Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast, I'm Esther.
And I'm Melanie.
And today we're talking about buyer persona or your client profile. What is it? Why should you have one and how detailed should it be?
Other people also refer to it as avatars, although I've never got that. I just think differently people.
Me too. But it is important that sort of gives it a visual image of although I don't expect any giant blue people would really want to buy from, any service really
No. Let's not go there. Okay?
Anyway, moving on.
Yes.
A client profile or whatever you want to call it is a way of you visualizing your audience, not who particularly will buy from you necessarily from the first moment they meet you, but how you can visualize each person through each step of the journey to eventually purchasing from you?
Yeah, definitely. And there are some people out there that would say and you know, I'd be one of them, give it a name, give the person a name, you know, just draw a little picture. Even if it's a stick figure. I can't draw, but give them the name. Yeah, that's why I have a graphic designer. But give the person a name. OK, so if your audience is female, married in their late 30s, you know, I'm talking about Melanie myself. You know, if you want to sell to us.
"laughs"
I'm being kind to you, Melanie, stop laughing "laughs". You know what, call it call the person. Call the stick figure, Melanie, call a stick figure, Esther, call a stick figure, you know, Sandra, give her a name if she is married with two kids. Again, you're talking about myself and Melanie living on the island of Ireland. You're talking about myself and Melanie. You know, all these different things. You know, we're open to buying stuff as well. So what would you sell us and how would you do it? You need to have that visual in your mind of who it is that you're selling to. You're not selling to a screen, OK? There's somebody behind the screen that will be buying
Now it's not just what they look like, but what kind of things that they do, as well, are they following sports? Will they be doing, crafting or DIY or what kind of Facebook pages and other channels would they like or buy from? Would they be buying gardening magazines? You know, would they be fitness or sports fanatics, that sort of thing?
Yeah, and if your products and services are time-sensitive, is there a certain time of the year that they would be looking for these products?Father's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas, Valentine's Day, those sort of things are very time-sensitive. Other products and services can be sold at any time of the year, but they may be more apt or, you know, your buyer persona, your Esther, your Melanie, your Sandra might be looking for them over the summer. They might be looking in September when the kids go back to school. They might be looking in January when, you know, with the Christmas blues. What what are they thinking?
Exactly, knowing what they're thinking is half the solution, to be honest, I would describe it as the five W's. What problem do you solve? Who would purchase your solution? Why would they purchase it from you? Where could they purchase it from? So is it online or in a shop? And it's a really hard one is when they're going to purchase it because you have to get people at the right time to purchase it. And that's why we were talking about is this specifically time-sensitive period?
Is it for babies? Is it for pregnant women? Is it for kids with spots? You know, it's the when that's the problem. And a lot of people think, well, if I put it out at the right time, I'll catch him at the right time. But the social media, there is no particular right time, especially if, most of us have businesses, have global audiences, says no specific right time anymore. So. Is trying to get your information out the right time and answering all these questions, and that's essentially the bottom end of a client profile.
Yeah, and we have been talking recently on the podcast about reading your analytics and how to understand who's looking at your products and services. That goes a long way to discovering who your ideal client is. But if the people who are looking at your social media platforms are not buying from you, then they might not be your ideal clients. So you might be targeting women in their late 30s. You might be targeting mothers of two when your real audience is single women with no kids in their early 20s who are, you know, looking for your products and services to hone in on what it is that you're selling. Who has the money to buy it?
Money, definitely.
If it's a high-end product, you're, you know, it's limited basically in the number of people who can afford it. If it's a low-end product, you know, it's cheap, less than 10 euros, ten dollars, ten pounds sterling, then more people can buy it. But are they going to buy more of them or is it a one time purchase? All of these things you have to take into consideration before you hone in on your client profile or your buyer persona.
I mean, at the end of the day, we're talking about people that have already got social media platforms or Google analytics that they can refer to, these are or they've been in business and already have a picture. They've actually met their audience. But you really struggle when you're starting up.
You've got
You do a
Visit to your audiences.
You do.
I totally sympathize because I was in the same boat when I first started. I'm sure you were, definitely. And you can get an idea just by having a clue essentially at the beginning. But truthfully, when you first start up, it is very much trial and error. And that's why measuring your analytics is even more important than because you can see who's coming over to your pages, interacting with you, who's actually buying from you. You can ask them questions. How did you hear of me? What was it about my offering that you liked? You can actually find out from your current new audience what brought them over and where they were in the buying cycle. Yeah, but it's also important to remember that even though you've been running for a year, five years, 10 years, 15 years, you can still change your buyer persona, pivot, move it around, change your what you're selling, what you're offering. And, you know, if you've been selling your product or service for less and you want to move up and charging more, then you're going to have to change who it is that you're going to be targeting as well. Yeah, all of that has to change.
I mean, we all have to think of pivoting certainly once, once or twice in our careers. I've had to pivot. I changed. I rebranded a few years after I started and it was so essential for me today. I'm so glad I did. It made a huge change to my business. But by pivoting, I had to relook at my audience again.
Yeah, yeah. Sam The same thing happened to us. We rebranded, did the same pivoted and again we have benefited from it. But when people start out they sort of say, oh well, you know, my services are for anybody or anybody could buy the product that I have. But you're not everybody's cup of tea? No, absolutely not. And I mean, the majority of people that I would see would be female, speak to men as well for training, but it would be mostly women and most of them would be over thirty five. And a lot of them, certainly when I first started my business in twenty thirteen, I was seeing them because unfortunately we were going through a quite depression here in Ireland and they were all being made redundant and they were having to start up their own cottage industries, having to pivot or start again. And where they were previously, they weren't doing their social media, they weren't managing their businesses because they were employed. And so that's where I got my first audience, essentially, you know, in times of a depression.
Yeah. And that could happen to businesses now coming out of coronavirus covid-19. We could also be seeing a lot more businesses going online and needing to generate their own buyer persona or change their buyer persona. Because the liquidity isn't there, the money isn't there to buy your high-end products. How can you stay afloat at this time and moving forward, what is it that you're going to be offering?
So I think if you're listening to this today, it doesn't matter when it is during or post coronavirus, have a think. Is it time you re-looked at your actual audience, the people you were targeting and creates a proper current persona? It does change, sometimes annually, depending on your products and services, and especially if you're thinking of pivoting or you're creating new services or products now because you have to say, please do rethink today. What can you do? What's your audience going to look like? Give them names. What kind of things are they doing outside of work? How are they getting their money in and how can they find you?
Yeah, and let us know how you get on with that, because all of this with your buyer persona will help with your Facebook ads, which will be talking about in a couple of weeks. And we'd love to hear from you on how you're getting on. And if you have any questions about your buyer persona or you want us to help you out with anything to get in touch with us, you'll find us on all social media platforms and our website, the Monday morning marketing.Com.
Have a good day, guys
Bye for now.