Power to the PErsona: Part 1 (What & WHY)
❝Meaningful conversations lead to meaningful work. Scratch that. Meaningful conversations with the right people lead to meaningful work.❞
You can talk all day to a rock and it won’t get you anywhere (except maybe the crazy house). So, what makes a conversation meaningful?
How do you make sure you’re talking to ideal clients and not rocks? How do you provide them with helpful information instead of annoying them to tears?
To create content that is meaningful, you must first know who you’re creating the content for. That’s why at Little Bird, before we ever begin brainstorming content ideas, we spend a good amount of time defining ideal buyer personas.
This post is part 1 of 2. Here we will talk about the WHAT and the WHY of personas. Part 2 will talk about HOW to build them and use them. Let’s dive in…
Priscilla McKinney, Little Bird Marketing
Creating powerful buyer personas doesn’t only shape your marketing strategy, but can change the way you do business.
What's a Persona?
A buyer persona (aka ideal client persona, customer persona, enenegram, avatar…) is a representation of your ideal customer.
Don’t get this confused with basic demographics or a target audience. Personas are semi-fictional characters with stories based on detailed research of your actual customers. Unlike simple demographic information, personas look deeper at your target audience to uncover the needs and wants of your most ideal buyer.
Let’s do that over with different words: Who is your unicorn? If someone were to waltz in your front door to give your business, who would make you do a double take? Your unicorn isn’t just any client, it’s the most ideal customer you can imagine.
WhY: The power of the Persona
Buyer personas reflect your best customer relationships – relationships that generate the most revenue over the longest period and sustain a partnership where you can create your best work.
Think about your best customers. How do they communicate? What are their persistent and emerging challenges? How can your services provide meaningful solutions they can understand and value?
Now, it’s totally possible that you don’t have an ideal client yet. Don’t panic! Just think about who can provide you with the opportunity to do your best work? These are the clients that you are trying to understand when creating your personas.
(editor’s note: personas are ever-evolving as you learn more. Don’t wait until you have it all figured out. Start with what you have right now!)
Let’s go back and flip-flop that first scenario really quick.
Have you ever been in a conversation that could have been meaningful, except the person you’re talking with won’t stop yammering about something that’s of no interest to you? Not much better than the conversation with the rock, is it?
Personas are semi-fictional characters with stories based on detailed research of your actual customers.
The big KAhuna question:
WhY do personas matter?
BEHOLD:
The value of buyer personas exceeds marketing.
Their purpose can and should be utilized across your entire organization.
Sales departments can use personas to focus on training and learn how to best sell to qualified leads. Management can use them to decide which industry events to attend. It even benefits new hires during onboarding to better help them understand the clients that they will soon be working with. Lastly, they are an integral part of creating and maintaining a customer-centric organization.
By orienting your team around your ideal persona, you assure that your entire organization is working together to reach the right client and serve them well.
With good personas, your organization will have insights into questions like:
- What pains are you solving for your clients?
- What form of content is meaningful to your ideal client?
- How do your potential clients want to engage with you?