Finding the Right Audience

In my last two blog posts, I wrote about getting content in front of the right audiences and improving the way content is presented online. But one thing I haven’t discussed is how to determine who it is your content is for.

Think of your ideal customer. Why do they need your product? What problem are they trying to solve? Then, consider their personalities: their lives, their goals and how they prefer to communicate. What social media platforms are they using? How do they get their news?

Answering these questions will help you create something that we at The Impact Group call Buyer Personas.

Buyer personas are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers. Personas help everyone in your organization internalize the ideal customer you are trying to attract. Having a deep understanding of your buyer persona(s) is critical to driving content creation, product development, sales follow up and really anything that relates to customer acquisition and retention.

Buyer personas are created through research, surveys, and interviews of your target audience. That includes a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside of your contact database who might align with your target audience. 

Here are some practical methods for gathering the information you need to develop personas:

Interview customers

Interview current and potential customers to see why they use your product or service. Ask questions about their job role and title, what a typical day-in-the-life looks like (both at work and outside of work), what tools they use in their job, what their challenges are, how they learn new information or acquire new skills, where they're from, how they search for information on the internet, and so on.

Look for trends

Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content.

Ask your sales team

Consider your sales team's feedback on the leads they are interacting with most. What types of sales cycles does your sales team work with? What generalizations can they make about the different types of customers you serve best?

These personas should be used in all aspects of your marketing and communications efforts. They will help your message better reach your audience, as they will give you a deeper understanding of how to effectively communicate with your potential and current customers. Whenever you create content, consider your personas, and make sure you are communicating in a way that relates to them. 

Want help creating personas or effective content? Click here to talk to one of the experts at The Impact Group!