 Your product or service can be much more appealing to a certain definable group of people than it can be to all people. Welcome to the We Are Slam show where you'll learn marketing agency insights, best practices and ideas to help your business grow. You know this show is for the marketing professional whether you're a small business owner that's doing all of the sales and marketing on your own or whether you've been hired as a marketing director to lead a department of marketing professionals or outsourced professionals and you have the strategy and you know that you need to execute on that strategy. This show is for you and so today I want to talk to you about buyer personas. I want to talk to you about this idea of this perfect buyer persona. Does this exist? And if it does, how can you build one? How can you build the ideal and the most effective buyer persona in order to drive the results that you want to drive as a marketing professional? The first thing I want you to think about is who is this right person? Who is this right customer? Who are the people that you enjoy doing business with? Who are people that are profitable? Like what types of customers are most profitable that they actually pay their invoices that they pay on time? That they're not nitpicking or high maintenance. I mean what types of customers do you enjoy working with because this is the type of customer that I want you to go out and find more of. So the first thing I want you to think about is who is the right person? Who is the right customer that number one you're going to enjoy working with if you're in the services business or if you're selling a product that they're going to receive amazing value from your product that they're going to love it so much that they're going to be a return customer that they're going to share the news of your value proposition with everyone that they come in contact with. Who is this person? Who is this right person? Figure that out because we're going to build a persona based on their characteristics and then we're going to go out and we're going to find more people just like them. Now what I want you to do is I want you to resist the urge to try to be all things to all people. You cannot in business in marketing try to appeal to all people. In fact there's a very important principle that I want you to know and the principle goes like this. Your product or service can be much more appealing to a certain definable group of people than it can be to all people. That's key number one in how to build an effective buyer persona. Key number one is that it has to be definable. Has to be a certain group of people, a defined group of people. How do you figure out the definitions? How do you figure out what are those characteristics? What you go to your previous customers, like I said, figure out who are those people that you enjoy working with and what are their similarities? What do they have in common? What are the pain points that they share? What are the outcomes that they're looking to achieve? Your product helps them to do that. Your service helps them to do that. Start there and then you can figure out customer segments or market segmentation. This is step two, market segmentation. A buyer persona is the personification of a customer segment. So when we begin to build out the persona we have to understand the segment first. There's a customer segment where there's four types of market segmentation. Of course, the first is demographics. And this is anything that is factual about your customers. It's age, sex, race, job title, these types of things. These are demographics. These are things that are factually true about your buyer. And then you can kind of group people in a demographic segment. Number two is geographics. And this is exactly what it sounds like. It is where geographically your customers reside. Okay, so whether that be by designated market area, DMA, whether it be by state, country, zip code. There's different ways that you can figure out, these are the geographic areas that my customers are in, the people that I want to do business with and I am doing business with successfully. And I want more people in those areas. Super simple pool to zip codes. The third is psychographics. This one's a little bit harder to get your head around. But really at the end of the day, what it is is it's your buyers, your customers' attitudes, interests, and opinions. And the beauty of social media and digital advertising today is you can actually target a psychographic segment based on, you know, what are the things that appeal to them? What are their attitudes? How do they think about a certain subject? What are their views? What are their worldviews? You can actually target people based on this because we all are in this day and age in open book. And technology is able to pinpoint attitudes, interests, and opinions based on certain behaviors and groups that we belong to. And that's the fourth is behavior. Behavior is another way to segment your customers. And a lot of times this behavior might be like, for example, you go to Home Depot over the weekend, you use your American Express card. Now what is that? It's two behaviors. If I was targeting a customer segment that shopped at Home Depot, then I could do that. Shopped with their American Express card, I could do that. Shopped at Home Depot using their American Express card, I could do that. This is how you can target behaviors. And so these are the four types of market segmentation. And when you're building out your customer segments and you're trying to look for the commonalities, the things that your customers, your existing customers, the ones that you wanna find more of, the things that they have in common, then this is where you start. You start with the four types of market segmentation. You just build these out in groups and you just figure out where are they the same and where are they