With the constant influx of new data or noise on the Internet, it’s safe to say that the way that we target potential customers is going to have to get increasingly more precise. The foundation of any great marketing campaign is to establish buyer personas, however studies have shown that only about 44% of companies actually do so before setting in on a marketing campaign, with the majority of them not actually being properly used. (Buyer Persona Institute)
The Importance of Buyer Personas Cannot Be Understated
With our awareness of the nearly endless amounts of data on the internet, the blanketed approach to marketing makes it nearly impossible to reach the right audience with your content. And if you’re not reaching the right audience, your content-producing efforts are a really just waste of time. If you’re trying to do content marketing, then knowing who you’re writing to each time you sit down to create a new piece of content is absolutely required to make sure that you’re heading in the right direction. The same holds true when you are designing your website. Really, have you made your website design about your buyer persona or simply what looks good to you?
They Point the Way to Online Success
Buyer personas help you identify where your best customers spend time on the Internet, so that you can be there, too. Knowing your buyer persona can help you to develop new products and services by giving you information on what they’re looking for, what they like and dislike and what’s missing in the marketplace. They help you create the right content. Buyer personas are necessary in any type of organization — regardless of industry.
A great rule of thumb is to target the primary buyer persona that brings in the most revenue. So even if you have various target markets, focus on the one that will move the needle financially for your business.
The best thing to do, after you’ve compiled your research, is to build a story about these personas is to give your persona a name and a story. Why? Because stories are easy to remember and are easy to pass along to multiple parts of a company. And giving a name to a persona makes it even easier to remember that you’re designing a website or writing content for real people that need your product or service.
Weave Your Findings Into a Story for Company-Wide Adoption
When building these stories, here are some questions that you can use to weave into a story:
1.) What is their job and demographic information?
2.) What does a day in their life look like?
3.) What are their challenges and pain points?
4.) Where do they go for information?
5.) What are their common objections to products and services?
Need more, check out this extensive list from HubSpot.
Buyer Persona Targeting: A Trend That’s Here to Stay
Getting to know your buyer personas inside and out is a wise investment of time. What are their common behavior problems? What are their pain points, both professionally and personally? Get to know their goals, wishes, aspirations along with general demographic and biographic information and you’ll be able to write to them as if you knew them personally.
