Observations
How to Build the “Pain → Role → Content” Chain
Sound familiar? Your marketing department runs like clockwork. Every month, you publish articles, case studies, and white papers. There is plenty of content. However, when you talk to your sales team, you hear the same complaints: “We don’t have any usable materials,” “I have nothing to send the client after the meeting,” and “This case isn’t relevant to them.” As a result, the content you create sits on the shelf while sales reps continue to make their own improvised presentations.
Why does this gap exist? Because content is often created in a vacuum, based on keyword research or “trendy” topics, instead of real business challenges and sales scenarios.
To transform content from an archive into an effective arsenal, you don’t need to “invent” it; you need to design it. Effective B2B content is engineering, not creativity. At the core of this engineering lies a simple yet powerful logical chain: Pain → Role → Content.
This formula ensures that every piece of content you create will be effective. In this article, we will break down each element of this formula step by step and demonstrate how to use it as a central tool for planning your entire go-to-market strategy.
Begin with “pain” (the foundation of your relevance)
The first and most important element of the chain is a deep understanding of a specific, measurable customer pain. Without this understanding, everything else is meaningless. Any attempt to create content without starting from this point is a shot in the dark.
In a previous article, we discussed how to build a “pain map.” Remember that real B2B pain always has three layers: Functional: “My employees spend hours on manual reports.” Financial: “This costs us X per month.” Emotional: “I look incompetent because of data errors.”
The main rule of systematic content marketing is this: No content asset should go into production without answering the following question: “Which specific pain from our pain map does it solve?”
This simple filter instantly weeds out 90% of useless “creative” ideas. It prevents the team from writing abstract articles about industry trends just because they are fashionable. Instead, it forces the team to produce content that directly responds to a real, documented customer problem.
“Pain” is the foundation of your relevance. Before considering roles and formats, you must have a verified list of the problems you intend to solve. This list serves as the primary strategic guide for the entire commercial organization.
Define the role of the recipient of your message
You now have a clearly defined “pain.” The next step is to identify who in the client’s company experiences this pain the most. Many companies make the mistake of creating content for an abstract “Company X,” forgetting that buying decisions are made by real people with specific job titles, not logos.
The same business problem is perceived differently depending on the role’s responsibilities. Take the pain point “risk of data leaks” as an example.
- For the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), this is primarily a technical problem involving architectural vulnerabilities, protocol inconsistencies, and complex access management.
- For the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), it is a financial risk involving potential multimillion-dollar regulatory fines and remediation costs.
- For the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), it is a reputational risk involving loss of customer trust and brand damage.
That’s why the second filter in our process is clearly defining the role for which we are creating the content. You can’t speak to a CFO in the language of architectural patterns nor to a CTO in the language of reputation. Once you identify the role, you know which language to use and which arguments will be heard.
Choose the “content” (format and message)
Once “Pain” and “Role” are defined, selecting the format and message becomes a logical consequence, not an act of creativity. You no longer have to guess what to create; you know exactly which tool is needed for the task at hand.
Here’s how it works:
- Pain: “High operational costs” + Role: “CFO” Content: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator or financial business case.
- Pain: “Data security risks” + Role: “CIO/CISO” → Content: Security architecture white paper or compliance certificates.
- Pain: “Low team productivity due to routine tasks” + Role: “Department head” Content: Step-by-step automation guide or recorded tutorial webinar.
This approach transforms your content plan from a list of random topics into a logical matrix of assets. You stop creating content “for the drawer.” Instead, you produce targeted “ammunition,” with each piece built to hit a specific objective.
From Chaos to Precision Marketing
The “Pain → Role → Content” chain is a simple algorithm. It elevates your marketing from intuition and “creativity” to an engineering discipline. You stop producing “noise” in the hope that someone will hear you. Instead, you deliver precise, relevant messages that reliably resonate.
Rather than approving article topics, your task is to ensure that your entire commercial team (marketing and sales) considers this logical chain when planning any activity. This is the foundation of a predictable, scalable go-to-market strategy.
Take your most important product and one key industry in which you want to grow. With the help of colleagues from other teams, map out three “Pain → Role → Content” chains for three different decision-makers in that industry. This simple workshop will form the basis of your go-to-market plan for the next quarter.
