You may consider every visitor that browses your website a potential customer. After all, your product or service may be useful to many. Therefore, narrowing your defined targeted buyer is nonsense. A waste of time. However, there is likely one segment of buyers who are specifically interested in what you have to offer. They have a problem they are trying to solve – your product just might be the solution. That segment of buyers is considered your target and it pays to spend a little time understanding who they are.
In the world of marketing, target buyers are known as buyer persona(s).
“A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better.” -- HubSpot
Why is defining your buyer persona important?
In order to reach your buyer personas and provide them with information that is helpful, you need to know who they are and understand their pain points. Buyer persona profile should include:
- Demographics
- Job
- Day in their life
- Challenges/pain points
- Values/goals
- Location of information
- Buying process
- Decision making
To help fill out our buyer persona profile, start by interviewing or surveying current customers. Talk to your sales department. If you use market automation systems, review data. Going through this process will help you to understand their pain points and problems, which will help improve the effectiveness of your marketing.
A few benefits of identifying your buyer persona include:
- Knowing where to focus your communication efforts
- Designing content that addresses the issues they are facing
- Guide product development
- Ensure there is a common view across your company
Identifying your buyer persona helps in determine which social media platforms you use to market and reach them. Where do they spend their time – Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest? You don’t need to have a presence everywhere, just where your buyers are spending their time. This information will also help you to develop content. Different platforms require different types of content, some short and brief, others very visual. Design your content so that 80% of the time is educating and informing your buyers - highlighting industry updates, addressing their pain points, with 20% of your content promoting your solutions.
41% of the content marketing challenge is how to produce the kind of content that engages prospects and customers.
Create a plan (Editorial Calendar) that is designed to determine the theme, timing and action items for the creation of each piece of content. Your content should align with your buyer’s needs and be captivating. You can only do that if you know who they are and understand their problem.
“Effective messaging emerges at the intersection of what your buyers want to hear and what you want to say.” ― Adele Revella
Now that you know who your buyers are, understand their problem, and know where to reach them, start planning your content and extending your presence online.