What Is Persona Marketing?

Persona marketing has become a growing concept in the world of internet business. There is often a bit of confusion about what persona marketing is. This article is designed to clear it up. Ready?

Persona marketing, in a nutshell, is the practice of creating a persona or personas to define and identify your target market. For example, typical demographic information may tell you that your prospect is a 35-50 year old woman with 2.5 children ages 13-22. She has an upper middle class household income and spends 4 hours a day watching television.

That’s how companies typically define their target market. Persona marketing takes this several steps further and creates a very detailed description of a prospect. Persona marketing takes into consideration what programs your prospect watches on television during those 4 hours. What does your 35-50 year old woman spend her upper middle class income on? What are her interests? What are her problems, concerns, and passions? Persona marketing takes it all the way to the finite and even gives her a name.

Best Buy created this persona to help staff identify customers and work with them in a manner they would respond to. Her name is Jill. She is a soccer-mom type and is the primary shopper for the family though she usually avoids electronics stores because she is intimidated by words like gigabytes and megapixels. She is very smart, educated, and generally confident. She is the decision maker in her family and her children are primary in her life. Though Jill is affluent she only shops at an electronics store twice a year; however she usually spends a significant amount when she is there.

Why create a persona?

Marketers are beginning to realize that traditional demographics aren’t enough. In order to speak to your prospects directly, it is helpful to understand who they are beyond their age. Best Buy realized that sales people couldn’t walk up to everyone and start talking about memory, gigabytes, and megapixels. Some people were turned off by this. They needed to speak to them differently. So while the demographic data might be the same, the personas within the demographics are different.

Creating a persona means researching your prospects and customers thoroughly. Who are they? What do they like? What is important to them? Surveys are a good way to get inside the mind of your customer and prospect. Additionally, pay attention to who is buying from you right now. Who are they?
What to do with your persona?

Persona marketing begins with your copywriting. Successful copy speaks directly to your prospect and lets them know you understand their needs, desires, and wants and you’re able to solve them or make their life better with your product or service. The more you understand your prospect, the more effective and personal your copy can be. Landing pages, direct response copy, email messages, and even your articles, reports, and books can all take your persona into consideration. If you’re marketing to more than one persona, copy can be modified to speak to each persona. For example, each persona can have a different landing page and sales copy.

While persona marketing is being adopted by the big companies, it can also help improve the bottom line of a small business. Taking the time to truly understand your customers and prospects is always a good thing.
 

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