Most content strategists stop their research at pain points and jobs-to-be-done frameworks. They’ll tell you: “Event managers struggle to prove ROI” or “Sales teams need better note-taking tools.”
This passes the basic sniff test. It shows you understand there’s a problem. But it doesn’t pass the mirror test—the moment when readers see themselves so clearly in your content that they think, “How did they know?”
As a result, they write content that reads like everyone else’s because they’ve only scratched the surface of their reader’s psychology.
Pain points are just the entry ticket. Specificity is what makes readers stop scrolling and think, “This person gets me.”
I’ve written dozens of B2B website content that rank top 3 for buying intent keywords and convert readers. Each time, I didn’t just understand pain points. I mapped the complete psychology of the reader’s experience to the geography of the page: from the moment they recognize a problem to the specific ways it manifests in their daily work.
In this article, I’ll show you how to do the same…how to move beyond generic pain point research with “the specificity mining framework”: a question-based system that mirrors your reader’s mind on the page.
What is the Specificity Mining Framework?
The Specificity Mining Framework is a research methodology that treats every question as a building block to create what I call “psychological geography”—a detailed map of your reader’s experience that goes far beyond basic pain points.
Instead of asking “What problem do they have?” and stopping there, the framework asks six interconnected questions that build layers of psychological depth. Each question extracts a different type of insight, and together they create the specificity that makes readers feel understood at a visceral level.
Here are the seven questions:
- Who is the target reader? (Reader persona)
- What problem are they trying to solve? (Pain point)
- How do they know it’s a pain? (Daily manifestations)
- What typical ways do they try to solve it? (Their attempted solutions)
- What pain points emerge from those attempts? (Where solutions fail)
- Why must they solve it today? (Priority initiative)
- How would they know it’s solved? (Success indicators)
Each question serves a specific strategic purpose in your content. Let me show you exactly what each achieves and where you’ll use the insights.
Question 1: Who Is the Target Reader?
Strategic Purpose: This establishes who you’re writing for—not just demographically, but psychologically. It’s the difference between “event managers” and “event specialists at mid-sized B2B companies who run 5-10 events yearly and face CFO scrutiny on ROI.”
This specificity shapes every other answer in the framework. The more precise your reader profile, the more targeted your research becomes.
Research Approach:
- Query the client’s knowledge base about best-fit customers
- Review customer interview transcripts for role descriptions
- Identify the specific context that makes someone your ideal reader (company size, team structure, budget authority)
- Look for the trigger moment when they become your customer
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
Instead of writing “marketing managers,” I documented:
“The potential customer is an individual who owns the responsibility of an event manager/specialist within the marketing department of a mid-sized B2B organization. They typically run 5-10 events per year and require a solution like Invitedesk when their events are becoming more KPI-driven, and they need tools to track performance and ROI. Therefore, the quality [not quantity] of their event strategy must stand up to CFO scrutiny.”
Notice the layers:
- Role specificity: Event manager/specialist (not just “marketer”)
- Organizational context: Mid-sized B2B, within marketing department
- Behavioral indicator: Run 5-10 events per year
- Trigger moment: When events become KPI-driven
- Authority/pressure: Must stand up to CFO scrutiny
Where You Use This:
- In title modifiers: “Best Event Management Software for Mid-Sized B2B Teams” speaks directly to your reader persona in the SERP.
- In the opening sentence: “If you’re an event manager running 5-10 B2B events yearly and your CFO just asked you to prove ROI…”
- In examples throughout: When you reference scenarios, they should mirror this specific reader’s context—not generic examples that could apply to anyone.
- In product positioning: “Built for event specialists who answer to CFOs, not event planners throwing parties.”
This first question is your foundation. Get this wrong, and every other answer becomes unfocused.
Question 2: What Problem Are They Trying to Solve?
Strategic Purpose: This establishes the big-picture context. It’s the problem your target reader would articulate if you woke them up at 3 AM and asked, “What’s your biggest challenge right now?”
This isn’t about every problem they have—it’s about the specific problem that brings them to search for your solution.
Research Approach:
- Query the client’s knowledge base (NotebookLM) about customer problems
- Review forum discussions for how people describe their situation
- Identify the language patterns they use
- Look for the “job to be done” that drives the search
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
Instead of writing “event managers have problems,” I documented:
“They are struggling to host B2B events that generate justifiable pipelines. Their aim is to find information that helps them set up a B2B marketing event that influences revenue, and learn how to prove and/or maximize the effectiveness of their event marketing strategy.”
Notice the specificity: Not just “ROI problems” but “justifiable pipelines” and “prove effectiveness to stakeholders.”
