Do you know who your customers are?
Reaching new customers is a challenge every business faces on a daily basis. Trying to capture their attention and engage them is a never-ending pursuit. While traditional marketing focused on using mass advertising and direct mail to find customers, today, marketers have to be proactive, providing insightful information and interacting with them even before they visit your website.
Why bother?
The goal is to enable and entice prospects to find you, get interested in what you have to offer, then visit your website. Rather than blasting to the masses, marketing is now focused on 1:1 targeting.
Think of it this way, when you market to everyone in the world, then you end up with a mixed bag of customers, all who are less loyal to your brand. Consider this as a customer yourself, do you prefer a product designed specifically for you, or more of a one-size-fits all?
Because of this, knowing whom your ideal customer takes on greater importance. It enables you to be more effective with your communications. Documenting and distinguishing whmo your ideal customer is –is referred to as your buyer persona.
What are Buyer Personas?
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
A buyer persona will consist of your customer demographics, their behaviors, challenges and goals – someone who is interested in your products. Due to the type of products or services you offer, you may have more than one.
“You just need to ask the right questions to the right people, and present that information in a helpful way so your company can get to know your persona better than the back of their hand.”
Knowing your buyer persona helps you refine your product so that it will meet the needs of that customer – its as if you custom made it for them. It also helps you develop good content, no longer wasting time marketing (and spending money) on those who are not a good fit. Creating content that is designed just for them will attract new buyers. And, you’ll have an easier time hitting their pain points because you will know exactly what they are.
In addition, understanding your buyer persona also provides a common view of your customers across your entire organization, with everyone working to reach the same customers. Documenting and focusing your efforts on your buyer persona will help everyone in your company get the right visitors, the right leads, and the right customers.
According to Single Grain, using marketing personas made websites 2-5 times more effective and easier to use by targeted users. Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14%, and conversion rates by 10%.
How do you go about gathering this info?
- Interview or survey your current customers
- Talk to your sales and support teams – who are the interacting with the most?
- Use offers, such as a white paper, to gather intelligence through forms
- Identify trends in the marketplace or industry
Fundamentally, here is the basic information you want to try and capture:
- Name
- Age
- Job Role/Title
- What does a typical day look like?
- What are their main sources of information?
- Goals
- What are their biggest challenges/pain points
Fill in the blanks and share what you have learned. Use this information to help your marketing and sales teams to craft messages that are specifically targeted towards your buyer persona. It’s not enough to know just who you’re trying to reach, you also have to know what they need to see to solve their biggest challenges. Be the solution and gain new customers.