Remington Begg
As any good marketer knows, you can't target everyone if you want a successful campaign. And as a marketer you probably have an idea of whom your ideal customers are. To be truly successful in this world of constant noise and interruption, you need to hyper-target your messages to your company's different Buyer Personas.
What is a Buyer Persona?
Buyer Personas are fictional characters that represent a specific customer group with similar demographics, pain-points, job roles, and use specific industry terminology. As a marketer, you'll use this information to create content that communicates directly to these different groups. By finding out what is important to them your company will more accurately be able to deliver a message and product that solves their problem.
During the important buyer personas creation phase, which never truly ends, you'll discover that you probably have several different types of customers. Many companies have trouble segmenting their marketing messages and materials to fit each buyer persona they have. One brochure, one style of blog writing, one specific vocabulary won't work. Craft your messages to target each buyer persona. The results will be worth the effort.
Don't Generalize
Most prospective customers encounter general marketing messages when searching for products. Those usually consist of bottom of the funnel messages like; Buy Now, Save 30%, Best Widget Ever! The public has become increasingly good at ignoring these interruptive messages. People aren't going to buy something immediately after hearing about it. When only blasting out bottom of the funnel messages you're reaching people that aren't in need of your services, you're only hitting a small percentage that have already been through the awareness and consideration stage of their buyer's journey. Now, more than ever, consumers do online research, compare products, and read reviews or forums about others' experiences before buying. Target your messages to the specific people (buyer personas) looking for the solution your product can provide.
Personalize Your Messaging
Create personalizing content that answers the questions of your would-be customers. Use photos, verbiage, design elements, anything that relates to each specific buyer persona segment. If you found out you have a Soccer Mom persona and a Weekend Warrior persona, use language and solutions that personally speaks to each one specifically. Interview these types of customers, find out what drives or interests them. Find out where they shop, how they spend their free time, study the types of verbiage they use when speaking to you, what they would Google to find you. All of these things will help you personalize your messaging to this specific buyer persona groups.
They Will Thank You!
Customers actively research products online to fulfill their needs, wants, and fix their problems. Your company needs to be the one that shows up when they are doing their research. Do that by creating remarkable content that is hyper-targeted to those buyer personas. Buy Now, Save 30% doesn't work. Because you know your buyer persona's pain-points you'll be able to create this content that address their needs, wants, and problems.
It's about the why, not that want.
For example, let's say you sell scrapbooking materials and Soccer Mom Sally is one of your buyer personas. One of Sally's pain-points is she is always short on time and isn't able to do as much scrapbooking as she would like. As a scrapbooking company, you could create a blog campaign for this persona based on saving time. Blog ideas might be "How to Save 33 minutes a Day by Idea Mapping," or "Online Scrapbooking Ideas for the Busy Mom."
Solve their problems and make life easier, they will thank you by becoming a customer.
Gone are the days of broadcast out your message to anyone and everyone. Good marketers are targeting base on demographics and customer profiles, great marketers are targeting buyer personas and solving their problems with information. Hyper-target and customize your marketing content to your specific buyer personas. Not only will the results show in the bottom line, but your customers will love you for it.