Where You Use This:
- In your introduction to frame the entire article around their core concern
- In your headline as social proof (“After analyzing 5,000 B2B events struggling to prove pipeline impact…”)
- In transition sentences to remind readers why each section matters
Question 3: How Do They Know It’s a Pain? (The Mirror Test)
Strategic Purpose: This is where you separate amateur research from professional insight. This question asks: How does this problem manifest in their daily work life?
It’s the difference between saying “they struggle with alignment” and describing the 45-minute Tuesday morning meeting where sales and marketing argue about which events to prioritize for Q4 while the CFO asks why last quarter’s conference generated zero closed deals.
This is your mirror test. This is where readers stop and think: “Are they watching me?”
The key insight: You must document manifestations BEFORE typical solutions because this is what drives them to search. They don’t start looking for solutions until the pain becomes concrete and undeniable in their daily life.
Research Approach:
- Look for day-in-the-life descriptions in forums
- Search for time-specific complaints: “every Monday,” “at the end of each quarter”
- Find emotional language: “frustrated,” “tired of,” “endless”
- Identify specific activities: “compiling spreadsheets,” “three-hour meetings”
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
I documented seven manifestation patterns:
“Sales and marketing often struggle to find alignment because there is no proven framework to decide the right mix of events for the next quarter. They often resort to doing what they normally do—with a layer of trending ideas, and hope to get results. At this point, the reader is tired of the spray-and-pray approach.”
“Hard-to-prove ROI manifests as endless reporting and gut-feel decisions. Event specialists spend hours compiling spreadsheets of attendees, badge scans, and anecdotal feedback. When the sales pipeline is not directly traceable to an event, budgets get cut, forcing teams to justify themselves repeatedly.”
“Without unified tech stacks, teams export lists from event platforms and manually import into CRM systems. Incomplete data leads to poor lead scoring, causing SDR teams to follow up with unqualified leads or ignore high-priority accounts.”
Notice the specificity:
- Not “alignment problems” but “45-minute debates about Q4 event mix”
- Not “reporting issues” but “hours compiling badge scan spreadsheets”
- Not “tech problems” but “manual exports between platforms causing poor lead scoring”
Where You Use This:
In your opening hook: This is your most powerful persuasion tool. Open with vivid manifestation:
“It’s Tuesday morning. Your CMO wants to know which events are generating pipeline. Your spreadsheet shows 247 badge scans from last month’s trade show, but only 12 turned into opportunities. Sales says the leads were ‘unqualified.’ Marketing says sales ‘never followed up in time.’ Your CFO just cut next quarter’s event budget by 30%.”
That’s not a pain point statement—that’s a scene from their life.
In transition sentences: “If you’ve spent 3 hours every Friday manually reconciling attendee lists across platforms…”
In product positioning: “Imagine opening one dashboard and instantly seeing which attendees became pipeline, which became customers, and exactly how much revenue your event influenced—no spreadsheets, no guesswork, no three-hour reconciliation meetings.”
Question 4: What Typical Ways Do They Try to Solve It?
Strategic Purpose: This reveals their previous attempts and failed solutions. It’s critical because it shows you’re not naive about their situation—you know they’ve tried things before coming to you.
More importantly, it sets up contrast. You’ll later position your solution as superior to these typical approaches.
Research Approach:
- Mine Reddit threads for “what we tried” discussions
- Review customer onboarding notes for previous tools/methods
- Check competitive feature comparisons
- Search forums for phrases like “we switched from” or “we used to use”
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
I documented four typical approaches event managers take:
- They default to well-known event formats (conferences, trade shows, workshops) based on learning from podcasts, webinars, and industry benchmarks
- They set pipeline-centric goals and KPIs like registrations and sponsorship revenue
- They deploy multi-channel promotion with email sequences and LinkedIn ads
- They adopt event-technology platforms with QR-powered check-ins and digital badge scans
Where You Use This:
In urgency-building sections: “Instead of losing more money by manually tracking registrations across three platforms, our unified dashboard saves you 8 hours per week and eliminates the $2,400/year you’re spending on redundant tools.”
In objection handling: Readers thinking “I’ve tried event software before” need to see you understand why previous solutions failed—before you pitch yours as different.
In your introduction to build credibility: “You’ve already tried hosting larger conferences to hit registration numbers. You’ve invested in badge-scanning technology. You’ve set up email sequences. And you’re still struggling to prove pipeline attribution to your CFO.”
This acknowledgment immediately signals: I know your world.
Question 5: What Pain Points Emerge From Those Attempts?
Strategic Purpose: This is where most strategists stop, but it’s only your foundation. Pain points are the friction that emerges when their attempted solutions don’t work as expected.
