Creating a customer persona is essentially a means of interacting with your prospects so that you’re better able to target your marketing efforts. When done properly, it results in a meeting of the minds between a business and its customers. Building persona composites enables companies to know what prospects need and how to respond to their pain points and fears.
A customer persona is a customer profile developed by marketing teams that want to get to know their audience. The profile gives you insight into the character’s viewpoint and the ability to see things through their eyes. How will this “person” view your product, service, or reputation? Knowing the answer to this question has infinite benefits when it comes to developing a marketing campaign.
- Customer personas bridge the gap between your company and potential customers.
It’s hard enough trying to figure out what makes certain family members and friends tick, let alone a group of complete strangers. Creating a customer persona helps connect the dots between people of different backgrounds and experiences. They’re a way of walking a mile in another’s shoes, enabling marketing departments to analyze different perspectives.
- An effective customer persona can save your company a fortune with product releases.
If you remember the New Coke debacle of the 1980’s, you can probably appreciate the value of knowing your customers before launching a new product. Investing time on developing a customer persona can help you avoid marketing catastrophes like these by giving you insight on how your prospects are going to react. You’ll save a fortune when you’re able to sidestep mistakes and invest efforts elsewhere.
- A well-developed customer persona will help you learn to ask the right questions.
Many times, a marketing campaign will fall short because advertising departments fail to understand the needs, fears and pains of their potential customers. For the most part, the disconnect is the result of not asking the right questions to see how a company can solve problems or make their lives better. Creating a customer persona enables marketing departments to formulate more targeted inquiries and come up with better answers.
- Interaction with a persona helps you provide better customer service.
Just because you made the sale doesn’t mean your affiliation with a customer is over. You need to continue to cultivate the relationship with superior customer service to capture future sales and drive additional referrals. When you have a marketing tool like a customer persona, you have the means of fine-tuning any support needs or responding to questions.
- Personas give you insight on where your customers spend time online.
You can’t accurately direct your marketing efforts unless you know where your targeted audience is hanging out on the web. You're probably aware that demographics differ when comparing websites, social media, and blogs. It's essential that you figure out where to find your ideal customers and invest your resources accordingly. Customer personas will tell you exactly how often they're tweeting, where they buy groceries, and when they're streaming movies. You'll spend your marketing dollar more wisely when you identify the proper places to feature your message.
It’s smart to incorporate the concept of a customer persona into your marketing tool belt. Stepping into the shoes of the prospects you’re trying to reach helps you target your advertising efforts, figure out where your customers are hanging out, and be better prepared to respond when support is necessary.