different. Now once you have all those things that your ideal buyers have in common and you've got all those grouped out and you know what's what, and you're able to clearly articulate the customer segments and the commonalities in those segments, then at this point, I want you to dig a little bit deeper. I want you to dig a little bit deeper, get inside the mind of your buyer and figure out what brought them to you. Why did they select your product? And it starts with, there's two areas that you need to know here. The first is understanding their pain points, their challenges. What is it the state that they're in right now before your product? You know, Ryan Dice, a digital marketer, does a very amazing job of explaining the before and after states that buyers go through and really how your product or service, your messaging, your marketing, should articulate the after state, that after effect, that benefit that the buyer will receive from your product or service. But before you get to that point, you have to understand what is their before state? What is it that they are experiencing, struggling with, challenged with? What is that? And what do they want to overcome? Because you know, best marketing messages are those that show a vision of the future that is appealing to that certain definable group. So what are those pain points that they have in common? And then once you understand that, then you can understand, okay, how does my product or service take them to where they want to be? And that's the second set of commonalities that I want you to draw from your existing customers, the ones that you enjoy working with is what are those after effects? What are those benefits? What results were they looking for specifically when they came to you, okay? Now this is the key here because you might have in your mind that your product or service provides a certain list of benefits and end results and that's great, but that's not what this is about. Here's the thing, when I'm talking about the after states, I'm talking about the after state inside the mind of your buyer, okay? What is that after state? A lot of times it's taking them from fear to confidence. A lot of times the most powerful benefits are those that give people hope that they can transcend or overcome their anxieties, their fears, their worries. And this is what I want you to think about when you're filling out that after state. When you're thinking through what are the results that my buyers receive from my product, thereby overcoming their pain points, overcoming their challenges, what are these results? And then go back to your segments and figure out, you know, am I seeing that my customers are coming to me for the same results, the same after state, the same feeling of overcoming or whatever that may be. And if that's the case, then you're definitely onto something. And now I want to take you even deeper and talk about touch points. Here's the thing, it takes 77 touches for somebody that is unfamiliar with your brand to become familiar enough that they'll take an action, a desired action. And so that's 77 touches, whether it be email, banner display advertising, pay per click, a LinkedIn connection. I mean, you've got a lot of touches that need to happen before anything happens that is positive for your business in this case. Now add to that this idea that 70% of the buying decision is made up before a prospect even reaches out to the company, before they walk in the door, before they pick up the phone and call, before they click out your web form, 70% of their mind is already made up. 77 touches, 70% of their mind is made up. What is this telling you? It's telling you that their mind is being made up at each touch point. And so touch points become super critical for message distribution number one, but also for getting out there and making sure that you are part of that conversation. Because if your brand is not part of that conversation, then you're gonna have a much more difficult time of getting that 60% of people that are out there in the blue ocean just ready to become your buyer. But if you're not out there communicating your message along these touch points in what happens, somebody else is. And so why do I bring up touch points in a conversation about buyer personas? Because I want you to know so much about your buyer, about your customer segments and IE your buyer persona that you understand where they are when they're searching for solutions to their pain points. When they're on the web searching, what types of keywords are they typing into Google? What Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups do they belong to? You need to know these things because you need to be able to find them before they've made up their mind, before they are in that buying now stage. Because if you wait until they get to the very bottom of the funnel, then you probably are, if you have a shot at winning their business then it's gonna be a very competitive thing, there's gonna be a lot of people fighting for that business. But most of the time you're gonna lose that because somebody else put in the work and the effort to build out nurturing solutions that nurture them along the way and really capture their business and their loyalty earlier on. So here's the thing, when I talk about buyer personas, you have to know where they're gonna be. What are they searching? These are the touch points. This is a big, big thing. These are the touch points. Remember this word, touch points. Where can you go and touch them on the web in the real world? Where can you communicate your message in a way that doesn't push them away but in a way that generates and creates interest? You know, my friend Russ Hindenberry over at Modern Publisher has put together a customer avatar worksheet that I will post a link to in the show notes because I think it's a beautiful way to kind of just highlight all the things that you should know about your buyer persona. So that is the customer avatar worksheet by Russ Hindenberry. It will be in the show notes. But here's the thing. On his worksheet, he has a place where you can put a picture. He has a place where you can name the persona. He has a place where you list the different touch points, the different places where they get their news and where they spend time online and what their pain points and challenges are, all the things that we've talked about. