Your business was founded on the principal that you have a product or service that other people need or want. Fantastic. Now, how are you going to get the word out to said people that you offer this product or service that is tailored just to them?
And, how will they know that yours is the one they want?
In the 21st century, competitive businesses get that word out largely through inbound marketing strategies. These strategies lead highly-specific prospects through a buying cycle that begins, continues and ends - largely -on their website.
You have a product you made for people, and you need to sell it to those people - even though they've never met you. This is tricky.
The magic part of the trick is making them feel they've met you. This is done by finding out so much about them that your content, quite literally, speaks their language.
It's like fishing - and the content you create, crafted entirely for the people who need your products and services, is the net. In order to weave that highly-resonant net is you need accurate, in-depth and relevant buyer personas.
Once you create great buyer personas, things start to shift and change in positive and lucrative ways.
When you create detailed buyer personas, you begin to speak in a more targeted way because now you understand more about what makes them tick. If your target market is younger, you'll use more pop culture references, if they're older your voice may be more formal or you'll use references that hearken back to their more "pop culture" oriented days.
Blog by blog, social media post by social media post, email by email and image by image - your brand develops a more consistent, unified and tangible voice, which leads to positive brand recognition by the intended target audience.
This is the gift that keeps on giving. Developing buyer personas requires lots and lots of research, and it's a never-ending process because customers, businesses and the market continue to change and evolve over time.
Studies show that nearly 65% of B2B organizations that meet and exceed their goals have updated their buyer personas within the past six months (Cintel). Also, they create their buyer personas via multiple research outlets, including interviews with customers, former customers and even non-customers. They zealously glean information from sales staff. They consult external reports and they A/B test like crazy to see who responds to what.
When you know customers better, you add and amend products/services with them in mind, you write content that speaks to them and things spiral into an ever warmer and fuzzier ball from there.
When you learn how to create buyer personas, you inherently understand their pain-points from fresher, more articulated angles. Depth of understanding begets more ingenious improvements of existing products/services. You'll get better at adding additional products/services they're looking for to your menu.
Ultimately, relevant buyer personas keep you on the innovative edge compared with competitors - putting your brand on top and respected as an authority.
It goes without saying that when you attract more people by answering their queries and questions, and making them feel at home, you're going to sell more. This results in increased ROI and a really happy boss.
Once you learn how to create great buyer personas, using a range of sources and detailed information, you'll begin netting those illusive "big fish."
