You have a solid mission statement. Your online presence is broad. You’re producing stellar content. You’re tweeting, posting, blogging, pinning, etc. So where are all your leads?
It could be a very simple answer—you’re marketing to the wrong audience. Once you have established what your purpose is, you need to narrow down whom you want to reach. Developing your buyer personas is the #1 step many folks miss when creating a marketing strategy.
YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER
Start by making a list of who your ideal customer is. The more specific you can be in your assessment of your ideal customer, the better. As you develop and fine-tune your buyer personas, you will start to understand what drives them to start shopping, what attracts them, what keeps them from pulling the trigger to purchase. You can get very specific with your list by answering the following types of questions:
- Where do they live?
- What is their age?
- What is their gender?
- What is their education level?
- Where do they work?
- What is their income?
- What are their interests/hobbies?
Once this first part is determined, it’s time to start talking about the psychology of your personas. What are their fears? What are their motivators? What makes them feel fulfilled? Or upset? Your process will eventually lead you to understand where they like to gather online, what type of content will be the most engaging with them, as well as what will turn them off.
HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF ONE OF OUR MARKETER PERSONAS:
MAKE YOUR PERSONAS BELIEVABLE
Don’t be afraid to give your personas names and real-life characteristics to help you bring them to life. Because the better you understand who you’re trying to reach, the more likely you are to uncover exactly what they want to read/engage with. And engaging, useful content is exactly what attracts and retains people’s business.
PRO TIP:
Thanks to tools like Facebook Graph Search and Twitter Search, you can be very specific in your engagement, narrowing down exactly who you want to target. Now when you run a Facebook ad or a promoted Tweet, you have a better chance of reaching your intended audience.
