Marketing to Your Buyer Personas
Marketing to Your Buyer Personas
The idea behind creating a buyer persona is to understand the wants and needs of a common group of people. Once you understand what's important to any particular customer group, you stand a much better chance of getting them to act on a marketing communication.
Defining the most prominent buyer personas for your target market is essential to understanding their specific needs and wants. Your marketing communications can be better targeted if they speak to the problems and issues experienced by your various personas.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose you own a roofing company that targets commercial roofing jobs. By looking at your various customers, you realize you can group them into the following personas.
• Real Estate Property Managers
• Commercial Building Supervisors
• Office Building Managers
• Institutional Building Managers (schools, hospitals, etc.)
Each of these customer groups may have specific needs as it relates to roofing maintenance, replacement and repair. By learning as much as you can about these customer groups, you can better focus your core marketing message and promotional offers for building trust, credibility and profits.
You may find your business only has a couple of buyer personas or you may find you have a dozen or so. The quantity is not important. What is important is your ability to define them clearly.
Defining Your Buyer Personas
The key to defining your buyer personas is to look at your customer data and find ways to group common characteristics. Pull up your favorite word processing program and start writing short biographies on your customer personas. Break your customers down into well defined buying categories as best you can. You don't have to be perfect here, just do the best job with the current data you have. Buyer persona profiles can contain age, gender, income level, occupation, education level, hobbies, and anything else you can think of.
If you're a B-to-B company, then it may make better sense for you to create corporate personas instead of buyer personas. A corporate persona can segment based on industry, number of employees, revenue levels, and any other characteristic that applies to your business.
Once you have defined your buyer persona categories, the next step is to actually write a short biography on each one. You are not describing any one particular customer, but a composite of all customers that make up that persona.
My website is designed for home-based and small business owners that want to increase their profits using strategic marketing techniques. Here’s an example of one of my buyer personas. Note that I have given the persona a title and have written a short composite biography.
The Local Brick-and-Mortar Business Owner
The Local Business Owner has a small business storefront in their community that does well. They are relatively happy with their earnings but have this nagging feeling that business could be double what it is now. They feel that they could market their business more but are reluctant to spend lots of money on direct mail. While they currently have a website, it is more of a static entity rather than a proactive tool in growing their business. They would love to start a comprehensive marketing program but need to be assured that their investment would produce the required results.
The Self-Starting WAHM
The Self-Starting WAHM is the creative Work-At-Home-Mom that has a small internet business she runs part-time. While she has done a great job and getting her business off the ground, she realizes that she needs help optimizing her web pages for the search engines and testing new offers to see which ones perform the best. With her limited work schedule, she knows she needs help but is hesitant to invest a large amount of money hiring a consultant.
In the above two examples, do you see how I might change my marketing message depending on whether I was communicating to The Local Brick-and-Mortar Business Owner as opposed to the Self-Starting WAHM? My core marketing message and call-to-action would be very different.
You’re never quite done crafting your personas. As you learn more about your customers through surveys and other forms of feedback, you’ll be able to better define and create compelling messages that will connect directly with the needs and wants of each group.
Take the time to learn and build upon your Buyer Personas. It’s truly the first step in creating targeted high-impact communications.
Marketing to Your Buyer Personas - To learn more about this author, visit Corte Swearingen's Website.
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A Buyer Persona is a group of people that share similar demographics and interests. In the 1996 Presidential election, the Clinton campaign went after a group of voters they felt were the key to the election – the Soccer Mom.
The idea behind creating a buyer persona is to understand the wants and needs of a common group of people. Once you understand what's important to any particular customer group, you stand a much better chance of getting them to act on a marketing communication.
Defining the most prominent buyer personas for your target market is essential to understanding their specific needs and wants. Your marketing communications can be better targeted if they speak to the problems and issues experienced by your various personas.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose you own a roofing company that targets commercial roofing jobs. By looking at your various customers, you realize you can group them into the following personas.
• Real Estate Property Managers
• Commercial Building Supervisors
• Office Building Managers
• Institutional Building Managers (schools, hospitals, etc.)
Each of these customer groups may have specific needs as it relates to roofing maintenance, replacement and repair. By learning as much as you can about these customer groups, you can better focus your core marketing message and promotional offers for building trust, credibility and profits.
You may find your business only has a couple of buyer personas or you may find you have a dozen or so. The quantity is not important. What is important is your ability to define them clearly.
Defining Your Buyer Personas
The key to defining your buyer personas is to look at your customer data and find ways to group common characteristics. Pull up your favorite word processing program and start writing short biographies on your customer personas. Break your customers down into well defined buying categories as best you can. You don't have to be perfect here, just do the best job with the current data you have. Buyer persona profiles can contain age, gender, income level, occupation, education level, hobbies, and anything else you can think of.
If you're a B-to-B company, then it may make better sense for you to create corporate personas instead of buyer personas. A corporate persona can segment based on industry, number of employees, revenue levels, and any other characteristic that applies to your business.
Once you have defined your buyer persona categories, the next step is to actually write a short biography on each one. You are not describing any one particular customer, but a composite of all customers that make up that persona.
My website is designed for home-based and small business owners that want to increase their profits using strategic marketing techniques. Here’s an example of one of my buyer personas. Note that I have given the persona a title and have written a short composite biography.
The Local Brick-and-Mortar Business Owner
The Local Business Owner has a small business storefront in their community that does well. They are relatively happy with their earnings but have this nagging feeling that business could be double what it is now. They feel that they could market their business more but are reluctant to spend lots of money on direct mail. While they currently have a website, it is more of a static entity rather than a proactive tool in growing their business. They would love to start a comprehensive marketing program but need to be assured that their investment would produce the required results.
The Self-Starting WAHM
The Self-Starting WAHM is the creative Work-At-Home-Mom that has a small internet business she runs part-time. While she has done a great job and getting her business off the ground, she realizes that she needs help optimizing her web pages for the search engines and testing new offers to see which ones perform the best. With her limited work schedule, she knows she needs help but is hesitant to invest a large amount of money hiring a consultant.
In the above two examples, do you see how I might change my marketing message depending on whether I was communicating to The Local Brick-and-Mortar Business Owner as opposed to the Self-Starting WAHM? My core marketing message and call-to-action would be very different.
You’re never quite done crafting your personas. As you learn more about your customers through surveys and other forms of feedback, you’ll be able to better define and create compelling messages that will connect directly with the needs and wants of each group.
Take the time to learn and build upon your Buyer Personas. It’s truly the first step in creating targeted high-impact communications.
Marketing to Your Buyer Personas - To learn more about this author, visit Corte Swearingen's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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