How To Reach Your Perfect Client With Marketing Personas

A major part of your branding and marketing strategy is defining your target market. But often it can be really difficult to narrow down your ideal client. Creating marketing personas (also called a buyer persona) can help you develop a clear picture of the types of people who will be interested in your services.

What Is A Marketing Persona?

Personas are essentially fictional characters created to represent the different types of customers within your target demographic.  

Why Create Marketing Personas?

The primary  reason to create personas is to learn to connect with your people (your target audience). Knowing exactly who you’re selling to helps you determine what messages will connect with them, their habits, and how to get their attention. As a solo with limited funds for marketing, you can save time and resources by focusing your marketing efforts on your specific potential client base instead of trying to reach the public in general. 

How To Make a Marketing Persona

How To Gather Information

In order to make an effective marketing persona you have to some research about who you your ideal client is.  

Look at your current and past clients and consider the following:

• Which ones did you enjoy working with the most?
• What characteristics do they have in common?
• Where do your best leads come from.

 Consider sending surveys to this group of people to fill in the information gaps.

Elements of A Marketing Persona

• Personas should have names and be assigned a gender.
• State a  typical level of education. This also relates to their average income which can help you set reasonable fees.
• Include where they hang out online or where they spend their time. This is how you will determine where to advertise and what social media platforms to join.
• List what causes them to worry, their attitudes or what's important to them. For example, custody is important to my personal and they worry about losing their assets. The solutions to these issues are what I focus on to get the attention of my target demographic.

Take It To The Next Level

Multiple Marketing Personas

You may find it necessary to create multiple marketing personas especially if you have multiple practice areas. Just keep in mind that the purpose of this is to keep it narrow and target a specific demographic. For the best results, you should not have more than 2 or 3 personas.  

Negative Personas

Hubspot suggests creating negative marketing personas. These are the people you want to exclude as customers. It’s not necessary, but could be useful if you think it will help you focus on your target demographic.  Your marketing personas should evolve as your business grows. There will be changes and adjustments as you learn more about your ideal client. Make this process easier on yourself by collecting feedback from your clients, tracking where your clients come from, and tracking where you get the best ROI on your marketing efforts.  Marketing personas are just a small piece of the branding puzzle. Want more information on how building your brand? Sign up for the FREE Branding Basics Boot Camp where you will get step by step instructions on creating effective marketing personas that will help grow your brand.