Last week we had the privilege of collaborating with HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Specialist, Brian Moseley, as he spoke at our Buyer Persona workshop in Sarasota. During the workshop he gave many useful tips on how to create marketing that people love and want to hear about, how to create a buyer persona for your particular business, and how these personas can benefit your business. Here’s a recap of Friday’s workshop with insight on how to make sure your business is marketing to the right type of customer and being the most effective it can be.
Inbound marketing is all about the customer. No one wakes up and says, “I want to see an ad.” So why do marketers wake up and say, “Let’s make an ad”? As a marketer, you need to create marketing that people will love. Inbound marketing is different than traditional marketing in that traditional involves cold calling, SPAM emails, interruptive ads, and is marketer-centric. Inbound marketing works in the opposite way, by using SEO (search engine optimization), blogging, is customer-centric, and uses content offers that educate the reader. Inbound marketing merges content and context, making it easier to reach your ideal customer.
Related Article: 9 Questions You Need to Ask When Developing Buyer Personas
Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. (HubSpot State of Inbound, 2014)
How do you find out who your ideal customer is? You must create a buyer persona, which is a fictional representation of who your best prospective customers are, how they think, what motivates them, and how they buy. To do this, you must observe common behavior patterns, shared pain points, universal goals and dreams, and general demographic and biographic information. A buyer persona can help your business figure out which customers are most likely to use your service or product, and can help you message in a way that is appealing to your target audience. If you don’t nail down your buyer personas, every aspect of your marketing will suffer.
84% of inbound marketers - compared to only 9% of outbound marketers - cite organic sources (blogging, SEO, social media) as rising in importance. (HubSpot State of Inbound, 2014)
How will personas benefit your business?
· Personas help at every stage of the inbound methodology (attract ->convert -> close -> delight)
· Personas help identify where your best customers spend time on the internet, so you can be there too
· Personas guide product and service development
· Personas help you create the right content
Content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing, but costs 62% less. (Demand Metric)
How to create buyer personas:
· Details matter- You should look at everything about your customers/clients when researching and building personas
· Start with what you have and go- you don’t need an answer for every question when you start building personas
· You can continue to tweak and change your personas as much as necessary
Here's a short video recap from Brian about our workshop!
Creating a buyer persona for your company will help you to generate more leads and achieve greater sales. You will also save yourself money because you’ll stop spending money on unnecessary means of marketing and marketing to audiences who aren’t interested in your product or service.
If you’re ready to start creating your buyer persona now, download our Buyer Persona Cheat below or contact us at Nextiny Marketing!
