In the world of digital marketing, buyer personas are key. In addition to helping you create targeted, highly effective digital content that appeals to your unique customers, buyer personas also serve to improve the relationship between a company and its customers. Unfortunately, many people aren’t sure how to go about creating buyer personas. Luckily, it’s not nearly as difficult as it sounds. Read on to learn more.
What is a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a hypothetical profile that companies create to represent a target audience. The persona signifies a certain section of the customer base and can be changed, added to, or updated as needed. It is not uncommon for companies to create several different target personas to represent all of their various customer segments.
Why Buyer Personas Matter for Digital Marketing
According to HubSpot, using buyer personas makes websites an average of 2-5 times more effective, than if these details were not taken into consideration. Because the process of building marketing personas allows a company to clearly define its customers’ needs, it lays the foundation for targeted marketing content both now and in the future. This, in turn, creates a more positive user experience.
5 Steps To Creating Buyer Personas
1. Name Your Persona
That’s right – you’re going to name your target persona. Whether its name is “Jane Doe”, “Marketing Mary” or “Subject Steve”, naming your persona makes the process personal. You’ll also want to compile the following information about your persona:
- Age
- Gender
- Job description
- Annual income
- Marital status
- Goals/fears/objections
2. Define Your Persona’s Need
Think, for a moment, about Marketing Mary. Marketing Mary isn’t very tech-savvy. She seldom uses computers and has a difficult time adopting new devices, but she needs a simple content management solution to help her run her business. Marketing Mary needs simplicity, approachability, and support.
By defining your persona’s primary needs, you set yourself up to develop products to fill it.
3. Define The Pain Points
Marketing Mary wants simplicity, but she’s also price-sensitive. How are you going to communicate a message of value to her? When you define your persona’s pain points, you gain a deeper understanding of their purchasing habits, which makes it easier to address their needs effectively.
4. Understand Their Communication Channels
While Marketing Mary still talks on the phone, Subject Steve gets all of his information from Twitter. While your personas’ preferred communication channels will vary, understanding what they are can ensure that you’re delivering a targeted message on the appropriate channels.
5. Develop Your Elevator Pitch
The elevator pitch is your five-second value proposition: For example, “Simple user-friendly content management solutions that won’t break the bank.” Including this in your buyer persona gives your future digital content a foundation from which to spring.
Marketing Personas: A Critical Tool
For your digital marketing to produce the ROI you want, it’s essential to develop quality marketing personas. In addition to improving your content and honing your marketing message, this simple process will also afford you a deeper understanding of your valuable customers.
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