The key insight: Pain points are always connected to a job-to-be-done. They tried to solve the big problem a certain way, and that approach created new problems.
Research Approach:
- Cross-reference typical solutions with forum complaints
- Look for “but” statements: “We tried X but encountered Y”
- Analyze negative reviews of competitive tools
- Search for phrases like “the problem with” or “struggle to”
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
I didn’t just say “they struggle with ROI.” I mapped specific pain points to specific solution attempts:
Attempted Solution: Large conferences and trade shows
Pain Point: “They find it difficult to prove ROI after hosting large conferences & trade shows. Trade shows rarely produce a clear pipeline because it’s usually one touch in a series before the buying actually happens.”
Attempted Solution: VIP dinners and micro-events
Pain Point: “They struggle to balance limited reach vs. high ROI with VIP dinners, workshops, & webinars. These micro-events deliver deeper relationships, but capacity is small. Executives sometimes judge success by sheer registration numbers, creating tension between quality and quantity.”
See how the pain point is specific to the solution attempt? That’s the cause-and-effect chain that creates psychological resonance.
Where You Use This:
In feature explanations: When introducing your product capability, reference the specific pain point it solves: “Our automated attribution tracking solves the post-conference ROI proof problem by connecting badge scans to pipeline movement within 24 hours.”
In subheadings: Frame sections around pain points: “Why Large Trade Shows Create Attribution Nightmares (And What to Do Instead)”
Question 4: How Do They Know It’s a Pain? (The Mirror Test)
Strategic Purpose: This is where you separate amateur research from professional insight. This question asks: How does this pain point manifest in their daily work life?
It’s the difference between saying “they struggle with alignment” and describing the 45-minute Tuesday morning meeting where sales and marketing argue about which events to prioritize for Q4 while the CFO asks why last quarter’s conference generated zero closed deals.
This is your mirror test. This is where readers stop and think: “Are they watching me?”
Research Approach:
- Look for day-in-the-life descriptions in forums
- Search for time-specific complaints: “every Monday,” “at the end of each quarter”
- Find emotional language: “frustrated,” “tired of,” “endless”
- Identify specific activities: “compiling spreadsheets,” “three-hour meetings”
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
I documented seven manifestation patterns:
“Sales and marketing often struggle to find alignment because there is no proven framework to decide the right mix of events for the next quarter. They often resort to doing what they normally do—with a layer of trending ideas, and hope to get results. At this point, the reader is tired of the spray-and-pray approach.”
“Hard-to-prove ROI manifests as endless reporting and gut-feel decisions. Event specialists spend hours compiling spreadsheets of attendees, badge scans, and anecdotal feedback. When the sales pipeline is not directly traceable to an event, budgets get cut, forcing teams to justify themselves repeatedly.”
“Without unified tech stacks, teams export lists from event platforms and manually import into CRM systems. Incomplete data leads to poor lead scoring, causing SDR teams to follow up with unqualified leads or ignore high-priority accounts.”
Notice the specificity:
- Not “alignment problems” but “45-minute debates about Q4 event mix”
- Not “reporting issues” but “hours compiling badge scan spreadsheets”
- Not “tech problems” but “manual exports between platforms causing poor lead scoring”
Where You Use This:
In your opening hook: This is your most powerful persuasion tool. Open with vivid manifestation:
“It’s Tuesday morning. Your CMO wants to know which events are generating pipeline. Your spreadsheet shows 247 badge scans from last month’s trade show, but only 12 turned into opportunities. Sales says the leads were ‘unqualified.’ Marketing says sales ‘never followed up in time.’ Your CFO just cut next quarter’s event budget by 30%.”
That’s not a pain point statement—that’s a scene from their life.
In transition sentences: “If you’ve spent three hours manually reconciling attendee lists across platforms…”
In product positioning: “Imagine opening one dashboard and instantly seeing which attendees became pipeline, which became customers, and exactly how much revenue your event influenced—no spreadsheets, no guesswork, no three-hour reconciliation meetings.”
Question 5: Why Must They Solve It Today?
Strategic Purpose: This creates urgency. It answers: What happens if they wait? What’s getting worse? What are they losing right now?
Without urgency, your content becomes educational but not motivational. Readers think, “This is nice to know, I’ll deal with it later.”
