Who are you selling to?

Marketing Personas – Do you know who you are selling to?

In today’s more cluttered and spend-conscious online world, being clear on who you want to see your marketing message is more important than ever.

As a simple example, how interested would you be to receive information about tyre fitting equipment when you run a Sweet Shop? At best, you simply ignore and delete the email and, at worst, you would unsubscribe. But think about this scenario with you as the email sender – have you not just wasted your time and money? Depending on how much you are spending on purchasing contact information and the amount the email system is costing per month, this could be quite a chunk of your profits squandered sending information that is not targeted.

What makes it worse, is that with a little common sense and thought, a lot of the spurious email sending could be avoided altogether. By looking at the company we want to speak to, instead of trying to immediately zoom in on the person, you can look at the data as a number of cuts. Let me explain;

What does your ideal customer do? Are they in service or manufacturing? Add this to your first line, for example,

Companies who manufacture tyres

You have a list of this type of potential customers, which you may have built up over a number of years. These will inevitably be of different sizes and have different budgets, so we would use this as the first cut. How much is your product or service and how quickly could it be paid back though profits? If the price is for example, £3,000 per month, then a company of £750,000 annual turnover would probably not be a great fit, so you now have your second line:

Companies who manufacture tyres
Company with Turnover greater than 1 million

It could be that your product and service needs a longer term commitment and so, companies that are relatively new and with volatile cash flow would not be suitable–think about your industry and set an age that you think works for stability- you now have your third line:

Companies who manufacture tyres
Company with Turnover greater than 1 million
Companies more than 2 years old

Now, do you need your target company to be established and have offices or warehouses to store or use your products, then add this as your fourth line:

Companies who manufacture tyres
Company with Turnover greater than 1 million
Companies more than 2 years old
Must have Buildings

Once you have established your ideal target company, you next need to look at the people within that organisation that are the most likely to either want, or specify your products and services and, in much the same way, you can build a profile of them.

Starting with the role of the person who you think would be interested – if it is machinery, do they need to be technical, if it is a service do they need to be in purchasing, then simply add this as your first line, so for example:

Technical

Companies who manufacture tyres
Company with Turnover greater than 1 million
Companies more than 2 years old
Must have Buildings

Once you have the general role, now you need to look at their seniority, or perhaps you need them to have a particular amount of buying power? If so, add this to your second line:

Technical
Manager / Director
Companies who manufacture tyres
Company with Turnover greater than 1 million
Companies more than 2 years old
Must have Buildings

So now, with a small amount of effort, you have the start of a perfectly serviceable marketing persona. What is beneficial at this point, is to go onto a search engine and type in the search bar, in this example, “images technical manager” and find a photo that immediately resonates with you as your target customer. Now, with more time, you can add to this to really focus in on exactly who you should be targeting and, more importantly, what message and benefit would really appeal to them – but at least now you know and can avoid wasting your time and money trying to attract the wrong customers.

Creatively Yours…

Creatively Yours Ltd helps businesses like yours succeed online through website design, website development, and our Helponomics system that offers support and training as you need it and highlights areas that could increase your sales.

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