The Trigger Technique: Crafting Smart Marketing Ideas from Customer Insights

Understanding Customer Buying Triggers

When it comes to marketing, getting inside the mind of your customers is crucial. The Trigger Technique provides a framework for uncovering key insights about your buyers and using those to craft smart, targeted marketing campaigns. At its core, this approach focuses on understanding what triggers people to begin the buying journey for your product or service.

To illustrate this concept, let's look at an example buying journey for an alarm clock:

The buyer, a 37-year-old woman, decided to purchase an old-school alarm clock to help her wake up earlier and work out in the mornings. Her trigger event was making a New Year's resolution to get fit. The job she was trying to accomplish was to force herself out of bed earlier when tempted to sleep in.

By understanding these key elements - the trigger event, the job to be done, pains with other solutions, and underlying motivations - marketers can develop much more effective and resonant campaigns.

The Four Cornerstone Insights

The Trigger Technique is built on uncovering four key insights about your buyers:

1. What triggers them to begin the buying journey
2. What job are they trying to get done
3. What pains do they have with other solutions
4. What are their selfish desires

Let's break these down further:

1. Buying Triggers

A buying trigger is the moment when a potential customer first realizes they have a problem or job to be done. Triggers can be:

• Situational (e.g. starting a new job)
• Biological (e.g. feeling hungry or cold)
• Emotional (e.g. feeling insecure)
• Social (e.g. having a conversation with a friend who recommends something)

Understanding common triggers allows marketers to time their offers and get in front of prospects earlier in their journey.

2. Job To Be Done

People don't buy products just because of who they are demographically. They "hire" products to help them make progress in a specific circumstance. For the alarm clock example, the job was "Force me to get out of bed earlier in the morning when I'm tempted to sleep in."

Framing your offering in terms of the job it accomplishes for customers is much more powerful than focusing on features alone.

3. Pains With Other Solutions

Before finding your product, customers likely tried other solutions. Understanding their pain points with those alternatives gives you insight into how to position your offering.

For the alarm clock buyer, using a smartphone as an alarm led to late night scrolling and easily hitting snooze. An electric alarm clock still had a snooze button. Understanding these pain points shows why a loud, no-snooze alarm clock was appealing.

4. Selfish Desires

Beyond the functional job, customers have underlying emotional motivations. For the alarm clock buyer, these included wanting to feel more confident, have the guts to pursue big dreams, reduce stress, and be more productive.

Speaking to these deeper desires in your marketing creates a stronger emotional connection.

Applying the Trigger Technique

Once you've gathered these key insights through customer interviews, you can apply the Trigger Technique using these steps:

1. Choose a Target Buyer

Get specific about who you want to reach, focusing on the context of their situation. For example: "Achievement-minded people who want to start working out in the morning."

2. Identify Target Moments

Brainstorm specific moments when you could get in front of your target buyers. Consider:

• How they might look for solutions
• What else they might consider or try first
• Where they spend their time
• Who they trust for information

For the alarm clock, target moments could include:

• When they're researching how to wake up earlier
• When they're watching fitness vlogs on YouTube
• When they're reading newsletters about building healthy habits
• When they're scrolling Twitter late at night

3. Brainstorm Marketing Ideas

Come up with ways to reach your target buyers during those key moments. Some ideas for the alarm clock:

• Write a blog post on the dangers of sleeping with a cell phone and promote it via Twitter ads
• Collaborate with fitness vloggers to try the alarm clock for a week and share their experience
• Be a guest on self-improvement podcasts discussing sleep habits
• Optimize Amazon product listings to speak to buyer motivations

4. Craft a Compelling Promise

Create a promise that speaks to how your product relieves customer pains and helps achieve their desires. For the alarm clock: "Stop hitting snooze on your life goals - wake up earlier with this no-snooze alarm clock."

5. Choose a Call-to-Action

Give buyers a reason to act now. Understanding their peak motivation allows you to create urgency. For the alarm clock, a New Year's flash sale speaks to the timing of resolutions.

Leveraging Tools Like SparkToro

While the Trigger Technique can yield powerful insights from even one customer interview, tools like SparkToro can amplify your efforts. SparkToro allows you to quickly gather data on your target audience, including:

• Frequently used phrases in bios
• Popular hashtags
• Websites they visit
• Podcasts they listen to
• Social accounts they follow

This data can help you identify influential channels, refine your messaging, and find unexpected ways to reach your audience.

For example, a SparkToro search for followers of productivity expert James Clear revealed:

• Top hashtags like #nfts and #ethereum
• Frequently used phrases like "mental health"
• Popular job titles like "founder" and "engineer"
• Top podcasts including "The Knowledge Project" and "Making Sense with Sam Harris"

This information allows you to get much more granular and targeted with your marketing efforts.

Benefits of the Trigger Technique

Using the Trigger Technique offers several key benefits for marketers:

1. Get closer to customers without extensive research
2. Generate targeted ideas that aren't on competitors' radars
3. Reach prospects earlier in their journey
4. Craft more compelling messaging that resonates emotionally
5. Identify unexpected channels to reach your audience
6. Reduce marketing costs by targeting more effectively

By understanding the nuances of your customers' buying journeys, you can create hyper-focused campaigns that cut through the noise and drive real results.

Implementing the Trigger Technique

To start using the Trigger Technique in your marketing:

1. Conduct 1-3 customer interviews, focusing on recent buyers
2. Extract key insights around triggers, jobs, pains, and desires
3. Choose a specific target buyer and brainstorm relevant moments
4. Generate marketing ideas leveraging those insights
5. Test your ideas through small experiments or campaigns
6. Analyze results and refine your approach

Remember, you don't need extensive research to get started. Even insights from one well-done interview can dramatically improve your marketing effectiveness.

Overcoming Common Challenges

Some common hurdles when implementing the Trigger Technique include:

Getting Leadership Buy-In

To get approval for customer research:

• Frame it as "rapid learning" rather than extensive research
• Focus on talking to one customer to start
• Emphasize how insights will lead to smarter, more targeted campaigns
• Highlight how understanding triggers can reduce marketing costs

Interviewing for New Products

When developing a new offering:

• Talk to people actively trying to solve the problem
• Focus on their current behaviors and pain points, not hypothetical opinions
• Use insights to shape your offering and test demand before building

Applying to Service Businesses

The technique still applies for services:

• Use insights to refine messaging and offers
• Identify unexpected competitors or alternatives
• Improve referral programs based on customer motivations

Conclusion

The Trigger Technique provides a powerful framework for generating smart marketing ideas grounded in real customer insights. By understanding what truly motivates your buyers - their triggers, jobs to be done, pain points, and underlying desires - you can craft campaigns that resonate on a deeper level.

This approach allows marketers to move beyond guesswork without requiring extensive research. Even insights from one customer interview can dramatically improve your marketing effectiveness. When combined with tools like SparkToro, the Trigger Technique empowers marketers to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time.

By implementing this technique, marketers can generate targeted ideas, reach prospects earlier, craft more compelling messaging, and ultimately drive better results while reducing costs. In a world where customer attention is increasingly scarce, the ability to truly understand and speak to your buyers' needs is more valuable than ever.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB8PAZWbvFk