https://www.moveaheadmedia.co.th/google-ads/shopping/We all know the golden rule of marketing: “know your customer.” However, many marketers feel they know their customers but have a hard time describing them. Linguist and former U.S. Senator S. I. Hayakawa, in his famous book, “Language in Thought and Action,” expressed the importance of language in clarifying thought: if you don’t know how to express a concept in words, you don’t really understand that concept, since part of the process of understanding something is being able to verbalize it. That’s why it’s so important to paint a verbal picture of your target customer – a marketing persona.
Hubspot, a pioneer in providing marketing analytics and inbound marketing platforms, defines a buyer persona as “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”
The idea is to create a very clear and detailed mental image of the person most likely to buy your product or service. The purpose is to understand your target customer better so that every marketing communications effort your company makes is hyper-targeted to appeal to that ideal customer. Experts like San Jose SEO Company specialize in leveraging such insights to optimize online visibility and engagement, aligning your brand with the needs and preferences of your ideal customers for maximum impact.
Chances are good that you have more than one type of target customer. Therefore, you’ll have multiple marketing personas, each one serving as a generalized description of a category of customer you’re aiming for. Presenting your customers with clear, concise, and branded signage is also crucial when establishing your business identity. Whether it’s storefront displays, promotional banners, or directional signs, partnering with a reputable sign company cincinnati can ensure your message is communicated effectively. Visit https://iconsigns.co.nz to read more.
There are aids online to help develop marketing personas by posing questions for you to answer about the motivations, characteristics, lifestyle and environment of that category of customer. Examples of questions include the target audience’s age range, sex, income level, education level, industry, job title, company size, geographic area, biggest challenges and pain points, job responsibilities and sources of information. According to this white label digital marketing agency the best way to answer these questions is to start by doing research about your customers, or potential ideal customers.
Primary research, consisting of interviews with and/or surveys of your existing customers, is very important. You can make it a standard procedure to contact customers after they make a purchase, or after you provide a service, to get feedback on your company, and at the same time, find out more about their needs, likes, biggest problems and sources of information. Secondary research is available online, some of it at no cost, using digital tools such as Google Analytics, to find out more about potential customers who visit your website. For example, Google Analytics will reveal the most common geographic locations of your site visitors. You can also use Google Shopping Thailand services to make sure customers can view your products on Google above the search results.
Your Marketing Specialist can also gather data from your social media platforms showing the demographics of those who follow you, your company or brand. An example is the ability on LinkedIn to view analytics on who has viewed your profile. You can also get data on who has viewed your posts, articles you’ve uploaded and SlideShare presentations you add to your profile. (Go to “Me” on the menu of your homepage, and under “manage,” click on posts and activity. You’ll see a chart icon with a number next to it. The number is how many people viewed that post or article. If you click on the chart, you’ll find information about those people. LinkedIn notes that advanced analytics on your articles are available for two years after publication.)
Here’s a very good article from Inc. magazine about personas with advice on how to conduct research online in order to build personas.
Once you’ve collected some research about your target audiences, you can access online tools for developing personas to help build a marketing persona for each of your key audience segments. Here’s Hubspot’s, and here’s one from the Alexa Blog.
Personas will help you and your team keep your target customers in mind when creating marketing content (website, email marketing, advertising, articles, white papers, etc.) It also helps when developing an “earned” media relations program – the person building a list of media to contact need only think about what media each persona would consume, and when selecting which media are most appropriate for paid media (ads and paid/sponsored content).
If you’d like help building personas, the Public Relations Boutiques International network has PR and marketing communications experts around the world with the expertise you need.
Example of two personas for a heritage seed company:
Person #1: Urban Gardener Kate
Age: 34
She lives in: Chicago
Occupation: Banking
Hobbies: Gardening, dancing, cooking
Income: $145,000/year
Where she gets her product information: Online websites and search engines, gardening e-newsletter, consumer catalogues, women’s service magazines
Education level: MBA
Pain points: 1) she’s always working late and doesn’t have enough time to spend on her balcony garden; 2) local gardening shops have very small selection of merchandise and exorbitantly expensive
Persona #2: Farmer Pete
Age: 50
He lives in: Richland County, Wisconsin
Occupation: Farmer — family farm
Hobbies: hunting, fishing, photography
Income: $75,000/year
Where he gets his product information: Farm supply stores, catalogues, other farmers, online websites and search engines, trade media for farmers, regional newspaper
Education level: college graduate
Pain points: 1) not enough help — parents now gone, siblings moved away, kids in college, hard to get farm laborers; 2) money always tight — retail stores like Agway too expensive; 3) GMO issue becoming difficult and costly