I truly believe that if you don't know who you are marketing too, you are wasting your time!!!
When I have my first meeting with a new client, the very first thing I ask them is "Who is your Target Audience?" and "Who is your ideal persona?" because how can you grow your business and market to an audience that you have no idea about...you can't. You shouldn't market coffee to a tea drinker...
In this highly competitive era its crucial to clearly define your target audience to ensure that your business is successful. How can you do this?
By creating a buyer persona. "What?" I hear you ask.
Once you have established your desired target audience, you can now narrow that down to a buyer persona by means of demographic and psychographic information. This will allow you to segment your buyer personas into different groups, enabling you to specifically create a market strategy that will appeal to their likes and dislikes, attracting your ideal audience.
When building your buyer personas, you want to gather as much detail and information as possible, by means of doing a market analysis, analytics and surveys. Focusing on your target audience’s preferences and behaviours, will allow you to narrow down and segment your buyer personas.
With all that information you will be able to create your own buyer personas, with specific details such as their gender, age, household income, who they live with, where they live in an urban, rural or suburban area, preferred entertainment, spending patterns, lifestyle, influencers they look up to, level of education, job title, what product or service will solve their challenges and or fears if any, social media preferences and preferred method of communication.
What I like to tell my clients is that you need to imagine the person as if they standing right in front of you, make them as real as possible, give them a name 'Sally', 'Mark', by doing this you form a 'personal connection' with your persona which can make such a difference in the way you market your service or product.
Let's look at a few different types of research you can do.
There are four types of research that I recommended when building a buyers persona, background, qualitative, quantitative, observational research.
1. Background research
This focuses on potential competitors, as well as potential personas use of social media. Tool such as SEMRush, MOZ, and Google Trends can be used to establish a company’s SEO Rankings as well as suitable keywords.
2. Qualitative research
This allows for in-person interaction with personas, where body language, and facial expressions can provide much more in-depth detail than only making use of online chats or surveys. Thus allowing a more social approach.
3. Observational research
Does not allow for any interaction with potential personas. Personas behaviour and interaction with products or services can be monitored, allowing you to determine where changes or improvements are needed.
4. Quantitative research
Is based on numerical analytics and user activity of potential personas. This allows for accurate reports and funnelling of information(Source).
When asking one on one questions while interviewing your personas, focus on the following topics;
- Their background such as detail about them.
- Details about their current job such as their job title, industry, responsibilities, how long they have been with the company and or in said role.
- Challenges and fears that they face daily.
- Does the consumer have any primary or secondary goals.
- What do they use as buying criteria during their decision making process(Source).
Not all prospective customers will fall into your segmented buyer personas. That is ok. This can be and opportunity for future business expansion.
How to use your buyer personas when creating marketing campaigns?
As I mentioned before, once you have segmented your buyer personas, you will be able to focus your marketing campaign to specifically appeal to them and grab their attention. Allowing you to speak 'their language', fulfilling and adapting to 'their needs', ultimately improving their quality of life. This will create awareness that will initiate interest and result in a sale.
In a case study where NetProspex was used a as base platform to monitor and segment personas, the following results could be seen; a 900% increase in the time spent on any given social media, 171% increase marketing turnover, 111% increase in read emails and a 100% increase in page visits(Source).
According to Dacia Coffey, 71% of companies have their buyer personas exceed their revenue and lead goals. Segmenting reports have shown that 93% of businesses have exceeded their revenue and lead goals. By making use of personas, 90% of companies are able to understand their buyers needs more clearly (Source). After all the effort and time that you invest in your personas, it is time to put them to test.
Buyer personas are an investment to your business, you will not be wasting money on broad marketing campaigns that often result in no returns. When you make use of personas, you are able to target 'YOUR' desired audience, seeing that you are able to understand their needs and wants. Remember this, when a consumer’s needs are fulfilled, you will be able to retain and attract new potential consumers (Source).
A few key aspects of why you should make use of buyer personas,
- Ensuring you attract and retain your desired audience
- Buyer personas can be used as a tool to communicate with consumers
- Personas allow for more effective and strategic marketing opportunities
- Allows you to target product and services that your consumers actually want and need
- Group segmentation is vital, this will enable you to cater for more than one market
- Understanding your current and potential clients spending habits, likes, dislikes and preference will allow you to market to the relevant market segment
- Analytics are essential when using keyword research and allows you to reach consumers in a language and or platform that they relate to.
- By creating a market that caters to your consumers’ needs, you will be able to gain their trust and in turn secure them to buying or using your goods or services (Source).
It may seem like a lot of work initially but in the end, the process will be rewarding and worth it. Trust me on this one! Also keep in mind that you need to adapt to your consumer’s needs because as time goes by people’s needs, likes and preferences change, so constantly update and change your buyer personas plus this will give you the opportunity to recreate current products or services as well as solve current and potential problems. (Source).
I have a FREE workshop all about this!! YES, I said FREE! If you feel you need a little more help, I urge you to look at this workshop, I provide 1 x 45min Video Training, a workbook with over 20 pages, Action Steps to help you get clients today, 1 Week plan to implement all your learnings today & Unlimited community support group.
Ps. Was this helpful? The whole process can be daunting, I know. Do you feel like you have your ideal persona nailed down? Let me know, would love to hear from you.
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