We recently had the opportunity to work with a new business owner, who was looking to market gym wear to a “whoever will buy” audience. While this was not a bad place to start, we knew we had to figure out and document who his audience really was if we wanted to make an impact for the brand. So, we started with creating digital audience personas, a hugely important piece of the marketing puzzle.
Forming these personas involves studying both internal and external sources. To get the ball rolling with this client, we set out to understand all about the their business, from who the competitors were to the publications that the audience likes reading. Our strategy template also covers minute details, like audience age ranges and websites most commonly used to buy the products.
This involves a lot of mind-mapping and researching competitor data from other sales funnels and tools, but in the end, it is worth it not only for us as media managers (finally we know where to put the money!) but also for our client, who now knows what kind of promotions his audience responds to best.
Audience personas should be at the forefront of any marketing strategy. It is not only wise but absolutely essential for brands to crack down and learn who their customer really is. After that, it’s all about getting the pieces of How and Where together.
At Trevelino/Keller, we think of an audience persona not as a fictional character created just to connect the dots but as a real-life human with emotions and motivations. What kind of content would benefit that person most?
It is no longer enough to stop at what the person reads or watches. The eruption of digital technology has detonated a vast array of social triggers, all wanting a piece of attention. In other words, we need to go far beyond demographic, behavioral and lifestyle analysis to study a consumer’s shopping preferences, content consumption habits, social activities and much more.
We always sign off with the expectations the client has from his ideal customer persona for a particular campaign – not to manipulate the order of things, but to find the right balance between the solution a brand offers and the actual customer journey.