Do you think that your marketing campaigns are not having the desired effect?
Even if you try really hard, and have great campaign copy, you might not get many responses. This could mean that you’re wasting money on marketing strategies that don’t have a high return on investment.
It’s undeniable that businesses today have to break through a lot of noise to get a prospective buyer’s attention.
Since we’re barraged with so many marketing messages every day, it’s tough to make sure that your organic marketing stands out.
It is not surprising that people trust recommendations from people they know or customer reviews more than advertising.
A friend who genuinely has our best interests at heart will usually be able to provide a more convincing endorsement than a salesperson whose only motivation is earning commission from the sale. Furthermore, when friends and family give us referrals, the language they use will naturally be based on what they know of our preferences.
You should test different messages to see what resonates with your audience. However, don’t make assumptions about what they want to hear.
If you want your company to stand out and convince potential customers to buy from you, you’ll need to create buyer personas.
What Are Buyer Personas?
You can use this knowledge to better design your products. In an interview, Alan Cooper defines personas in a way that is both insightful and clever. He says that personas are simply a cast of characters in certain plays and your job is to know how to dress them following their role. He adds that persona encloses a distinct set of behavioral patterns that you can anticipate during the analysis of interview data and hence. You can use this knowledge to better design your products.
Now, imagine that you have no idea what your relative likes and you have no clue what to give them. You may feel frustrated in this situation because you want to give them a gift that they will like, but you don’t know what that is.
You will begin by scrolling through all of the potential gifts you could get, then eventually narrow it down to three or four possible choices. You will ultimately choose one based on your prior knowledge of the birthday party person. If you know them well enough, you will be able to pick something they will be interested in. However, if you do not know them well enough, you will likely fail to pick the right gift and end up offering something they do not value.
It’s no wonder that so many of us love getting a gift card. Now imagine the same situation, but with a large number of people, all expecting that you bring them the right gift. It’s no wonder that so many of us love getting a gift card when we have to buy gifts for a large group of people.
Businesses are constantly selling products and services to people who are not family or friends, but rather customers who come to their site. The question is, how can they make sure to give these customers the right information and products they want, and give them an experience that they will enjoy?
Businesses always have this problem. They might take care of one group of people’s needs, but ignore everyone else.
The Power of Personas
Personas creation is only as powerful as the information used to create them. Obviously, personas creation requires a lot of attention to detail and sophistication, but most importantly, believability.
Alan Cooper, in his book “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum”, said that “the great power of personas is in their precision and specificity”. He believes that dealing in aggregates reduces this power.
Marketers and designers often fail to meet the needs of their customers by including too much unnecessary information in their personas. It’s important to remember the objective of the persona and focus on the details that are most important in understanding the motivations and obstacles your website visitors face.
Do Buyer Personas Work?
Travel brand Eindhoven365 decided they needed a stronger understanding of the people they were targeting through their marketing campaigns. They wanted to learn the decision-making behavior of three key segments:
- City Explorers who visit Eindhoven
- Bright Talent who study and work in the city
- Tech Starters who establish and scale innovative businesses there
Through extensive research and analysis, as well as interviews with representatives of their target audience, they gained valuable insights into each of their segments and what tactics are needed to reach them.
For example, here’s what they discovered about Tech Starters:
- They’re tricky to convince to relocate, meaning that lead nurturing is vital.
- They care about the politics and economic stability of the country, so the marketing campaigns need to highlight and solve this.
- They crave motivational support, so connecting them with leaders is beneficial.
Eindhoven365 is now using its buyer personas to create content that is relevant to its target audience, as well as implementing marketing automation software to help deliver this content.
Having buyer personas helps you to align your sales pitch with what would be most persuasive to a particular buyer based on their situation.
Marketers who do not know the specific wants, needs, preferences, and experiences of their target customers must use general language in their ads in order to connect with some of them.
Personas for Better Marketing Campaigns
You’ve put a lot of effort into creating your buyer persona documents, so don’t just let them languish at the bottom of your Google Drive.
To immediately start improving your marketing campaigns, follow these steps.
The first issue people face when trying to segment a market is with research. In the digital era, it is easier to collect data, but it is more difficult to find information that is meaningful. How can I use my analytic data and my survey data together to get a better understanding of my customer base?
