Have you ever wondered why some businesses thrive so well while many keep struggling at the base level? Well, it’s all because of the difference in marketing approach.
Marketing isn’t based on luck factor; it’s all in the strategy. If you wish to get the best return on your marketing spend, you ought to know who your customer is. In marketing, this is termed as―buyer persona.
What is a buyer persona?
A buyer persona allows you to humanise your segment of potential customers. It can be a vital step when setting up a marketing plan that actually works, as it allows you to really distinguish who your target audience is and what they will actually respond to. Using buyer personas, you get to know what your customers priorities are, what exactly motivates them and what will make them choose you over your competitors.
Unlike general demographical plans that are limited to factors such as age, city, income level etc, buy persona’s dig deeper into customers thoughts and emotions.
How does it boost your marketing?
1. It helps you convey a stronger message as you know what your customer needs are, you get your brand message tailor made.
2. It aids in minimizing the advertising waste as you get to design targeted ads.
3. It helps you discover objections.
Setting up your buyer persona
These 5 steps are good starting points when setting up a buyer persona for your customer profile:
Get personal: Get to know your customers on a personal level. Asking questions as what they like or what they do help you get more personal and relevant information. You can ask about their background, daily activities, goals and aspirations, problems, way to reach them etc. Get details that will be helpful in creating the buyer persona as suiting your business.
Do some social research: Browse through some social networking sites, forums and other social platforms to know what the customer looks for or what he is more interested in.
Create a preface customer profile: Look at your primary customer data and collect general characteristics relating to your business. It could be any relevant information as gender, age, education level, marital status, or any other.
Ask questions and promote feedback: Interaction with customers is one great way of knowing what their thoughts are, what problems are they facing and what seeks their interest the most. This could be done by creating questionnaire. SurveyMonkey, SurveyMoz and FluidSurveys are some of the free online survey and questionnaire services. Here you even get to target the non-customers which apparently increase your chances of getting more of potential leads.
Analyze and act: With the help of buyer persona, your marketing strategy will be able to target specific problems as experienced by your customers. Get to know what issues they may be experiencing and design ways to deal with them.
Creating buyer personas is not an end result, it’s a process. It should be frequently evaluated to make sure you stay on top of varying trends and demographics.