Content marketing is focused not on selling, but on simply communicating with customers and prospects. The idea is to inspire business and loyalty from buyers by delivering "consistent, ongoing valuable information." wikipedia.org
Not knowing exactly who you're trying to attract with your content and marketing messages is a common issue among small business owners. Many businesses try to appeal to everyone with the idea that they don't want to leave potential customers out, but this often leads to mix messages and confusion.
Narrowing your market and focusing on a particular niche is really important but you also need to go further and understand your buyer persona to be able to craft targeted messages and content which will attract the right customers.
What is Buyer Persona?
Buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customers which provides a detailed description of a typical buyer or target audience.
Understanding exactly who you're trying to attract and their stories will allow you to better craft your messages and create relevant and valuable content that will appeal to the right people.
Answer some of the following questions to identify buyer personas
° Gender
° Age
° Family and marital status
° Job description
° Financial situation
° Education
° Geography
° Daily activities
° Hobbies
° Habits
° How do they use the web
° Their challenges or pain points
° Their goals
° What are their most pressing needs
The more elements you know about your buyers or prospects, the easier it will be to focus your efforts on the right people.
You may have to figure out several different buyer persona based on your various products or services. You'll have a better success rate if you focus on connecting to each different buyer persona individually.
Buyer Persona Example
Let's look at an example of fictitiousbusiness that creates custom ceramics and sells their creations online to customers all over the United States and Canada. They may have several different buyer personas according to their different products. In this case, lets say that this business is selling a line of custom ceramics for weddings gifts.
Here's an example of the possible buyer persona for this line of products:
Female in her late-twenties, engaged to be married, living in her first home which she and her fiancé recently purchased in the suburbs somewhere in the United States. She is a professional, college graduate with an average family income over $90,000 but has no children yet. She is pretty crafty, environmentally conscious, enjoys lifestyle TV shows, she's a great cook and likes to entertain. She's reasonably tech savvy, follows a few blogs, loves to use Pinterest to research ideas for her wedding and has been a Facebook user for many years. She's getting married in the next year.
Her challenges are to find items to add to her wedding gift registry which represents her personality and will not only be useful but also will be one of a kind items that she can pass on to her own children in the future.
Her main pain points are that most gift ideas are very generic and doesn't reflect her personality. As well, her guests live around the globe and don't all have access to the same retail stores.
Now What?
Focusing on developing your buyer persona(s) which represents the customers who are most likely to purchase what you offer will make it much easier to create content that will attract, educate and resonate with those potential buyers.
When you tie together the buyer persona to your content, you will be able to figure out:
° The kind of content you need to create and the format you should use
° How can you solve their pain points
° The tone and style you should develop
° The topics you should focus on
° The type of content that will make them tick or produce a desired reaction
When creating content, always think about who you're trying to reach and their specific buyer persona. Your content and topics should speak directly to your target customer.
Creating Content for Our Buyer Persona Example
This is how you could create your content around our buyer persona illustrated above.
Knowing that she is well educated and reasonably tech savvy, you should take that into consideration when developing your style.
Some topics that may attract this particular buyer could be centered around weddings (there are endless topics right here), gift giving, crafts, newlyweds, hosting parties, buying a first home, using unique and personal items for home décor, advantages of online stores, how to pick unique pieces, creating family heirlooms, how to buy environmentally friendly gifts, etc The content and topics should be created around the business and the products offered.
Knowing that this ideal customer is on Pinterest and Facebook, creating visual content would also be important. As well, this business should take advantage of SEO (search engine optimization) by using keywords in their content which this buyer persona would use when searching for similar products or topics.
Why Are Buyer Personas Important for Your Business
Buyer personas are necessary for helping you understand who you are selling to, what their pain points are and how your products or services can be applied to meet their needs. Most importantly, your content should provide value to your ideal customer.
Remember that just like your marketing strategy, your buyer persona may change or evolve over time so make sure to review and adjust accordingly.
Are you creating content that is attracting your ideal customer?
Image source: Kathryn via Compfight