Understanding buyer personas is the best way to identify your target customer
Who would have thought wanting their coffee scalding hot was a unique attribute for building a persona. That's exactly how we defined a buyer type with a client who we have helped build their business with.
They say knowledge is power, and this certainly is the case if you’re looking to create powerful ad or content marketing campaigns.
The better you know your audience, the more effectively you’ll be able to reach them. In my experience running an e-commerce store, I’ve found that the best way to market effectively is by first taking the time to identify my target audience and then looking to create campaigns that directly speak to them. With people today being exposed to up to 10,000 marketing messages daily, it’s more important than ever to stand out from the crowd.
Your key to creating customized and effective content is researching your target customer and then distilling that information into what’s known as a customer persona, or avatar.
While there are lots of ways to get the word out about your products, none of them will be very effective if you don’t take the time to create your customer profile first. With this in mind, here’s how you can go about identifying and speaking to your customer personas.
Here are a few questions that you can ask when creating your customer avatar:
| How old are they? |
| Are they married? |
| Do they have kids? |
| What’s their job title? |
| What is their income? |
| Where do they live? |
| Where do they get their news? |
| Which social media platforms do they use? |
| What are their goals? |
| What are their values? |
| What challenges do they face? |
| What are their pain points? |
| How do they decide to spend their money? |
The goal is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and look to create a detailed profile for them. If you’re not sure what information to use, check out Neil Patel’s guide to creating accurate customer personas.
Craft Your Message
Creating targeted messages isn’t just a good idea, it’s what people want. Just over half (52%) of consumers say they’re likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize its communications.
Once you know who you’re talking to, you can work to align your voice with them, creating content and campaigns that will resonate. At this stage of the game, you’ll want to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself, “What type of things are they interested in?”
This is where your research will come full circle:
• If you’ve identified their pain points, you can speak to them, helping them to solve problems that they’re facing or showing them how your product can help.
• If you’ve identified their interests, you can work these into your content.
• If you know how they spend their money — whether they’re frugal, free-spending or influenced by friends and family — you can gauge how to create your sales copy.
Here is an easy to use guide for building customer personas.