Research Approach:
- Look for trend data: “X% of companies now prioritize…”
- Find competitive pressure indicators: “while you’re struggling, competitors are…”
- Identify regulatory or budget cycle pressures
- Search for phrases like “before it’s too late” or “year over year”
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
I documented two urgency drivers:
Urgency Driver 1 – Market Pressure:
“With budgets rising and leadership expecting business results, event managers must show how every event drives pipeline and revenue. A 2025 survey shows that 78% of organisers view in-person events as having unmatched impact on organisational objectives and 80% consider them vital for success, yet budgets are scrutinised. In a competitive market, failing to prove ROI jeopardises future funding and career advancement.”
Urgency Driver 2 – Competitive Displacement:
“With more events vying for attention (66% of organisers plan to host more events in 2025), event managers must differentiate. If their strategy doesn’t produce pipeline, competitors will fill the void with targeted micro-events or data-driven activations.”
Notice this isn’t fear-mongering. It’s competitive and career reality backed by data.
Where You Use This:
After problem setup: Once readers understand their pain, immediately show why waiting costs them:
“Every quarter you delay implementing attribution tracking is another quarter your CFO questions your event ROI—potentially costing you 30% of your budget or your position when reorganization comes.”
In the “Why This Matters Now” section: Mid-article, after presenting your framework but before deep-diving into implementation.
In your CTA: “Start tracking attribution today before your Q4 budget review.”
Question 7: How Would They Know It’s Solved?
Strategic Purpose: This paints the “after” picture. It shows what success looks like in concrete, measurable terms.
This is crucial for two reasons:
- It helps readers visualize the transformation
- It gives you specific metrics to reference when positioning your product
Research Approach:
- Look for success metrics in case studies
- Check job descriptions for KPIs they’re measured against
- Review customer testimonials for outcome language
- Find “success looks like” forum discussions
Example from B2B Event Marketing Strategy:
I documented four success indicators:
“Clear, data-backed alignment with sales and marketing. When SDR and sales teams understand the event goals and act quickly on leads, pipeline velocity increases. Event managers measure success through reduced lag between event and opportunity creation and improved collaboration scores (e.g., percentage of attendees followed up by sales within 24 hours).”
“Clear, data-backed attribution from event to pipeline and revenue. Success means having dashboards that show the number of qualified leads generated, opportunities created, pipeline influenced, and revenue closed from each event.”
These aren’t vague (“better results”). They’re specific metrics the reader already tracks or wishes they could track.
Where You Use This:
In feature-benefit explanations: “With real-time attribution dashboards, you’ll finally answer your CFO’s question: ‘How much pipeline did that $50K conference actually generate?’—in 30 seconds, not 3 days.”
In your conclusion: Paint the transformation: “Six months from now, you’ll walk into your budget review with a dashboard showing exactly which events drove $2.3M in pipeline, which attendees became customers, and why your micro-events generated 3x better ROI than industry conferences.”
In social proof: “After implementing our framework, event teams report 67% faster attribution reporting and 40% improvement in sales-marketing alignment scores.”
How These Questions Work Together: A Real Example
Let me show you how all seven questions interconnect using the B2B event marketing strategy brief.
The Psychological Geography:
- Target Reader: Event manager/specialist at mid-sized B2B organization, running 5-10 events yearly, facing CFO scrutiny on KPI-driven results
- Problem: Struggling to host B2B events that generate justifiable pipeline
- Daily Manifestations:
- Tuesday morning sales-marketing debates about Q4 events
- Hours compiling badge scan spreadsheets
- CFO questioning event spend with no clear pipeline data
- Manual platform exports causing poor lead scoring
- Typical Solutions: Hosting large conferences, setting pipeline KPIs, using event tech platforms, deploying multi-channel promotion
- Pain Points from Solutions:
- Can’t prove ROI after trade shows; struggle to balance VIP event reach vs. impact; poor post-event lead follow-through
- Why Now:
- 66% of companies hosting more events in 2025 = increased competition
- Budgets under scrutiny while expected to prove impact
- Career risk if unable to justify spend
- Success Looks Like:
- Dashboard showing leads → pipeline → revenue per event
- Sales following up within 24 hours
- No more manual reconciliation
- CFO approval based on data, not gut feel
Now watch how this translates to actual content structure:
Opening Hook (Uses Manifestation Data):
“It’s the Tuesday meeting you dread. Marketing wants to host another trade show. Sales says the last three generated ‘zero quality leads.’ Your CFO just asked—again—for proof that events drive pipeline. You’ve got 247 badge scans in a spreadsheet but can’t connect a single one to the $1.8M opportunity that closed last month. Someone suggests ‘maybe we should do more VIP dinners instead?’ The debate continues for 45 minutes. Nothing gets decided.”
Problem Setup (Uses Problem + Typical Solutions):
“You’re not alone. 78% of B2B event managers report that proving event ROI is their biggest challenge. Most try to solve it by investing in badge-scanning technology, setting pipeline-centric KPIs, and hosting larger conferences to hit registration targets. But these approaches create new problems instead of solving the original one.”
