I’ve written about the importance of having buyer personas to use as the foundation of your business marketing. However, they don’t do you any good if they’re not on target. So how do you make sure you have it right? And how do you get there in the first place?
Easy.
But you have to do the work.
How Do You Know if Your Buyer Persona is Wrong?
How did the prince know that the wicked stepsisters weren’t his Cinderella? Easy. The shoe didn’t fit. The same is true of your marketing and your buyer persona. If you create a persona, and use it for your marketing and you’re not seeing that needle move in traffic and engagement, you don’t have the right fit.
So what do you do? Go back to the drawing board?
Yes.
Getting the Buyer Persona Right
Look at your customer data, the data for your most loyal customers. The ones who return over and over again, who refer friends to you, and who upgrade their purchases on a fairly regular basis. Analyze their demographics. What do they all have in common? What’s their gender? Age group? Where are they on social media?
Next, move onto their buying patterns. What do your most loyal customers all seem to do?
You can even ask them a few poll questions to get to know them better.
Once you know these things it’s time to apply your corrected knowledge about your ideal customers and extrapolate what you can from a wider perspective. If you know your ideal customer is a Millennial woman with no children, for instance, try to figure out where they are and what they like to do. Study the language they use by studying people on the Internet or among your followers who are in that demographic, even if they’ve never purchased from you.
Find a friend or relative in that demographic and ask them questions about what they need and want.
Buyer personas are incredibly powerful in helping you personalize your company message but if you don’t have them right, the shoe just isn’t going to fit and neither will your marketing.
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