I would recommend that you read our guide on this topic before continuing with this article.
The different tactics that can be used to collect meaningful data are as follows: – Starting with a broad focus and then narrowing in on specific details. – Asking questions that are specific and well defined. – Paraphrasing and rephrasing questions to ensure that they are clear. – Taking accurate notes and recording data accurately. – Checking for understanding regularly throughout the data collection process.
- Surveys
- Polls
- Focus Groups
- Usability Studies/Tests
- Customer Interviews
- Quantitative Data
- Analytics
- Heatmaps
- Video Recording
- AB Testing
- Social Media Analysis
- Zipcode Analysis (Census Data).
The data collected and the observations about the market can be used to identify specific segments based on trends. This is not an easy task and requires a team with different members to map and categorize the data.
You can group your target market segments in different ways, depending on the product or service you offer. The more detailed your segmentation, the more successful you will be.
- Psychographic: Group them based on social status, lifestyle, personality type, and cultural commonalities.
- Decision Makers: Group your customers based on who makes the final purchase decision. This is especially relevant for b2b.
- Behavioral: With so much behavioral data, grouping them based on how they navigate the site, their tech savviness, how much they use an app, etc. is also a very good way of Grouping customers by product usage. For example; light, medium, or heavy users. This stage also factors in brand loyalty and the type of user.
- Geographic: Because you collect geographic data through the census and zip code analysis you conducted, this may be helpful. Grouping them depending on the region can also lead to socioeconomic grouping by default since most small regions have that commonality.
- Distribution: Grouping visitors on the way they prefer to receive your product is preferable. Another grouping within this description can include how they contact, renew, and cancel (via phone, web, chat, little to no interaction with us, much interaction, etc)
- Demographic: The most common grouping, which can be dangerous because grouping by demographic only is not granular enough, but a starting point. Demographics include age, income level, gender, family size, religion, race, nationality, language, etc.
- Don’t define your segments too broadly. This will give you a greater opening to a competitor who targets more narrowly.
- Organize your business by market segments. Many begin by establishing market-focused teams or groups which later get organized into a market-focused business model.
- Manage your segments globally. Sometimes a regional organization can set you up to be blind-sided later by a more dynamic global economy.
- Complete your analysis and research (strategic market segment portfolio), then be bold about attacking those segments.
This text is talking about the importance of working in a group when analyzing data. The author says that it is difficult to draw conclusions from data alone, and that it is better to have more than one person looking at the data.
Identify Prospects by Persona, Right from Your First Interaction
You will be able to more effectively use your buyer personas if you develop methods to classify prospects accordingly. This way you can tailor sales pitches and marketing materials more closely to the type of prospect you are dealing with.
Before you can begin to target your customers in a way that will make them convert, you need to understand who they are. The best way to do this is to ask questions during your first interaction with them. This will help you to understand them better and target them more specifically.
If the prospect responds with something like, “We get a lot of traffic but no one ever contacts us,” then Mark knows he’s dealing with someone who needs help generating leads. Mark should ask the prospect what their biggest problem is with their current website so that he can get an idea of what kind of help they need.
If the prospect says that they are struggling to get new customers, Mark might assume that they are a ‘Maggie Manager’ type and adjust his sales pitch to focus on the financial benefits of having a new website.
If the prospective client says that their current website looks outdated, the salesperson could focus on the features of the salesperson’s platform that would appeal to someone who owns their own business.
Track Leads More Effectively in Your CRM
If you take the time to classify your sales prospects into different buyer personas, you should also track this information to help them move through the marketing funnel. However, a handwritten note on a scrap of paper is not the best way to do this.
A customer relationship management system that has a custom picklist field for buyer personas can be useful so that you can easily see which type of marketing content or sales strategy would be most effective for the customer.
Final Thoughts
Personas help you understand your customers and how your product best suits them.
The purpose of creating buyer personas is to make your sales content and marketing messages more relatable to real people. After you’ve developed your personas, involve your sales and field teams in using them to collect data and get the most out of them.
If you do the following, your advertising and marketing messages will be more effective and likely result in sales.
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