and prioritising needs. Griffin and Hauser distinguish identifying, structuring and prioritising customer needs. In their investigated application, frequency of mention was not a good substitute for measured importance. Griffin & Hauser, 1993.

Distinguishing types of quality. Kano and colleagues distinguish attractive, must-be and one-dimensional quality, among other categories. This offers an additional perspective on how product attributes are assessed. Kano et al., 1984.

The application below is our own practical approach. It is neither a validated pain point scale nor a complete implementation of any of these research methods. For example, use a request for an extra feature to investigate the underlying problem; do not immediately treat the request as evidence of the main problem.

Define the target group, task and moment before prioritising. “Comparing proposals before an investment decision” is more specific than “purchasing”. Also record whose problem you are investigating: the user, adviser, budget holder or final decision-maker.

Within one organisation, these roles may experience different problems. A user might struggle with execution, while a budget holder lacks information to assess the expenditure. Do not silently merge these perspectives into one supposedly shared pain point.

Also investigate situations in which the task succeeds. This helps define the boundaries of your description: the problem might arise mainly with new suppliers, an approaching deadline or a particular way of working.

Use these six steps as a practical framework for research and writing.

1. Define the situation. Record the target group, role, task, intended outcome and relevant period.
2. Ask about a recent event. “Take me through the last time you had to make this choice. Where did you get stuck?” Start without mentioning your solution.
3. Make the consequence concrete. Ask what could not be done, what was postponed, who did extra work and which workaround was used. Record what was reported separately from what you could verify yourself.
4. Collect several candidate problems. Keep the original statements, source, date and context. Group similar problems without erasing experiences that differ.
5. Investigate priority. Ask which problem should be solved first and why. Where possible, check its relationship with actual choices, delays or extra work.
6. Write and test the summary. Present the draft sentence, seek counterexamples and record uncertainties. Keep a hypothesis as a hypothesis while evidence is missing.

Useful follow-up questions include: “What happened next?”, “How did you manage it anyway?”, “When does this not happen?” and “Would solving this change your choice, and why?” An answer to the last question is a stated expectation, not an observed purchase.

Make the assessment traceable. The framework below is a proposed editorial convention, not a scientifically established formula.

Explain why one problem currently counts as the principal problem. Keep other relevant problems available for the Additional pain point and Other pain point fields. If two groups consistently have different priorities, investigate whether the segment boundaries need to change.

Do not use a total score with arbitrary weights as though it objectively identifies the most important problem. When evidence is insufficient, the appropriate conclusion may be: “Provisional main problem; priority still to be tested.”

Fictional illustration, not a research finding. A marketing lead is preparing a supplier selection. Three problems come up in the fictional interview: proposals that are difficult to compare, many meetings and an inconvenient report layout.

The person reports that the lack of a usable comparison delayed the recommendation. The report layout is irritating but did not prevent the assessment. The extra meetings appear related to the comparison; whether there is also a separate meeting problem remains unknown.

A provisional profile sentence reads:

> Experiences insufficient comparability between proposals before supplier selection, leaving a substantiated recommendation unfinished.

The status remains a hypothesis based on one fictional interview. For a real target group profile, investigate whether others experience the problem, whether the delay demonstrably relates to the comparison and why this problem takes priority. “Lack of selection criteria” remains a possible cause; “uncertainty” belongs under emotional pain when that experience has been established.

An associative target group is a defined group of people whose similar associations guide decisions within a specific choice context. A shared problem alone is insufficient to establish such a group.

Two people might both struggle to compare proposals. One associates a familiar provider with reliability; the other associates independent comparison material with control. These are fictional possibilities. Investigate which meanings actually emerge and how they relate to trade-offs.

Use the pain point as context for association research. Do not infer a fixed BIS/BAS score, purchase intention or purchasing behaviour from the word “problem”, a negative association or reported frustration.

• Entering a general label. “Lack of time” needs a task, a situation and a concrete consequence.
• Adopting the provider’s business goal. “Does not buy our product yet” does not describe the target group’s problem.
• Hiding the solution in the problem. “Needs a dashboard” must be traced back to what someone currently cannot oversee or do.
• Establishing the cause prematurely. A plausible explanation remains provisional until investigated separately.
• Exaggerating every irritation. Describe experienced consequences without turning inconvenience into crisis.
• Turning one statement into a group fact. Record who said it and what remains unknown about the rest of the segment.

Use this template:

> Experiences [concrete problem] in [specific situation], resulting in [supported consequence for the goal].

Alongside the visible profile sentence, keep a research note with the role, source references, research period, relevant counterexamples, rationale for priority and evidence status. The short sentence need not contain the entire justification, but it must be traceable to it.

Possible statuses include hypothesis, reported in the group studied and supported by multiple data sources; always state the scope. These labels are editorial tools, not quality certifications. If no research exists yet, enter “Not yet researched” with a concrete research question.

A useful pain point describes where a particular target group gets stuck in a concrete situation and what follows. Calling it the “main” problem requires a traceable assessment. Investigate the cause, emotional experience and possible solutions as separate questions.

Want to investigate where your target group gets stuck and which associations matter during the choice? Discuss the target group, choice context and available information with Neurofactor.