How to Create Personas for Marketing
In order for your marketing efforts to pay off, you must reach, engage, and convert your target audience. Therefore, it goes without saying that if you cannot identify and communicate with your target audience, your marketing strategy is not going to be effective.
A company persona is an ideal way to present your business consistently across a variety of media. Today, we will discuss what a marketing persona is, and how it should be leveraged.
What is a Marketing Persona?
A marketing persona is a fictional “character” you create that represents a median cross section of your intended audience. For example, if your company sells outdoor active apparel, your persona should appeal to families that routinely travel for and engage in hiking, skiing, biking, etc. If your company provides B2B digital services, the persona could include small- and medium-sized business owners that look to contract out administrative services.
How to Create a Marketing Persona
It starts with research. First, identify the physical scope of your market (regional, provincial, national, international). Next, identify demographics of your targets (age range, median income, gender, etc.). With that data, learn what strategies appeal to that market. When targeting young families with children, appealing characteristics include time savings, value for the money spent, and convenience. For a sportswear brand, durability and comfort are important.
In the end, you should have an ideal character, or set of characters, for whom you can directly tailor your marketing. Here is an example:
“John Smith shops at Outdoor Reign Apparel because he values durable, comfortable, moisture wicking, lightweight sportswear that is manufactured in Canada and can be shipped to his home or travel destination.”
Another example:
“Susan Smith buys On Point Digital services to help grow her small business. Her company is not large enough to hire an in-house digital strategist, but is also too large and too busy for Susan to do the digital marketing on her own.
How to Leverage the Persona
The persona is used across every marketing media, from digital to print ads, from billboards to sponsored content. The persona drives the choices of important aspects of your marketing campaign, such as colours, slogans, visuals, and even text size.
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Great West Digital is a full-service digital marketing agency with a focus on helping local and provincial small- and medium-sized businesses reach their target markets. Digital marketing is far more than SEO – it involves correctly identifying and appealing to your intended market, then designing a value-added campaign that provides you with outstanding ROI. Contact us today to get started.
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