The Buyer Persona

image via alleecreative.com

This week, we read insights from David Meerman Scott (2013) and Dave Kerpen (2011) about the importance of choosing the right target audience for your social media marketing.

Scott (2013) uses the analogy of social media as a cocktail party. How do you act in a cocktail party situation, he asks? “Do you go into a large gathering filled with a few acquaintances and tons of people you do not know and shout, ‘BUY MY PRODUCT!’?” (p. 55). To anyone who is socially competent, the immediate answer is of course not. But this begs the question, how should a business act in the online cocktail party known as social media?

The answer to that question depends on whom exactly you as a business wish to be talking to. This can be determined by developing buyer personas.

As defined by Scott (2013), “a buyer persona…is essentially a representative type of buyer that you have identified as having a specific interest in your organization or product or having a market problem that your product or service solves. Building buyer personas is the first step and probably the single most important thing that you will do in creating your marketing and PR plan” (p. 164). 

image via Hubspot

For each buyer persona profile you generate, you want to know as much information as possible. “What are their goals and aspirations? What are their problems? What media do they rely on for answers to problems? How can we reach them? We want to know, in detail, the things that are important for each buyer persona. What words and phrases do the buyers use? What sorts of images and multimedia appeal to each? Are short and snappy sentences better than long, verbose ones?” (Scott, 2013, p. 166). The list goes on and on.

Developing buyer personas results in stronger and more cost effective marketing. Not only does it create a stronger message by tailoring your content to your audience’s needs, it minimizes advertising waste and helps you discover any objections to buying that your target audience might have (Gaudet, 2014).

To take a deeper look into the effectiveness of social media marketing with buyer personas, please respond to the following on your own blog:

1. Choose a company that you feel effectively uses social media to communicate with a specific buyer persona. This could be a company that you feel appeals to you as a buyer, or another company that you feel does a good job of defining a specific buyer persona and connecting with this buyer via social media.

-    What characteristics does this buyer persona have?

-    What makes the company successful at targeting this buyer?

-   What channels and language does the company use to target this specific buyer persona?

2. Imagine you are the social media coordinator for an organization (this can be one you currently work for, are interested in, or even an imaginary organization). Develop one specific buyer persona for this organization and describe some of the tactics you could use for reaching this buyer persona on social media.

-    What characteristics does this buyer persona have?

-    What social media channels should you use to effectively reach this buyer and what language should you use?

-    How would you measure the success of your communication attempt/social media strategy?

Please cite your sources and incorporate images, hyperlinks, and/or videos, etc. in your response as deemed fit.

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Sources:

Scott, D. M. (2013). The new rules of marketing & PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, & viral marketing to reach buyers directly (4th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.

Gaudet, E. J. (2014). How to develop your buyer persona and reel in better customers. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2014/10/28/how-to-develop-your-buyer-persona-and-reel-in-better-customers/

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Update:

Group 5 responses on the buyer persona can be found here:
1. The Buyer Persona and Social Media
2. Taco Bell - Si, Yo Hablo Buyer Persona
3. Targeting a Specific Buyer Persona
4. Loving the Buyer Persona

Join the conversation!