Feeling your customers’ gas pains

by Mark Nagurski, May 31st, 2008

OK, ‘petrol pains’ would have been better - but the bad joke lured me in.

Anyway, Susan Gunelis at Marketing Blurb points to the trend amongst local car dealerships to use free gas cards as a promotional incentive.

It’s an obvious enough linkup if you own a car dealership but says even more about how focusing on your customers’ pain can help identify useful marketing strategies - even if your product / service can’t direct address it.

At the moment petrol price inflation (alongside food price inflation, energy price inflation and house price deflation) are all key in both consumers’ and business’ minds. The pain is clearly financial and also a little personal - a question of peace of mind and fear of the future. Using gas cards is a relatively inexpensive (compared to the price of the car) method to address the customers’ pain.

Would something similar work for car rental firms? What if you were in charge of marketing local public transport alternatives?

“Pump prices getting you down? With The Really Practical Bus Company’s new saver card …”

OK, so that’s a little obvious but the point is clear, once you know your customers’ most urgent pain, your job becomes positioning yourself as a solution to that pain.

What’s hurting your customers right now? How can you address it? Can you use that to differentiate yourself from your competitors or the status quo?