Building Personas and Putting Them to Work
One of the requests we receive most often is a client requesting help with getting a message or promotion in front of current or potential customers or recruiting people to become members of an organization. Finding people and putting a message in front of them - that they will actually read and deem relevant - is a challenge for every organization, whether you’re selling widgets or recruiting members to help your organization save an endangered species.
If this conversation comes up frequently in your organization, today is your lucky day! We’re sharing some helpful hints and tips to clearly identify your target audience and how to engage with them on the world wide web.
Often times we talk with clients who have a promotion, message, or campaign that they’ve designed or created and they want to know how to place it in front of the right audience. For those who have a clear understanding of their target audience, you might be able to get away with this occasionally, but most of us need to have our target audience in mind before putting together the creative. For this reason, we strongly encourage our clients to develop personas. Depending on the service or product you want to focus on, your target audience might change slightly. Creating a persona is a great way to do this!
What is a persona? Great question! Personas are created to bring life to your target audience. Maybe you know your target audience is single women between 35-44 living in the midwest who make between $50-75k. A persona turns your demographic data into a real person. This takes some imagination and a little time, but makes your communications efforts easier and generally more effective. To create the persona, start with the above demographic data and begin imagining this person in your head. Where does she live and work? What does she drive? What are her hobbies? What does she spend her money on? What type of music does she listen to? Where does she shop? What does she eat? Does she have friends and family? Who are they? How often does she see them?
Imagining your target audience as an actual, individual person moves your marketing message from a blanket statement to an intimate conversation. Despite our culture’s increasing dependence on mobile devices and social media, people are desperate for personal connection. And as a small business owner, this is a big advantage you have over big box stores. Capitalizing on your ability to create a more personalized communications strategy has the potential to pay off in big ways.
Once you have your persona(s) in place, you can better identify where to find your customers online and how to reach them, but before we get to that, we want to make sure that you are communicating and reaching your current customers effectively. If you take only one thing away from this blog post, effectively communicating with your current customers should be it! Here’s our quick advice for retaining your current customers:
Communicate with them regularly, but don’t regularly try to sell to them. What?! Yep, you heard us right. Every day, individuals are bombarded with thousands of messages and sales pitches. Go high. Build a rapport with your customer that helps them see you as a helpful resource and industry expert. Provide them with helpful tips, information they can use immediately, and resources they can’t get anywhere else.
Invest in a good customer management software or create your own that works for you. CRM (customer relationship management) software can be expensive. If you’re just starting off, many email marketing programs can give you a semi-CRM experience. You might have to supplement with Excel or Google Sheets, but this is the most important step. Start keeping track of your current customers.
Show them your appreciation. Often times, organizations overlook current members or customers in promotions because they’re trying to attract new individuals; however, your current customers or members are your BEST marketing tool! Regularly show them your appreciation, ensure your customer service team is the best of the best, and never take them for granted.
If you’re team has mastered the art of customer or member retention and you’re looking to grow, here are a few ways to put your personas to use and find your target audience online:
With your persona(s) in mind, create some new audiences when you place your next round of social media ads, especially on Facebook and Instagram. As you’re creating these audiences, match the demographic, geographic, and especially the psychographic options to your persona. Psychographics include things like your persona’s hobbies, interests, etc. and can be especially important to help you hone in to your target audience.
Consider partner or co-op marketing or advertising with another business that provides complementary services or products. For example, if your business sells picture frames and there’s an art gallery in your town that sells paintings and prints, consider approaching the owner about holding a gallery night where you share promotion expenses or exploring the possibility of co-op advertising (digital or traditional). For a fraction of your typical cost, you can expand your reach and grow your customer base.
Meet your potential customers or members where they are. Review your persona(s) again and determine if your target audience may not even be on social media - or perhaps they are more inclined to use a specific social media platform. They might also frequently be visiting specific websites. Learning more about what those are and regularly reviewing your digital advertising analytics can help you focus your efforts in the right direction.
Still not sure where to start or how to work through this process? Contact us here anytime - we’re happy to help!