Understanding your target audience is one the first things to do when developing an Inbound Marketing Plan – its marketing 101. It’s where I start with all my clients so I can provide marketing tactics that align with their target audience values and needs, and business objectives. To understand your target audience, you MUST know your Buyer Persona.

The purpose of this article to share the importance of accurately knowing your Buyer Persona and  how to do so.

Some background….

Knowing the personality and character of your potential audience will give you the insight to craft your marketing message to speak directly to them, to their values and frustrations. It takes a lot of the guess work out of marketing and increases results, yielding a higher ROI. It also puts you ahead of the competition – giving you a true competitive edge.

But why are buyer persona’s so important?

Different from a customer persona a buyer persona is about the “person” who should or needs to buy your product or service. This is an important piece of the marketing puzzle – because very often we focus on who’s buying the product – customers.  And not the missed opportunities, opportunities to grow your market share or grow the market size – reaching, educating and converting those who should be buying but aren’t.  There are many great companies out there that often struggle, or go under, because they didn’t take the time to learn about their buyer persona; how to reach them, how to communicate to them, how to build a rapport and how to convert them.

So how do we learn and develop accurate buyer personas?

• Create a list of people to whom you wish to speak – build a list of target contacts from virtual sites like LinkedIn and face to face events like local business networking groups, seminars and trade shows.
• Read Adele Revella’s teachings – she has a great blog, ebook and templates to help you get started – Ive included links to her resources at the end of this article.
• What skills or training do you need to work on? Adele talks about the skill of an interviewer being to uncover perceptions not to change them. So spend some time reading and learning this art so your time is well spent.
• Adele goes on to say that 5 or 6 interviews at 20 minutes each should suffice and give you the qualitative information you need. Work out how you can fit this into your schedule.

So what are you waiting for – let’s get started!

Buyer Persona Resource Links