Content Marketing Strategist

If you want more sales, better engagement and clients who stick around, you need to stop focusing on your offers and your business, and focus on your clients.

People need to feel seen, heard and most importantly, understood.

Most business owners get this wrong because they’re too worried about not seeming professional enough, or wanting to make sure the product or offer is good enough.

But what really matters to people is knowing that someone gets them. They would rather have authenticity, honesty and trust are what your ideal clients need. Not perfection or polished wording.

Let’s break down what this actually looks like and why it matters more than any trend or tactic.

Understanding emotions is the real key to selling

People buy because something in them clicks. They recognise themselves in what you’re saying. They feel like you get what’s going on behind the scenes, not just what they show on the surface.

When you understand how your ideal clients feel before they buy, everything about your content shifts. It becomes more grounded, more relevant and much harder to ignore. Connection is really what leads to sales.

When I owned the café, bar and bakery, I spent many hours getting to know my customers and understanding what motivated their buying decisions. What drove most of their decisions was a feeling, or desire.

When I started to understand that, it helped me to really create content that connected deeper than just sharing pics of cakes and bread.

The difference between speaking to pain points and symptoms

Your content needs to start with symptoms because that’s the stage your ideal clients are actually living in.

Symptoms are what they see, describe and feel every day. They’re the things they vent about, the frustration that shows up in real time, the “I can’t keep doing this” moments.

Pain points sit underneath that. They’re the deeper emotional drivers your audience hasn’t fully named yet.

Most people aren’t saying:
“I’m struggling because my messaging doesn’t speak to emotions.”

They’re saying:
“I’m posting constantly and nothing is happening.”
“I can’t get anyone to respond.”
“I feel like I’m shouting into the void.”

Those are symptoms. That’s the entry point. It’s familiar. It’s honest. It’s what they’re experiencing in the moment.

Your job is to meet them there and then guide them toward the real pain point. When you start by naming what they’re already feeling, you open the door. When you help them see why it’s happening, you earn their trust.

And when you show them the emotional core beneath the surface-level frustration, that’s when they finally understand what’s actually holding them back and why your offer matters.

In my case, most people wouldn’t say, my content isn’t working. Instead, they would say “no one is seeing my Instagram posts,” or “I’m trying to grow my email list but no-one is downloading my freebie.”

How to identify what your audience feels before they buy

If you want to know what your ideal clients feel, listen to how people talk in real life. Pay attention to the worries they share, the patterns in conversations, the moments they hesitate or pull back. The emotional cues are sitting right there.

What they fear losing. What they wish worked faster. What they’re tired of pretending isn’t a problem. When you can spot these emotional threads, you stop writing generic content and start writing content that feels personal.

People go through different stages of emotions when they buy. Your content needs to reflect those stages, and take your ideal clients through them. When you do that, your ideal clients will know you are the right person for them.

Using empathy and language that sounds like you and relevant to your clients

Your audience doesn’t want generic marketing jargon. In fact, they’ll ignore it because, quite bluntly, they don’t care because it isn’t relevant to them.

They want to read something and think that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say. When your content sounds like their lived experience, and they nod along going, “yes, I’ve been there,” you immediately build trust.

Empathy isn’t about being soft. It’s about being accurate. It’s being able to reflect someone’s inner world clearly enough that they feel seen without you having to sell hard. Use their phrases. Use their tone. Use the examples they actually relate to. That’s what cuts through.

Simple prompts to uncover what your ideal clients actually care about

Ask yourself:

• What are they admitting to themselves at the end of a long day?
• What do they wish someone would take off their plate?
• What problems keep repeating in their conversations?
• What moment makes them decide something has to change?
• What do they want but rarely say out loud?

The answers will tell you more about their buying behaviour than any metric ever will.

Final thoughts

If you want to stand out, speak to the truth your ideal clients are already living. When your content reflects what they see, describe and feel, they won’t just feel interested. They’ll feel understood. That’s the moment connection turns into conversion.