In my last blog
we talked about the first question you must answer to help keep you from struggling
to market your business, or even get it off the ground:
What problem are you solving?
As I said in my last blog:
“You’re selling your
product or service because you’re solving a problem, or problems, for your
customers”.
Once again, I want you to read that last sentence!
Knowing that answer sets you up to answer the next
important question:
Who
Is Your Ideal Customer?
Who exactly are your customers? Whose problem(s) are
you solving?
And it doesn’t matter what you sell, your
target isn’t ‘everyone’. Not
everyone needs what you sell, nor can you reach everyone that needs it.
You’re going to invest a lot of time and money getting
the word out about your good or service, so your marketing plan needs to be
specific.
You have to be more specific about whom you’re marketing
so that you’re ROI on your advertising dollars is higher.
You need to know Your Ideal Customer Persona.
A customer persona is a semi-fictional representation
of your ideal customer, or customer set. It’s the segment of the market you’re
trying to reach.
To do this you need to do some basic market research.
And you don’t need to be a giant corporation to do this. There is information
readily available to you right in front of you.
Look at your customer database or sales records.
Interview customers when they are in the store. Send out surveys. There are
many other ways that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
Use website forms and social media platforms to
capture important customer information.
Quora.com – see the most common questions for your
niche.
Facebook Groups – review profiles of group members.
Online Marketplaces & Review Sites such as Amazon, Yelp, Udemy,
AppStore etc.
Google Analytics – review demographic &
interest reports.
Facebook Analytics – review demographic reports.
YouTube Analytics – review demographic reports.
This research will give you real data about your prospective
and existing customers, and the problem(s) you’re solving for them. This is the
person for whom you’re creating your content, products, or service.
Your ideal customer persona is not a real person but
an aggregate of your ideal customers’ traits. Not everyone will have the exact
set of traits you list, but they will fall in there somewhere.
Knowing your ideal customer persona will allow you to
personalize and/or target your marketing for different segments of your
audience. This means you may have multiple customer personas.
You’ll need to discover:
- What problem(s) your customers are trying to solve
- What their demographics are
- What problems you can help solve
- And where they’re going now to get help
By knowing these things about your customers, you
won’t be sending the same lead nurturing emails or other marketing campaigns to
everyone in your database. You can segment by customer persona and tailor your
messaging accordingly.
Developing a customer persona results in stronger and
more cost effective marketing. It allows you to convey a more tailored message,
minimize advertising waste, and even discover objections holding back customers.
Keep in mind, remember your buyer persona is a
theory. Test this theory with the feedback and data you’ll collect about
your audience as you grow.
You can now get the right message, to the right people,
at the right
time!
It starts by spending a little time identifying Who Your Ideal
Customer Persona is.
We can help!
For more information about
how The Cobalt Group can help you identify your ideal customer persona, or any
business or leadership challenges you are facing, Contact
us.
We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a
discussion.
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