Building client personas is something that allows you to keep your team, C-suite and influencers on the same page when it comes to how to share, connect and engage around your product, services and brand marketing efforts.
It should be part of your brand marketing playbook as it allows you to really get crystal clear on the who of your ideal client.
These should evolve as your brand, product and services evolve, to fit the ever-changing needs and demands of the marketplace. This process can be used again and again to help your team get reconnected to the tactics, words, aesthetic and voice that converts your audience to clients.
What Problem Can You Solve
Think about why you follow a brand on social media. That is, in most cases, where these consumers will find you first. Did you know that 81% of consumers search for brands on social media BEFORE they make a purchase? And that’s not just for e-commerce brands. In order to establish a relationship with your client on social media, you need to create a conversation around pain points that are alleviated by your brand’s products and services. This is where a robust content marketing strategy comes in. In order to understand what problems you can solve, you have to think about the content buckets your brand can cover as related to the overall theme of the product or services. Once you establish that, you can curate content related to the themes and provide a give and take flow of information on a regular basis, priming your ideal client for those key call-to-action posts related to sales, purchases and new product/services launches, making conversion a breeze.
What Does the Client Want
The client is, as some say, always right. So what do they want from you, the brand? Why should they connect with you on a regular basis? What value do you add to their daily experience? Think about how you can be part of their day in a regular way — through weekly or daily content series, by hanging out on their favorite podcasts and in their favorite newsletters, blogs and other sources of information and by working with influencers they admire.
How Can We Close the Loop
The brands that win? They’re the brands that their audience talks about without being asked to. They’re the brands that people mention day in and day out without any incentive. They’re the brands influencers beg to work with. Some brands have established this well before the Internet was even a thing and others have had to recover from some poor PR choices that showed they knew nothing about their ideal client and their current leanings (Pepsi being the example here) and others emerge as a viral sensation, bolstered by key influencers from day 1. So how do you close the loop on that conversation? Think about this question as you build out your client personas. Think about what will make them so hungry for any information about your brand, product and/or services that they’re do (almost) anything to get the information.
What Makes Our Brand Exclusive
Pinterest is still one of the best examples of a brand that turned “exclusive” into their biggest asset. Think back to the days before Pinterest was mainstream — when you needed an invite to get into the club. What makes YOUR brand, business, product or service exclusive? What element can you add to your marketing that allows your client to feel pampered, supported and personally engaged? This is key as you build out your persona because not every client in your client persona pack will be interested in this level of engagement but some will feel this is a crucial part of connecting with you on a regular basis to be primed for sales, conversions and more.
When and Where Are They Engaging
This last piece of the puzzle is more important now than ever before — you see, how you engage with your audience depends on where and when they are connecting with you. Are they watching videos on their commute? Make sure you’re adding captions. Are they reading your blogs exclusively or primarily on their mobile devices? Make sure the content is blocked out in a way that allows this to be easy and enjoyable. Are they coming to your site from Twitter? Build a separate landing page filled with easy to consume bullets. The “when” piece is important as well — tailoring your content to time of day, week or year could be tricky as the algorithms on social media don’t always facilitate this in the way you ended, but it is a great way to show your audience that you’re listening and that you’re interested in what is going on in their life beyond their engagement with you as a business, brand, product and/or service.
All in all, it is about understanding your consumers and audience as people, individuals with goals, hopes, wishes and dreams and making sure that their relationship with you supports as many of their individual aspects as possible.