6 Part Series of Strategy to Build Your Brand
Congratulations on completing parts one and two! By now, you’ve built the foundation of your business by identifying your business model and creating your brand mission, vision and key objectives. It’s time to look at a very important piece of any business puzzle: your customers.
Regardless of what industry you’re in or what service or product you provide - customers are fundamental to the success of your entire business. The more you know and understand your customers, the better you can modify and customise your product/service around their needs. When developing a digital strategy, it pays to always have your customer front of mind - literally.
If you’re navigating customer personas for the first time,
working with a mentor is a great way to ensure you get the best results. Here are a few tips to get you started.
A very common mistake many business owners fall into is failing to narrow down their target market. While it may be tempting to sell your wonderful product or service to as many people as possible, there is very little value in marketing to the mass population - and in fact, it can be detrimental to your overall marketing and brand strategy. Why? Because humans are all very different. A marketing message that appeals to a 55- year-old single woman won’t resonate with a 31-year-old father of two. When you try to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no-one. Not to mention, it’s time-consuming, and can become very costly.
When you’re defining your target customers, it’s important to factor in their underlying drivers and motivations. For example, is your customer motivated by status symbols and luxury? Or are you targeting a demographic who value experiences over material objects? New digital marketing tools provide us with the opportunities to target our audiences through their needs and motivations.
A mentor can help you identify what these deeper needs are, and develop a strategy for how to target them effectively.
A customer persona is a fictional character constructed to represent the characteristics of your customer base. It’s the person you picture when you’re coming up with your marketing strategy, writing a blog or a social post. Personas are a fantastic way to build a visual portrait of your ideal customers. Each persona should have a backstory and a clear definition of their needs, motivations, and goals. Your mission is to cater to all of these. Example Customer Persona for a business called “Cool Café”
Now, it’s time to create yours! Try creating customer personas for your business, using the template above. Feel free to insert multiple personas; it is unrealistic in business to just target ‘the one’. We’d recommend a 3-5 max in order of importance/size, for the most effective strategy.
Want to learn from the best to set your business up for success? Our
Digital Solutions Program offers a number of mentoring opportunities with entrepreneurs who have expertise across a wide range of industries. If you want to create the strongest business model to bring your dream to life, find out more
here.
