Identifying the right target market through knowing your customer persona is one of the best ways to increase small business sales. Bottom line: target markets plus personas increase sales. Far too many small businesses use the “spray and pray” mentality for finding customers.
Just mail out some flyers, place some traditional or digital ads, and then hope we get a call, a walk-in sale, or a website visit. In many cases ads are just placed for the sake of “doing something.” However, advertising, marketing, and messaging without a targeted customer persona is the blind leading the blind. If you aim at nothing, you are bound to hit it. If you aim at everyone and nothing, you are a spammer. Don’t spam. Target the persona.
So what is a target market? In short, it’s those customers or groups most likely to purchase your product. Surfers buy surfboards; women buy more makeup; and senior buy more dentures. These groups are often broken down by demographics plus their needs and wants. Income, age, gender, and the possible challenges they face in work and life. Hopefully your product or service supplies a solution to a challenge or a problem they face. Products fix problems.
What is a persona? In sum, it’s a basic profile that characterizes the lifestyle of various individuals. It’s a target market personified. It could be soccer moms, football fans, weekend warriors, do it yourselfers, or bird watchers. You name it and there is often a persona or psychographic category you place a customer in based on their lifestyle, their sense of self, convictions, values, and what they like to do when they are not working. Think of a magazine rack and you have personas or target markets for each magazine category. Many customers may buy magazines, but only specific ones buy National Geographic, Time, Guns & Ammo, or Bride magazine. The magazine category is a name tag called, “Persona.”
Here are some tips to find personas:
- Create a profile for your ideal customer/s. Who buys that product or service more frequently?
- Describe that customer in persona terms: Joe the Plumber; Yuppy Geek; Working Mom; Busy Professional; Active Senior; NASCAR Dad; Football Freak; Food Fanatic; Motorcycle Mike; and Small Business Sammy. You get the idea. The persona is the descriptive metaphor in two to three words. Say the phrase and the image pops up.
- Be careful not to stereotype.
- Work from general to specific. For example, start with teachers, online teachers, online teachers working part-time, and online teachers working part-time in California.
- Don’t forget: the wider your message the greater the chance a potential customer will receive it as spam. More specific; less spam. Target; don’t tease.
- Then, start focusing your messaging, words, concepts, ads, images, promotions, and content to fit that persona and what makes them tick.
- Listen with social media and don’t just broadcast. There are lots of social personas in the digital world we often miss because we don’t listen to concerns, trends, complaints, and requests. Then, listen more.
By decreasing the distance and eliminating the confusion between your product and the matching persona, you significantly increase the odds for a sale. You are offering solutions that fit. Solutions that solve problems create sales. You’re meeting needs and not forcing a spam-filled interruption. It’s that simple and yet that hard. It takes time, attention, and effort.
By Stuart Atkins
Leave a Reply