As a professional, you understand that marketing is key to the success of your business but inbound marketing differs from traditional marketing. In today’s article we explore the most crucial elements needed to achieve stellar results for your company.
One of the most important components, if not the most important, of a successful inbound marketing strategy is identifying your buyer persona.
All businesses already have a persona, but they may not know it yet. Many who have previously used traditional marketing strategies have what they deem a “target market” but they have not really narrowed that market down to truly identify exactly who they are trying to reach.
This is where identifying a buyer persona comes in.
So What Is A Buyer Persona?
Well, a buyer persona is NOT broad, ambiguous, or impersonal. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of an ideal customer. Actually, it’s a semi-fictional representation of not just any ideal customer but more specifically, your ideal customer. It’s based on data collected by your team such as customer demographics, behaviour patterns, motivations, and goals.
Your buyer persona actually has a personality. He or she has a name, specific common behavior patterns, shared pain points (both professional and personal), goals, wishes, and dreams and they have both demographic and biographic information you need to know to successfully market your product or service.
Why Do You Need A Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona helps you with every stage of the inbound methodology outlined below:
Attract: Buyer personas are the visitors you’re trying to attract to your business website and they’re who your content and inbound marketing strategy should appeal to.
Convert: Personas are the visitors you’re trying to convert into leads. The most effective conversion tools are customized to your personas’ needs and interests.
Close: Since your personas represent your ideal customer, they’re who your emails and other lead nurturing content should close into customers.
Delight: Your personas are the customers, clients, or others you are trying to delight into promoters. Tailor your customer service experience to your personas’ preferred method of communication and create content specifically for them.
Your buyer persona, and it’s important to note that in some cases you might even have more than one buyer persona, will give you the information you need to identify where you should be spending your time on marketing.
If you know what your specific buyer personas are trying to achieve or solve, you can create useful and remarkable content and/or offers to help them overcome their main obstacles and reach their goals. If you know who you are speaking to, you will know how to talk to them.
In short, everything you do must be tied back to who your buyer personas are. After all, they are the key to the success of your business.
In our next article we will discuss The Buyers’ Journey in 3 Steps so you can understand how to deliver the message they are looking for and can then tailor that message to their specific needs.
In the meantime, make sure to download the free Digital Marketing Plan that gives you practical advice on how a buyer persona fits into your overall inbound marketing strategy.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Why Buyer Personas Matter
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