The content you make, the blog posts, videos, seminars, events are all made to attract an audience. To perform effective marketing, you have to know who you are communicating with and you should know them well. It doesn’t start with the product or the blog post, it all starts with the customer.
To this end, a buyer persona is one of the fundamentals of a successful inbound strategy. Buyer personas are semi-fictional profiles where each persona represents the ideal client for your business. The reason you can work with buyer personas, is to make the job a bit easier for you. Instead of using groups when creating content, it is easier relating to a fictional person with a recognizable name, face and a clear story that represent this group.
If you’re wondering if your business needs buyer personas or not, we can confirm that personas will benefit your company regardless of what you’re offering; b2c or b2b.
To solve your customer’s problems with your products or services, is most likely the center of your attention, and persona make it easier to adjust your focus correctly. Based on your personas you know how they are solving their issues and what solutions they want for their needs, instead of just assuming these things.
With the right personas you are able to create the content that is right for them. Tailored content will more likely lead to effectively attracting your personas and leading them into becoming your customers.
Additionally, there is also a lower chance that you get negative feedback on content and ads when content is actually something the user is looking for and wants. This in turn lowers workload and costs in the long term. In short, personas make marketing more efficient and make it easier to define customer needs.
The main difference between the two concepts is that a target group gives you information about which group is buying your products on a demographic level, a persona tells you who exactly in that group is interested in your products, and how, when and where you should talk to them.
What personas make possible, is to target all your marketing to specific customer types. These should be based on your actual customers as much as possible. But to some extent they will be fictional under the form of estimated guessing-work, depending on how much information it is possible for you to actually collect on your customers.
There are different methods of getting information about your buyer personas, and here are some practical ways:
Before starting to find your business’ personas, you should make a list of questions you want answers to. For example; what industry this person works in, which challenges he or she has in daily life, what his or her role in the company is, etc.
The data you want you can get through market research or more budget-friendly forms that you can place on your website. If, for example, you have decided that your persona is based on location, ask for information on the company’s location on the form. Also use internal data, such as how long the sales cycle is, what are the steps in sales cycle, which of your previous marketing strategies have been successful, etc. This can help to discover trends within your current customers, which will help you create your personas.
Involve your team. Your employees are in daily contact with your customers. Use their knowledge to gather relevant information for your buyer personas. For example, HR gets in contact with potential employees so they will unique insight for your business. Why do future employees find your business attractive?
Accounting perhaps speaks with your buyers and their insights of your business are therefore particularly relevant. When it comes to the questions for your personas, think together to make an extensive list of questions that are important for your business’ offer. Then start by interviewing your current customers. After your interviews you will hopefully be able to see some trends, which will allow you to bundle them into your business’ personas.
Whatever method you chose to create your buyer personas, it will offer you a great opportunity to make your communication more targeted. Your communication will go from revolving around your brand to focusing on your customer, from a customer point of view. You will be able to understand their dislikes and likes, and to gain greater insights into your customers and how to communicate with them better.
Eventually with buyer personas, your content will become much more relevant, and you will be able to create more involvement with your customer and engagement.
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