If your start up is struggling to attract customers, you could be making an all too common mistake associated with “spray and pray” marketing. If you are randomly posting ad’s and messages across different channels just hoping the right people will see them, then you’re in danger of wasting time and resources. The most important step in any marketing plan is to find out who your targeting. Identifying who your target personas are and where to find them should be your primary concern. Marketing plans built on well thought out personas are much easier to execute and much more successful in terms or results. Why you NEED PersonasA good persona will accurately represent your ideal customer and are created using a combination of real data and educated assumptions of what they could look like. Some important areas you may want to focus on are demographics, goals, motivations and behaviors. However, each start-up will have different focus points. Your start up may have multiple target personas (usually between 3 - 5). These will provide you with specific goals and needs of your target audience that can guide your overall marketing strategy. For example, by establishing a customer demographic, you can determine the online channels they are most likely to use. The goal is to deliver clear, tailored media that engage with your target audience avoiding a “spray and pray” approach. How to define your target personasSo, what do you need to build these personas? Here are some helpful tips to get your start up started. #1 Gather DataThe best personas are those created from real data and research. Quoting Adele Revella from “Content Marketing Institute” who quite simply put it, “making stuff up” is a key mistake to avoid. Personas can be fictional or based on real people, it’s not important. What does matter is that they represent the key user background, motivations and other useful data of your target audience. Where to get the data, you NEEDyou most likely have already done some market research, in the form of evaluating who your target users would be. User feedback is critical to helping a team narrow the scope of a product and help focus on features wanted by their users, while at the same time discarding those that are not. Often start-ups will evaluate user needs by carrying out brief interviews with potential users and developing surveys. Additionally, here are some suggestions from ARDÚ:
Talking and observing your customers is the best source of information. You can identify what you are doing right and more importantly what you’re doing wrong. You don’t need to talk/observe hundreds of customers, five is more than enough to get started and help not only improve your product but also help you identify who you can exclude from your marketing. #2 Flesh out your ProfilesWith your customer data gathered, it’s time to flesh out your personas. We’d suggest building between 3-5 personas, any more and priorities can begin to overlap, and become difficult to manage. The Key is to only focus on data that is relevant. If your start up is selling B2B software and your focused on a personas age or gender your being over critical and waiting time. We have developed a simple template that we encourage start-ups to use (see below). It cuts out any unnecessary information and instead focuses on the core requirements;
#3 Establish a HierarchyAs we mentioned earlier you probably have between 3-5 personas developed. Not all of these will be a priority to you at any one time, so it is important that you establish what your current goals are and the persona(s) that align with said goals. We can then build campaigns around the goals of your start up, deciding whether to create a campaign that targets every persona or focuses on just one or two. How to use your Target PersonasWith the hard work done now you can directly seek out those who fit within your personas. Beginning with current customers, you can tailor messages and media that will resonate with them before expanding your current networks and leads. You may have to experiment with your outreach methods but by now you should have an idea of where to find your target market, so take full advantage and go to them. The most important thing is that your marketing strategies are clearly defined with your target audience in mind, in doing so you can say goodbye to the “spray and pray” approach and see your start-up benefit from targeted results. Let's Get Started!If your start-up has begun to stall in attracting new customers, it may be time to develop some personas or reassess your existing personas using what you’ve just learnt. Create your own customer personas now using our free persona planning template.
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Niall AllenNiall talks about the importance of Personas |