In this article:
- The one hack that will elevate your business marketing
- Building Buyer Personas
- The information segments in a Buyer Persona
It’s a no brainer that understanding your customer is THE KEY TO SUCCESS in your marketing activities – both online, inprint and in-person. But do you?
If I asked you “who is your target market?”, “who wants and needs what you offer?”… how would you answer that?
What if I re-phrased the question to “who is your ideal customer”? Does that refine who you think of?
Was your answer any thing like:
- everyone, everyone needs it
- all women who want to…. (get fit, look after their skin, cook – fill in the blank)
- couples who…
If so, let’s talk!
Marketing Messages That Speak
The more you know about your customer, your ideal customer, the better you’ll be able to prepare marketing messages about your products and services that speaks directly to their wants and needs.
These marketing messages are used everywhere:
- Website
- Proposals
- Flyers/brochures
- The networker’s elevator speech (short, verbal intro to your business)
- Facebook Ads
- Landing page copy
- Emails
And everywhere in between, therefore, it is vital that your messaging is spot on. You want to avoid missed opportunities.
The purpose of your marketing messages (marketing copy) is to:
- create familiarity with you so you become their preferred choice
- persuade potential customers that your product/service is the best solution to their problem or need
- inform them of your past successes in helping similar people to them
How can you do that unless you really know who they are, what they want or need, what they like or don’t like, what they are afraid of, where they are even? Good marketing messages respond to each of these areas of concern.
Build Buyer Personas To Talk To
THE HACK that helps you achieve this is building BUYER PERSONAS, the guide to learning what your buyer wants and how they make decisions.
What Are Buyer Personas?*
Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. They are based on real data about customer demographics and online behaviour, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns.
How Are Buyer Personas Created?
Buyer personas are created through research, surveys, and interviews of your target audience. Enter Facebook however, and you now have greater access to amazingly specific details of your potential customer. Ideally, you want to paint a picture of who your ideal customer is, what they value, what they fear, and how your solution fits into their daily lives.
Once you have a clear idea of your customers’ personas you are able to deliver content that will be more relevant and useful to them. You are also able to write marketing copy that speaks directly to them – their wants and desires.
The Information Found In Buyer Personas
The data a Buyer Persona is built around includes:
- Demographics: age, gender, income, location
- Background: education, employment
- Goals: career, personal
- Challenges: barriers, fears, mindset, beliefs
- Solutions: how you solve those challenges and evidence of success
By segmenting your customers into 3-5 personas based on the above characteristics, you are able to apply a radically more relevant process of message selection, content creation, and distribution through the channels that earn the buyers’ trust.
The Wrap Up
Creating the Buyer Personas suited to your business will help you understand the customers’ journey, their buying triggers and the perceived barriers to buying your offer. Personas elevate the effectiveness of your marketing messages, your sales approach, your business strategy and more.
Do You Need Help Building Your Buyer Personas?
“A Marketer’s Template for Creating Buyer Personas”, Hubspot, 2013
