With a straightforward title like that you’ll be forgiven for thinking that this is going to be a simple article with a simple answer, but it never is. If you’re working in the world of digital marketing it’s quite easy to get lost in the data about leads, engagement, and campaigns. This is where buyer personas (aka customer personas) come into play.
Buyer Persona in Summary
A buyer persona helps digital marketers put the needs and wants of their target audience before their own. To answer the question according to Neil Patel, “A buyer persona is a representation of your target customer’s preferences and behavior as they shop and interact with your online business”. It’s based on real market research, real data, and of course some assumptions about your existing customers. It involves demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and even goals! The more information you can put together, the more detailed you are, the better.
Why Bother With It?
First let’s consider the following. Imagine that you are trying to market and sell a car or a smartphone. Now – if you’re trying to sell that product to a 40 year old doctor versus an 18 year old student – would your marketing message change? Of course it will – and that is why researching your customer persona is vital.
Understanding the audience that you’re going to market a product or service to, will better help you with making sales. That is the ultimate goal. Is it not? These customer personas are very important to any marketing strategy. There’s a science behind building one that requires forensic analysis of your target audience and their behaviors, patterns, similarities, and trends.
This then allows you to create a marketing and sales strategy. Why is this important? People want to feel understood and appealed to on a personal level. You’ll show them that you understand them. Understand the problems they have, the challenges, and the joys. This in turn will encourage them to keep on engaging with your business. Importantly, when people feel like you understand them and have their best interests at heart, they start to trust you. In this fast-paced, ever-changing, almost volatile economic environment, trust doesn’t come easy.
Once you know what makes them tick and what their needs are, you can provide them with targeted and relevant content. Buyer personas also tell you about what you can do to help potential customers. You’ll be able to create content that they will find useful, material that they will share, and you’ll be able to better direct your marketing efforts to a precise and targeted group. It’s important to know exactly who you’re trying to attract, reach, and eventually have become a part of your business.
The Bottom Line
A buyer personas is vital to any company hoping to successfully reach their target customers. It enables you to determine where to best focus your time and effort. As a result, you’ll be able to attract quality traffic, cash in on leads, and build a valuable customer base for your business.
Knowing is half the battle. If you’re interested in finding out more about buyer personas and how to get started, or how we can help you, don’t hesitate to contact our team of digital enablers for a free consultation.