Urgency Section (Uses Why Now):
“Here’s what’s changing in 2025: 66% of your competitors are hosting more events while budgets are under unprecedented scrutiny. If you can’t prove pipeline attribution before your Q4 review, you’re at risk of 30% budget cuts—or worse, being replaced by someone who can.”
Solution Introduction (Uses Pain Points + Manifestations):
“Instead of wasting 8 hours per week manually reconciling attendee lists across three platforms (only to produce spreadsheets nobody trusts), what if you could open one dashboard and instantly see: Which attendees became opportunities? Which opportunities closed? Exactly how much revenue each event influenced? That’s the system this framework builds.”
Feature Explanation (Uses Previous Solutions as Contrast):
“Unlike badge-scanning technology that just generates vanity metrics, or CRM integrations that require manual imports causing poor lead scoring, our attribution framework automatically connects attendance to pipeline movement within 24 hours—eliminating the reconciliation nightmare and giving sales the context they need to follow up effectively.”
Outcome Visualization (Uses Success Indicators):
“Six months from now, you walk into your budget review. Your CFO asks, ‘What did that conference cost us?’ You pull up your dashboard: ‘$47K spend. Generated 34 qualified leads. Created $890K in pipeline. 6 closed deals worth $220K. 4.7x ROI.’ Your budget gets approved. Your CMO asks you to lead event strategy for the entire division.”
See how every single element traces back to specific research answers? That’s the interconnectedness that creates psychological resonance.
Want to adopt this process?
Here’s Exactly How to Implement this Framework for Your Next Content Piece
Step 1: Set Up Your Research Document
Create seven sections corresponding to each question. Use the exact question headers—they’ll keep you focused on the strategic purpose of each section.
Step 2: Start with Target Reader Definition
Before anything else, nail down who you’re writing for. The more specific your reader profile, the easier every other question becomes. Include:
- Role and responsibilities
- Company size/type
- Frequency of behavior (how often they do X)
- Trigger moment (what makes them your customer)
- Authority/pressure points (who they answer to)
Step 3: Query Client Knowledge Base
Before going to external sources, query your client’s NotebookLM or knowledge base for:
- Customer interview transcripts
- Sales call recordings
- Onboarding session notes
- Support ticket themes
Ask: “What problems do customers describe when they first come to us?” and “What solutions did they try before switching to us?”
Step 4: Mine Forums for Manifestation Language
Reddit, industry forums, and LinkedIn discussions are gold for manifestation data. Look for:
- Time indicators: “every Monday,” “quarterly review time”
- Emotional language: “frustrated,” “tired of,” “desperate”
- Process descriptions: “I spend X hours doing Y”
- Specific tools: “we use Salesforce and Hubspot and…”
Step 5: Cross-Reference Everything
The magic happens when you cross-reference:
- What does your client’s knowledge base say about customer pain?
- What do forums reveal about daily manifestations?
- How do competitive reviews describe solution failures?
- What do industry reports say about urgency factors?
When all four sources point to the same specific insight, you’ve found gold.
Step 6: Build Your Specificity Layers
For each answer, ask: “Can I make this more specific?”
- Generic: “They struggle with reporting”
- More specific: “They spend hours on spreadsheets”
- Most specific: “They spend 3 hours every Friday compiling badge scans from Eventbrite, registrations from Hubspot, and opportunity data from Salesforce into a single Excel file their CFO still doesn’t trust”
Keep layering until you hit the “this person is watching me” level.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
As AI-generated content floods the internet, specificity becomes your competitive moat.
AI can generate generic pain point content. It can’t generate the specific manifestation data that comes from deep research—the Tuesday morning meetings, the 3-hour Friday reconciliation sessions, the exact moment when a reader’s career feels at risk.
When event managers read “struggling with event ROI,” they nod and move on.
When they read “spending 3 hours every Friday compiling badge scans into spreadsheets your CFO doesn’t trust while sales ignores 80% of the leads because there’s no scoring context and your Q4 budget is at risk,” they stop scrolling.
Because you’re not describing a pain point anymore. You’re describing their life.
That’s what mining for specificity achieves. That’s what makes content unforgettable.
And that’s what turns readers into customers.
That level of specificity only comes from:
- Actually talking to customers
- Mining forums for real human language
- Connecting cause-and-effect chains
- Building psychological geography
When you nail this, your content doesn’t just rank—it converts. Because readers don’t just think “this is useful information.” They think “this person understands my life.”
And that’s when they click your CTA.
