How to Start Reaching the Right People
Print advertisements. Mass newsletter mailings. SEO strategies. Pay per click. Blogs and social media.
What do these things have in common? Well, as a business owner, you’ve probably tried almost all of them and they’ve been generally unsuccessful in generating leads.
But here’s the catch: they’re all potentially successful marketing tools. So why aren’t they working for your business?
Something isn’t right here. And with the specific goals that you have for the continued growth and increased success of your company, you need to figure out what that is and identify a reasonable solution. You need more leads, and you need to convert them into customers in order to maintain and increase revenue.
Here, we’ll outline some of your concerns and provide you with a solution that is attainable and that will benefit multiple departments of your company and align your organization: a buyer persona.
The Right Habits But the Wrong People?
Used at the right time, in the right way, and with the right content, the marketing methods that we mentioned—SEO, mailings, social media, etc.—are very effective ways to get your name seen and convert leads into customers.
But perhaps your marketing methods are not the source of your problem. Instead, take a look at the people that you are reaching with your current marketing strategy: are they the right people? Here’s our theory, based on an issue we’ve seen with many businesses: you have the right marketing habits but you’re reaching the wrong people.
You’ve been spinning your wheels talking to the wrong people: your marketing team has been attracting the wrong visitors, and your sales team has been communicating with the wrong leads. We encourage you to stop switching between different distribution channels and pay attention to what you’re distributing and to whom exactly you’re distributing this content.
Chances are, this frantic switching behavior has left you frustrated that you’re wasting time and money, and doubtful about changing your marketing strategy any more than you already have. Sound familiar?
You Know What They Say About “Assuming”
You and your company are in need of a change, in order to stick to your growth goals and achieve success. But before you go ahead and change your Facebook page again or design another new advertisement, keep reading. We’d like you to try to take a different approach this time, because the changes that you need could be hidden underneath other unknown problems.
Let’s say your company is using Twitter for marketing, but it doesn’t seem to be useful in generating leads. There are several questions that you could ask that could tell you why this is the case.
- Are the messages that you are sending through Twitter appealing to your ideal buyers?
- Are your buyers interested in the content you are presenting through your tweets?
- Are your typical buyers looking for the products or services that your company offers on Twitter?
- Do your buyers even have Twitter accounts?
There’s a common thread going through each of these questions: they are all focused on your buyers—not your message, not your content, and not your marketing tools.
In a successful organization, the buyers are the reason behind every action that every employee takes. Similarly, effective marketing has less to do with the distribution method and more to do with the needs of the buyers. It could be that, like many other companies, you and your organization have been making marketing decisions based on what you THINK your buyers want and where you THINK they are, rather than what you KNOW they need.
Related article: 7 Tips to Jumpstart Your Marketing Program.
Get Seen by Seeing
You have a problem: you need to start getting your business seen by more of the right people, in order to increase sales and boost the productivity of your entire organization.
The solution to your problem lies with the development of a buyer persona.
The Buyer Persona Solution
In many cases, a buyer persona is the missing piece to the puzzle that is success. So what exactly is it? A buyer persona is essentially a fictional character in your company’s marketing story, with all of the same goals, needs, and pain points as your real-life, ideal buyer. It is an in-depth understanding of how buyers come to make a purchase: what motivates them to think about buying, what they see as barriers to purchasing, and what they consider to be a successful purchase.
When done thoroughly, a buyer persona can provide you with many invaluable insights into who your buyers are:
- Their priorities and pain points
- How they qualify a successful purchase
- Why they might choose a competitors solution over yours
- The process they go through before making a purchase
- What they take into consideration when buying
A New Approach to Lead Acquisition
Let’s think back to before: your goals revolved around reaching more of the right people, which is what brought you to this blog post. Your problem was fueled by frustration, and made worse by your random acts of marketing. You were frantically trying all of the marketing tools and methods that you were presented with, hoping—but failing—to reach the right people.
Arming your sales and marketing teams with a complete and thorough buyer persona could positively change the way you approach lead acquisition.
For instance, knowing whether your buyers check Facebook when researching products/services like yours could help you decide whether to include that type of social media in your marketing strategy. Understanding the needs of your typical buyers will tell your marketing team what kind of content and message will be most effective and memorable. Your sales team could use buyer persona information to know what questions to ask to determine if a particular person is the right person—the type of lead that can be converted into a customer.
Buyer personas can benefit your business in so many ways. Are you interested in learning more?
In Hello Marketing’s Buyer Persona Guide, we’ll give you a more thorough explanation of buyer personas, what advantages they will provide you with, and what steps you can take toward developing a buyer persona for your company.
Take the plunge—start reaching the right people today!
