do you know your ideal customer?

​How well do you know your customers? What motivates them and why? The more you understand your customer, their needs, wants, challenges, and values, the better you can communicate with them. Marketing personas are highly detailed profiles of your ideal customer that will help provide clarity in your marketing strategy.

A marketing persona, also known as a customer or buyer persona or customer avatar, is a generalized profile of your ideal customer and a key segment of your target audience. You form this picture of your customer and their characteristics by using customer research and analyzing the data. Look at demographic information such as age, gender, location, and job or role. Depending on the product you sell or service you offer, it also can include the psychographic profile that includes lifestyle, interests, preferences, and concerns.

This description is not just who buys your product – i.e., the business owner. It’s a generalized representation of your target audience and the traits your customers have in common. It helps you to visualize this person because you understand details about why they buy your product or service. If you understand the unique characteristics and needs of your customer segments, you can design products and services that will appeal to them and structure your marketing activities to get their attention more effectively.

Determine the base information for your buyer from your current customers. Do you see a pattern with your current customers?  What is the key demographic information such as age, gender, location, and job? Do they have common lifestyles, interests and preferences?

What is their story? Describe their needs, goals, and concerns. Include how they make decisions and if there are any common objections.

Once you have identified your marketing personas, use them as the foundation of your marketing. You will be able to create strategies that align with the people that really want your products and services.

Content Marketing

Defining marketing personas helps you understand how your target market searches for solutions. Do keyword research using your personas to understand how your audience searches. What questions are they asking, and do you have well-optimized content that answers these questions? If not, use this information to develop your content strategy. This will ensure you are providing your audience with the information they want and need from you.

SEO

Persona-driven SEO can make your organic visibility more effective. When your SEO activities directly target your ideal client, the people who find you in the search results are those visitors who are more likely to convert into leads.

Website Structure

Ensure your website provides the content your ideal client is looking for. You’ve done the work to get a more targeted visitor to your website, now give them what they want. Directly speak to your visitors with messages that are meaningful to their needs, guiding them through your website. When your visitor sees that you understand their needs, they will follow the path you set for them.

Social Media

Part of your marketing persona profiles should include what social media they use. This will enable you to focus only on those platforms that make the most sense. You can curate better content to post on your social sites that will attract your audience as well. This makes you a valued resource of information your audience needs without having to search for it.
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The more you know about your ideal client, the better business and marketing decisions you can make. This information can help you create the right service offerings and eliminate those that are of no interest. Personas also give you a clear focus on who you are trying to attract and enable you to create content that solves the problems that impact their lives.