Note: This was featured as part of our Web Wednesday segment on Charleston’s 105.5 The Bridge. You can catch us every Wednesday morning at 8:20 am ET for your dose of social media & digital marketing news.
As a business, understanding who your customers are and how to reach them is the foundation of marketing. Discovering your customer base, including your current and target audience, can be achieved through market research.
Once you have identified your customer base, you’ll want to develop strategies for reaching them. A buyer persona is an idea of who your customers are, and designing your marketing campaigns with your buyer persona in mind can help you reach your intended audience. Here are five tips for creating more effective buyer personas.
1. Determine your audience
First, figure out who you’re targeting and what makes them tick. Your buyer persona should tell you something actionable. In most cases, you will need to develop several buyer personas to reflect the variety of your audience. Marketing research can help you understand the people who are interested in buying your product or service.
2. Uncover buyer motivation
Why do people hire your business or buy its products? What specific job do you do? You can use surveys and other marketing research strategies to help uncover buyer motivations.
Once you understand why your customers want to buy your product or service, you’ll be able to identify their “pain points,” which are the circumstances that lead them to hire your services or buy your product.
3. Understand your core competitor
Who are the main competitors of your business, and why would a customer choose them over you? Competitor analysis tools such as Google Alerts or a digital strategy by our agency can help you uncover information about your core competitors.
After identifying and researching your competitors, you can develop your unique selling point (USP) that sets your business apart from the rest. Use your buyer persona to help you define your USP. Would your persona be interested in this selling point? If you have multiple personas, identify a USP that appeals to each demographic.
4. Classify your behavioral-based persona
Before you choose a digital marketing strategy, you’ll need to understand how your buyer personas behave online. Are they Technology Enthusiasts, Screen Hoppers, Occasional Video Users, or Video Addicts? For example, as the name implies, video addicts will respond best to the video content you post on your social media feeds and may be the best audience for your YouTube channel.
5. Make personas as real as possible
Great buyer personas should include a brief synopsis of who they are, what motivates them to buy your product, and what their decision making power usually is. Next, you’ll want to incorporate quotes from actual interviews and conversations you’ve had with your customers. Buyer personas that account for customers’ real challenges and frustrations will be the most effective at outreach.
Finally, a buyer persona should be based on the data you have collected about your customers. A persona isn’t something you have imagined, rather, it is a close approximation of your actual audience.
Need help developing your buyer personas? If you have a persona in mind, are you struggling to reach them? Our expert team at TargetMarket can help your business achieve sales goals by building its online brand. Schedule a free consultation with us or give us a call at (888) 632-4499 to start transforming your business today.
