You might have heard the warning,
“When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.” – Meredith Hill
There is nowhere that is truer than in your sales copy. You want to be speaking to one person when you write. Not a type of person or group of people, but one very specific person.
You can’t market effectively without knowing who that ideal customer is. Creating an ideal customer persona is an essential first step in any marketing strategy, and it’s especially important for small businesses that can’t afford to waste time and money on marketing that doesn’t reach their target audience.
Creating an accurate and complete customer persona will help you to better understand the needs of your target audience and make better decisions when developing your marketing strategy, copy, and design. With a well-constructed ideal customer persona, you can also choose more targeted marketing campaigns that provide better results for your business.
Ideal Customer Workbook
Figure out exactly who you are selling your product or service to with the Ideal Customer Workbook. Answer the questions, figure out which words they love and which they hate, and get ready to write targeted copy. 9 pages.
BONUS #1: Includes the presentation slides from Before You Write: Defining Your Ideal Customer, with six ways to find words that will connect with your ideal customer. 10 slides.
BONUS #2: 20 questions to use while interviewing your customers to help you develop an ideal customer persona.
What is a customer persona?
A customer persona, ideal customer, or customer avatar is a fictional representation of your customer. By creating a customer persona, you can get a better understanding of who your target customer is, what their needs are, and how you can best reach them.
Actionable buyer personas reveal insights about your buyers’ decisions—the specific attitudes, concerns and criteria that drive prospective customers to choose you, your competitor or the status quo. – Adele Revella, founder of Buyer Persona Institute
A customer persona can help you define your target audience. It can also help you create content that speaks directly to this audience and appeals to their needs.
Additionally, marketing personas can help you to understand how different segments of your target audience interact with your brand. For example, knowing that your business-to-business customer segment primarily uses support tickets to interact with your company, you may want to include support ticket options in your marketing collateral.
Finally, customer personas can be used to guide the development of your product or service. By knowing who your ideal customer is and understanding how they want to be contacted, your product or service can more accurately meet those needs.
What are the benefits of creating a customer persona?
1. A better understanding of your target customers
2. More targeted marketing campaigns
3. Better communication with your customers
4. Improved customer service
5. Improved decision-making processes
7. Increased profits
How can I generate an accurate customer persona?
When creating a customer persona, it is important to base it on real customers. It can be misleading or inaccurate to create a persona based only on fictional characters.
There are a few different ways to create a customer persona. One way is to simply answer some questions about your ideal customer. But it is better to conduct research and ask your customers what they like and expect from your products and services. Or another way to collect data is by using surveys or a site like Answer the Public.
If you’re blog or business is established, you can also see who is currently reading it by looking at the demographics in Google Analytics, or the analytics on Facebook and Pinterest.
Download 20 questions to ask when interviewing your ideal customer
How can you measure the success of your customer persona marketing strategy?
There are a few different ways to measure the success of the marketing strategy developed from your customer persona. One way is to compare your customer segment’s response to your brand with their response to your competitors. This can help to show you where you need to focus your efforts next.
Another way to measure the success of your marketing strategy is to analyze your customer data. By looking at the behavior of your customers, you can get a better idea of what they want and how you can improve your products or services.
Finally, you can also measure the success of your strategy by measuring the results of your marketing campaigns. By tracking the results of your campaigns, you can see which ones are working the best and which need to be adjusted or improved.
Why are customer personas so important to your business?
Customer personas help businesses identify their customers’ needs, wants, and preferences. This information can then be used to create custom offerings, improve your sales copy, and better position your paid advertising. By understanding your customers better, you can provide them with the products or services they’re looking for, and improve their overall experience.
Creating an accurate customer persona can be difficult, but it’s worth the effort. Doing so will give you a much better understanding of your audience, and help you tailor your marketing and sales efforts to better meet their needs. And when you meet their needs, they’ll make purchases, and you’ll make money!
So while it may take some time and effort, the benefits are well worth it.
How can buyer personas be used in marketing?
Buyer personas provide a detailed and accurate representation of your target audience. By understanding your buyer persona, you can create marketing campaigns that resonate with their needs and desires.
There are a few key things to keep in mind when creating your buyer persona:
1. Make sure you have a clear understanding of your target audience. Who are they? What do they want? What are their pain points?
2. Use market research to validate your assumptions about your target audience.
3. Create a detailed and accurate representation of your target audience. What are their demographics? What are their interests? What motivates them?
4. Use your buyer persona to create targeted marketing campaigns. What kind of content will they respond to? What call to action will resonate with them?
5. Test, measure, and adjust your marketing campaigns based on your results.
By following these steps, you can create an accurate buyer persona that will help you create marketing campaigns that convert.
Envision this person every time you sit down to write. Write like you are talking straight to them. Don’t try to appeal to everyone in your writing, just this singular person.
This person is made up but should be someone that would be easy for you to talk to and advise about your topics. They should feel friendly to you.
If you’re struggling to think of blog post topics or products to create, sit down with your customer and brainstorm ideas.
Think about what this person really needs in their life. What questions are they asking on their journey? What can you provide that would help them with their problems?
I also love to think about words that will connect with your ideal customer. What words make them feel included? What words make them feel left out? How can you speak to their soul?
I often see people asking about which social media platforms they should be using. This is easily answered if you’ve created a customer avatar.
If your avatar is fully fleshed out, you should know exactly where they hang out online. Don’t waste your time on Twitter if your ideal customer spends all her time on Pinterest.
Revisit your customer profile on occasion. Just like you, they can grow and change. You can update this profile to reflect changes in your business too.
Conclusion
If you want to market your small business effectively, you need to start by creating a customer persona. This will help you better understand the needs of your target audience and make more informed decisions about your marketing strategy, copy, and design. With a well-constructed customer persona, you can create more targeted marketing campaigns that provide better results for your business.