One of the priorities of all businesses is to really get to know the customer persona. Having a well-defined target market is more important than ever. ‘Everyone’ is not a demographic. For your business to be successful, you need a well-targeted market and a strategy to connect to that niche.

You can’t target everyone. For you to effectively compete with large companies, you should be able to define your target market, create an effective strategy to engage with them, and provide value to convert them into loyal customers.

Create a customer persona

A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach to buy products from you.

• Personal information
• Career history
• Habits
• Purchasing behavior

Targeting a specific market does not mean you will exclude those who do not fit your customer persona. This process will allow you to focus on your niche and who is likely to buy your products.

The better you understand your target market, the better you will be able to execute your ads, marketing strategy, and social media content. This will also help you know the key metrics that you need to see your conversion rates and ROI (return on investment). 

Your approach to creating a customer persona will be determined by how well-established your business already is. For example, if it has been in operation for a number of months or years, you will be able to examine existing data to identify customer patterns. If it is a newly established business, you’ll have to rely on the data of others to help identify your customer, or you may perform your own research.

1. Look at your Google Analytics
2. Conduct customer surveys
3. Go on social media and read discussions

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Steps in researching your customer persona

Here are the steps that will guide you through identifying your niche.

Gather data from your target customers.

The best source of information to know your target market is your existing customers. Which of your products or services do they buy? What type of social media content have the most engagement? How do they connect to your business? 

Here are some of the data you have to consider:

Age – Knowing which generation they belong to will give much more information than just finding out their age. This does not have to be specific, but rather the age bracket they belong to. For example, the age bracket is 24-35. 

This will give you an idea of what your target market has the capacity to buy. For example, if your target market is the younger age group this may indicate they might not have a job yet or are still in college, therefore, they might not have the capacity to buy expensive stuff especially if you’re in the higher price range. But this group though is very active on social media. If your target market is the older age group, 50 years old and above, this group might not be as active on social media as the younger age group.

This will give you an idea about how to reach out to them. If the older age group is not too active on social media, they may be inclined to listen to podcasts or probably read blogs. 

Knowing the age group of your target niche will also give you an idea of how to reach out to them, what type of content will appeal to them, where you can connect with them, their buying capacity, and more.

Location – Knowing where in the world your target market is based is important so that you’ll know what time of the day your customer service should be online. Also what is the best time to post your content on social media as well as when they are most active online.

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Spending behavior– One important thing to figure out is how your target customer spends their money. Are your products’ prices within their buying capacity?  Are your prices at par with the competition? 

Interests – What type of content are your customers interested in? Remember that before you even pitch your sales, you have to give value to your customers first. This will help you in creating an effective social media strategy. 

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Most of this information is available in built-in analytics within the platforms. You may also connect your website to Google Analytics to get as much information as you can such as the type of device they use to visit your website, the time of the day they visit, the ratio between men and women and so much more. 

Check out your competition

Where else to check the most effective marketing strategy but through your competition. How do your competitors position themselves to their audience? What type of content do they publish? Which platforms can you find them on?

By checking your competitors you’ll be able to get an idea of how they approach their customers and how they create engagement with their audience.

Value of your products or services.

As a seller, it’s important for you to know the value of your products or services. How do your products or services solve your customer’s problems? Your products must bridge the gap between your customer’s needs and the value you can provide. 

The benefits and features are your top-selling points in pitching your sales. However, one important thing I’d like to point out is that your customers will not buy your products merely because you told them their benefits and features. 

You have to let your customers know why you sell what you are selling. For example, if you are selling printed t-shirts for women, why should they buy from you instead of the competitor? The answer to WHY is that you want to empower women. 

You have to reach out to them emotionally to make them buy your products. WHY are you selling these shirts? Because it’s made of cotton and it’s comfortable? Or because it empowers women?  Or both.

Build a brand that your market can relate to

One important step in creating a brand is to make a statement that your audience can relate to. This step comes in after the comprehensive research you did on your target market. A brand statement is basically a unique catchphrase that says something about your products or services. 

For example, if you are a career coach you can have this as your brand statement: 

“Helping people create new opportunities in their businesses and careers.”

Take a look at some more examples:

Amazon – “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”

Linkedin – “To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

Twitter – “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers.”

Paypal – “To build the Web’s most convenient, secure, cost-effective payment solution.”

These brand statements must be unique, remarkable, memorable, and relatable. 

Test your marketing strategy

The best way to know how well your strategy will perform is to test them. Create a social media plan on your calendar. Give it a minimum of two weeks. See which posts they like the most, what time they engage, and how your audience interacts with you.

There is no right or wrong here. The goal is to know what type of content will suit the target audience. If you feel it’s not working, do more research and try again. In some cases, it’s not your strategy that is not working but probably you’re on the wrong platform. 

All of these can be achieved through extensive research in knowing your customer persona. Your business can be successful if you know how to connect with the right audience at the right time and on the right platform. 

After all, you may be selling your products to the wrong audience. Research is the key.