5/1/24
Written by
Martin Sully
The last blog focused on repelling customers. I asked you to stand for something, get to know your customers better and set their expectations of what they can expect of your product/service. This time we're gonna look at how to attract your dream customers.
One thing we can learn from big brands is to be laser-focused when looking at who your customer is and what their needs and wants are. Why do I want you to be laser-focused? Well, a laser focus is a faster, simpler way to increase trust and make more sales.
Targeting a broad demographic is really hard. People have different interests and things they love, making it very difficult. It's gonna cost you a lot more time, money and energy than focusing on a little niche area.
When you find your niche and dive into what they want, it's gonna be a lot easier to work out what they want to come away with and how they want to feel afterwards.
Conversations will be simpler (hint, almost like they are real people), and building relationships with people becomes more fun.
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An example of this is a new, offline networking event. I've put together called chatterbox. It's about giving people a chance to catch up with people in a similar position to you.
I work from home, and there's a lot of other people that work from home, just like me. It's an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and meet more people. But also share that experience with other people. The idea was sparked by having conversations with people!
Deep down, people wanted connection. They wanted to end that isolation. That's what they come away with. They want to feel like they can reach out to other people, ask questions and be heard. And understand that it's okay to feel isolated and lacking business clarity.
If you're in Newcastle, Australia, you should come along – it's free –you just have to grab a coffee or a piece of cake. We dot them around different venues around Newcastle and the Hunter valley. Take a look at the Chatterbox Instagram account for more details.
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Seth Godin's quote sums everything up, "Reach is almost always the wrong path. Being known by lots of people, isn't really the goal. What you're really seeking is to be trusted, to be heard, to be talked about and to matter. And if we look at any brand that's succeeded, that is what they've done."
If you speak to everyone, you actually speak to no one. Showing the importance of outlining a crystal clear target market.
We have to move on to find out who is your brand someone. As one of my great mentors, Meg Purser, would say, "Who's your who?" Who is that person that you are speaking to?
To simplify it, we must dive deeper into brand or buyer personas. Let me illustrate it with a baby food buyer persona.
We've got a young, two-and-a-half-year-old, and naturally, we care about what she eats. We want the best for her so that she can thrive. That thinking leads us to look at organic baby food brands than it does not looking at them.
Parents as a demographic are too big. We need to laser-focus.
You can have a couple of parents who love the idea but can't afford it. They might want to see promotions and special offers. They will dip in an out of the brand when you send them an offer. They may sometimes make their own food for their baby.
Alternatively, there will be parents that can afford it and don't have the time to do cooking. They will love everything about the services and preach to others. They'll be your dream customers that make consistent purchases.
They could also be single parents who have a completely different set of needs and wants. They might consider making all the babies food, but they may find it challenging to do that every week.
The persona might be looking for a solution that is fresh, organic, transparent, relatable, and convenient to their lives. They are part of the generation that Google's everything. They might also be regular Amazon shoppers, Click and Collectors, who love the convenience of just having it come straight to the door/boot. They may crave a seamless customer experience or journey.
I'm trying to illustrate that we need to generalise our personas first, then narrow them down to focus on their needs. Clean, organic foods, convenient ordering systems, affordable, premium - this list can go on and on.
When running a branding workshop, I typically put together three to four personas for that product or service.
You might build a persona from scratch or base it around someone you're already working with.
I will dive into a persona I've created in the past I've worked on. Pay close attention to how real the person seems as I bring them to life – hopefully, it inspires you to write one and asks you the right questions.
Brian's 28 and has an older brother-in-law, John. John loves the finer things in life. And introduced Brian to the world of craft beer.
Being the explorer that he is. Brian loves discovering different flavours and new things. Every time his favourite breweries drop another release. He gets a rush of blood and rushes straight to the bottle shop to buy the beer.
While he is there, he picks up five other craft beers. Brian isn't motivated by the alcohol content. But the flavour exploration leads him to drink some pretty radical concoctions. But he doesn't care as it's something to chat about with friends and Facebook groups.
He gets online and chats to them about the different beers. Meanwhile, his girlfriend can't understand why it takes him 30 minutes to pick up six beers in the bottle shop.
Well, he reads every can label, of every beer, he picks up. He is drawn to the different can designs and will most likely put the empty on a shelf like a badge of honour.
He has built up trust in four or five stand-out breweries that he knows will always give him a good beer, no matter how odd. He wonders though if becoming a head brewer would be a bit fun. But his main concern is he would drink too much.
His favourite Instagram accounts are Range brewing and Mountain Culture, and he watches how to brew tutorials on YouTube. ~
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That's one distinctive persona, and we could have gone further – looking at daily habits, his job, favourite coffee orders et cetera.
We could go way further and do a persona for Brian's girlfriend. Scenario - she wants to go in and buy him something for his birthday but doesn't know what he'd like, so she needs help.
There's so many little ways we can start breaking down what the customer personas are.
To write yours, take a goofy gander through these questions. Then keep at it until you get 3-4 personas!
There's a lot of questions you can ask yourself about your customers.
Three amazing things happen after this.
All that laser focusing you do will help clarify your messaging. So you can relate to your people without sounding like a robot.
And, by looking at brand/buyer/customer personas, you can build a clearer picture of how brand visual's can look! Those little signals (like favourite breweries, Instagram accounts, can artwork) are useful information that can be used to pick out brand aesthetics, colours, fonts, and logos.
Your personas will also reflect on real-world issues that might be affecting them. How are they currently feeling?
In the last few years, we've had the COVID-19 pandemic, are the psychographics you are picking out still relevant? Or do you need to adjust them?
If you wanna know a little bit more information, feel free to reach out and connect up and start making you think about, you know, building out your own characters.
Need support? Book a Discovery Call.
Not sure where you want to go? We can chat through your brand, personal goals and work out an action plan.
