Zooming in on your “Who”
Who do you want to reach with your marketing? “Everyone!” We believe you– but an effective marketing campaign is filled with purpose on every front. When it comes to people, each of your campaigns should be like a camera zooming in on one or two faces. Others will be caught in the frame, but the focus is on getting a perfect snapshot of the audience that corresponds with your goals.
Based on your marketing goals, your target audience might be an unreached potential market, consumers from a target region, your favorite customers, or another specific representation.
No matter your target audience, your next goal is to know them well. And to know them well, you need to ask questions. Talk with real members of your target group. For breadth, give a survey; for depth, conduct interviews. Gain solid data, including your audience’s demographics, passions, and, most importantly, their problems. What are their pain points, and how can you solve them?
The Tool: Buyer Persona
HubSpot’s Stephen Higgins defines a buyer persona as a “semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”
Like calculating an average from a list of numbers reveals a representative number, creating a buyer persona based on your consumer data manifests a representative character. From the data you’ve gained about your target audience, create one or two fictional, representative people toward whom all your media outreach will be slated.
Each character should account for the data that you gained through actual interaction with your target audience, including representative name, income level, personal life, motivations, passions, and problems. From there, it’s all about how you can use your media outreach to connect with your audience and provide them with value.
When you’re making decisions on media for your campaign, pretend your buyer persona is over your shoulder. Ask yourself: “how would Annie, my buyer persona, respond to this? Why is it valuable to her? How can I make it more accessible to her? Which of her problems does this solve?” Have a conversation with your buyer persona and see where it goes. Non-marketers will call you crazy, but we know that the tighter you are with your buyer
personas, the more focused and effective your media outreach will be.
Establish your “why” and your “who,” with some robust buyer personas, and you’re ready to plan and produce media that fits snugly into your target niche.
By Keech Media | Written By Michael Finnern
