Blog courtesy of Bridge Global Strategies

Today’s marketing professionals are more tech-savvy than ever before, and many of them have adopted integrated marketing software that enables them to execute their digital strategies and measure analytics from a single interface. While these innovative solutions are making online marketing more efficient and measurable, however, it seems that many marketers are still struggling with the age-old challenge of audience development.

You may be thinking, “What does audience development have to do with product marketing…I’m trying to build market share, not audience share.” This outdated way of thinking harkens back to the pre-search engine era, before consumers were engulfed by a constant flood of information to help them evaluate their purchasing decisions.  To influence consumers today, businesses must actively participate in this information exchange by developing relevant, trustworthy content that serves to inform; rather than to merely sell.

This is the idea behind the concept of content marketing, where businesses produce online content, such as blogs, social media, ebooks and webinars to ensure that they are getting found by the right people. When planned effectively, content marketing will help you increase the number of visitors to your website and tap information about them that can help you move them down the sales funnel.

Thus, content marketing requires businesses to look beyond traditional sales processes and to think like media publishers, focusing on audience development first and then converting audiences into leads and paying customers. But before you can grow your audience, you have to define who your audience is. The more that you can segment your audience, the better you can tailor your content to effectively engage them.

One way to do this is by creating buyer personas, representations of your target customers based on real-world information and educated guesses about their likes, dislikes, habits, behaviors, motivations, concerns and demographics. If you have a business plan that includes a target market analysis, you probably already have much of the information that you’ll need to create buyer personas. If you’re starting from scratch, however, you should be willing to commit a decent number of hours, or enlist the support of a communications agency with content marketing experience.

For the do-it-yourselfers, here are some core attributes of your target market that you should include in your buyer personas:

  • Background – This provides a profile of the buyer in a nutshell, answering questions such as: where do they work, what is their role, what are their hobbies and habits, etc. Don’t get too fastidious with the details; just think of it as if you were introducing this archetypal buyer at a cocktail party (i.e. what would you say about them in two or three sentences).
  • Demographics – Depending on the product or services you are offering, some types of demographic data will be more significant than others, but at a minimum, you should cover some of the basics, such as gender, age range, income level, ethnicity and location.
  • Identifiers – Think of this as descriptive tags for your buyers’ personalities or mannerisms. For example, if you are marketing a new line of beauty products, you may consider segmenting your buyers into multiple personality types (e.g. the conservative suburban stay-at-home 50-something housewife, versus the 50-something business executive or the trendy young urbanite).
  • Challenges – This is one of the most significant attributes to consider when developing a content marketing strategy because you’ll want your content to be discovered in search engines; many search queries are dedicated to finding solutions to specific challenges or needs. Moreover, by keeping your buyers’ challenges in mind while developing content, you’re more likely to develop a dedicated audience, rather than transient site visitors
  • How Your Business Helps – This is where you connect the challenges of your buyers with your business’ solutions. You should look beyond general product features and hackneyed value propositions to find more creative ways of describing how your business addresses the needs of your buyers.
  • Common Objections – Some businesses conduct exhaustive analyses of the perceived benefits of using their products or services but devote very little time to understand the objections that deter potential customers. By taking the time to map out your buyers’ common objections in the beginning, you can leverage this information in your messaging strategy as you develop new content.

The information you uncover in examining these attributes will provide long-term value for your business, creating a foundation from which to build your content marketing strategy, while also supporting other business functions, such as sales and customer service. Admittedly, developing detailed buyer personas is no small task, but if you invest the time and energy to do it right, you will thank yourself later when the content engine starts churning.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with a PR, marketing or social media campaign, contact Scott Public Relations.

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