In response to the ever-increasing pressure to deliver ROI immediately, marketers (and founders) often skip over the important strategic step of defining their target customer. There just doesn’t seem to be time to invest in this, especially in startup or launch mode.
Before you even start developing your positioning, you need to clearly articulate who your product or service is for. You may not be completely familiar with persona profiles, but they are essentially a tool to create a clear description of your ideal buyer and to define who the main influencers are. You may have more than one main buyer and multiple influencers per buyer, especially if the sale is complex as it often is in B2B environments. Start with your largest segment and build from there.
Having great persona profiles allows your marketing team to build marketing that truly engages and inspires your target customer. It’s like taking an entire segment and boiling it down to one person. It’s so much easier to talk to one person than an audience of 10,000, right?
Having great persona profiles allows your marketing team to build #marketing that truly engages and inspires your target customer. It’s like taking an entire segment and boiling it down to one person. Click To TweetA persona is a composite profile that summarizes the needs and wants of your ideal buyer. We like to give them real names and photos so we can connect with the persona on an emotional level.
Here is an example of a CIO persona we developed for a client:
You’ll notice several things about this persona profile:
- The picture
We always include a picture to make the profile come alive. I want to be talking to that person directly. - The summary
We summarize his or her profile to essentially create an executive summary of the persona. - The Profile section
This is where we get into psychographic details about our target buyer, which helps us to target the right imagery and language for this person. - Typical pains
Here we examine the obstacles and discomforts this person experiences in his or her role. - Typical triggers
This is where we define the triggers that prompt this person to take action. This combined with the typical pains enable us as marketers to design campaigns that address their pains and move the target buyer towards a decision.
Clearly, you could easily develop multiple persona profiles. Start with the most important and add more as you need them. Review and update the profiles every 6 to 12 months, depending on how fast your industry is changing—new triggers and new pains can quickly crop up, especially in the technology industry.
Learn more in the Amazon best-selling book Launching for Revenue: How to Launch Your Product, Service or Company for Maximum Growth).
To your revenue success,
Jenn
How does your positioning compare?
Do you have a clearly defined and differentiated message that resonates with your target audience? Check out our free online quiz about the 10 Elements of a Successful Launch, including the positioning element, to see where you fit and what you need to do next. Or simply set up a call and we can talk about your situation and how to make sure your product will be successful in the marketplace.
