How to Identify Your Audience + Develop Buyer Personas
By Andrea Pikscher - eGuide Content Marketing Manager
Introduction
“Cause you're working, Building a mystery…” anyone else remember that Sarah McLachlan jam? It definitely reminds me of how it feels to figure exactly who my customer might be. Sometimes it can feel like we’re just throwing darts in the dark, hoping to hit a bullseye.
However, there is one way you can start to make the path to seeing your customers a bit easier. And that’s by building a “Buyer Persona”. Or rather, identifying and creating an outline of your customer, that makes it easier to design marketing campaigns that will capture their attention. How exactly do you create a buyer persona?
Point One: Deep Dive
First things first, figure who your current customers are. Where did you find these customers? Figure out if it was through an online ad, an in person experience, word of mouth, etc. It’s great to figure out where people who already love what you’re providing them with are coming from.
If you feel like you’re struggling to find your current customer information, you can try sending surveys to your current customer base. Once you start to collect and look through the data of your current customers you’ll start getting an idea of their metrics.
Their ages, their income, their likes and dislikes. All valuable information when it comes to figuring out how best to communicate and market to your customers.
Point Two: Design Your Dream Customer
Next question: Are the customers you have the customers you ultimately want? When you dreamed of starting your own business, what kinds of clients did you have in mind?
Take a moment to think about it and build out who those people are. The more specific the better. Again, what are their ages, incomes, likes, dislikes, type of career - you can really run the gamut on what your ideal customer is made up of.
Your dream customer and current customer may match up pretty well, which is great! But it doesn’t hurt to sit down and look ahead and see whether or not you might be missing a customer group.
Point Three: Create Actual Personas
Don’t be afraid to get SPECIFIC. One of the great things about social media marketing is how specialized and specific you can get when creating ads for an audience. Meta platforms really let you pick everything from age, to income, to different items that they like.
We recommend picking 3 to 4 personas to build. Maybe build the first two off of current customers and then the next couple on future customers. And include everything: age, education level, career, income, hobbies, even things that you think are important to them.
At the end of the day the best marketing is all about finding genuine ways to connect with your consumers and customers. The more you work to figure out who those customers are and what they love, the more success you’ll have in reaching them. And not just once, but over and over again.
Point Four: Re-evaluate
We know it can seem like a ton of work to sit down and focus on building out your buyer personas for your business. And the first couple of times you do it, it might be tedious.
But if you make this a part of your standard operating procedures, you’ll have more success connecting with your customers.
Don’t be afraid to reevaluate your customer personas either. The way most any industry works nowadays feels like what raising a small child feels like at times - the second you think you have them figured out, they go through a growth spurt.
Revisiting your customer personas once a year could be a great way to make sure your marketing campaigns are still on the right track. Personas are a great way to make sure you aren’t losing touch with who your customers are.
Conclusion
While it seems like a lot of work to create a buyer persona, it actually takes out a lot of the guesswork for you. Instead of spending time and money on campaigns that you hope will work, you have a better idea of what will ACTUALLY work.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that all ads you create will grab and keep the attention of your customer/buyer, but a persona gives you a great place to start.
Help Someone. Have Fun, Be You. Learn & Teach. Finish What You Start.