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to the show notes. I want you to click over to Russ's site, download that worksheet and when you do, here's the big, big, big secret to really make this real so that you can get out there and really personalize your marketing. I don't want you to make up a name. I don't want you to draw a picture or go to Google Images and find a picture of what this person looks like. I want you to go to the Facebook page of one of your customers, the one that you have in mind when you look at all these segments, all these commonalities. I mean, this customer has it. This customer is also a customer that you enjoy working with and you want to find more customers like this one. I want you to go to their Facebook page. I want you to print out their picture. I want you to cut it out and put it on that sheet or of course you can do this all digitally as well. But I want a real picture on the sheet and I want a real name, okay? So what is this person's name and what is this person's picture? What do they look like? Put their picture on the sheet. What will this allow you to do? This is a huge secret. What it allows you to do as somebody that is forming your brand communications, your advertising messaging, it allows you to know that everything you do, every person that you're talking to, every advertisement that you place is going to be seen by this person. And then you have a decision to make. Will this person respond positively to this ad? Will this person appreciate this blog post? Will they read this blog post? Will they engage with this social media post? These are the types of questions you have to ask and if you have a real name and a real picture, then you're much more likely to be able to accomplish this goal of personalized marketing. And so these are my tips for building the ideal buyer persona. Let's go through them quickly one more time. Number one, you have to define the certain group because like I said, much more, much more, much more. Remember this term, much more appealing. Every product or service is much more appealing to a certain definable group than it is to all people. Step number one, certain definable group. You have to define it. You have to write it down. You have to know what you're going after. How do you do that? Step number two, market segmentation. What are the commonalities? Figure it out, put them in groups, base it on real customers. Step number three, the before and after grid. Specifically, I'll put a link to it. Ryan Dice does a great write up on this concept but what I want you to think about is what are the pain points and where are you taking them? Where, you know, when they overcome those pain points, what is that after effect? What is that result? What is that tangible, non-functional benefit that they receive? That's the before and after. Number four, if you understand their pain points, you should also understand where they are. What groups they belong to. What searches they're searching in Google to find products like yours or to find the solution or to find out what the problem is that they might have. Whatever the case may be. These are touch points. Number four, touch points. You have to know where your buyers are. This is important because if you don't know where they are, then you're not gonna be able to capture them earlier on and earn their trust. And then finally, step number five, it's got to be real. Never in a million years should you ever make a buyer persona that's just some made up character with a made up name and made up touch points and all. This is a complete waste of your marketing energy. It's a complete waste of your skills. It's a complete waste of an exercise. It needs to be based on real customers and those real customers have faces so they have photos and they have real names, use those. And anytime you have a marketing meeting and you're talking about, okay, we're gonna show this ad to this group, this customer segment and this is our real customer that personifies this customer segment. This is the best way to do buyer personas. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you found value in the show. This is one of those subjects that if you get it right it's really gonna take you far. So go back and watch this show again if you have the time and go to the show notes, download the customer avatar worksheet by my friend Russ Hindenberry and work through that. But remember you can't work through that unless you have the other stuff figured out first which is the market segments, the touch points, the pain points, these are the types of things that you're gonna fill out on the sheet. And you just gotta, if you don't know these things you gotta ask, ask your customers that way you can kind of figure out what are their attitudes, what are their interests, what are their opinions, why did they come to you in the first place? These are the things that you have to know. So thank you for tuning in. If this is your first time watching, do me a favor. If you found value in this show and you're on iTunes, subscribe, rate and review. If you're on Spotify, follow us. If you're on YouTube, click subscribe, do it all. I appreciate it. And if you can't leave a comment and I will respond personally to that comment because I enjoy connecting with people like you. Again, thank you for tuning in and I will see you next week. Thanks for watching. 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