Developing Audience Personas for More Effective Marketing
How well do you know your customers? It’s a simple question, but important when it comes to tailoring content and messaging—as well as products and services—to your ideal audience. Audience personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer that help you better understand their needs, behaviors and interests for effective marketing. Once you categorize your audience segments, it will be easier to prioritize content and ad spend as well as provide structure for your organization’s marketing efforts.
Analytics, interviews, surveys and existing customer data are a good starting point. Here’s what you’ll want to know:
- Demographics (age, sex, location, income, education, family, interests)
- Background (goals, challenges, values, fears, lifestyle, routines)
- Behaviors (buying habits, media consumption, philanthropy, etc.)
Name: Marketing Monica
Age: 26
Education Level: Graduate
Industry: Marketing
Size of Organization: 15-25
Job Title: Account Executive
Goals/Objectives: New accounts, agency productivity
Challenges: Increased workflow
Networks: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest
Consider this example. You have a company that sells time management software and want to develop a persona for an ideal audience segment: Marketing Monica. Knowing the persona you are targeting, you can adjust messaging and channels to best reach a young, busy professional. That might look like:
- Ad for software on LinkedIn targeted to industry and position
- Share “5 Tips to Develop Time Management Skills” blog post on Pinterest
- Planner vs. Digital poll on Twitter
- Email blast for professional conference
Win your ideal customer by targeting your ideal customer. It’s as easy as that.