What You Should Do Before Creating Groups of Persona Profiles
On previous posts, we discussed the reasons why you should think about creating groups of persona profiles for your business, and how they work. In today’s article, we are covering what you can do before that to get started with creating groups of persona profiles.
This information will help you to create better content for your website, establish a navigation system that will improve your sales cycle, write better email newsletters, blog posts, eBooks, Social Media interaction, and more.
If you are new to business, first we need to think about what it is that we are offering, and who is most likely to be interested. If you are running a business already, identifying persona profiles will be a lot easier because you will be able to interview existing clients, send them email newsletters, and run surveys.
You can start by reading blogs that your ideal persona would be interested in. By reading blogs, you will have an overview on how the market is being explored. Make sure you aren’t copying anything, but rather just use it for inspiration. Analyze terms that are being used, frequently asked questions, and other hot topics.
Social Media search engine tools are great helpers during the persona profile process. They will allow you to be engaged in related conversations (on Twitter or Facebook) that are already happening in your industry.
Need a hookup? See this article about Social Media tools that will help you to get started. Social Media Tools That Will Improve Your Campaigns Today. Here we have more places you can check out:
- LinkedIn news feed
- Google blogs research
- Technorati
- Squidoo.com
Another way to analyze groups of persona is by contracting a marketing research company. They will be able to do all of this work for you. But if you are on a budget, this can be replaced by these actions:
Get to Know Target Audience and Identify Their Needs
As mentioned before, a comprehensive analysis of what is happening online is important. Look to other blogs, forums, Social Media channels that are related to your niche and observe what the questions are that are most frequent and what kind of solutions they are looking for.
If you are already in business, you can interview your current customers and ask them questions such as:
- What do they need, and what is important to them?
- What is the exact incentive that would help them to take action?
- Who would influence their decisions? (write some content for the influencers or indirect target e.g., partner, mother)
- What kind of visual appeal would be ideal for them? What kinds of designs and visual communication?
- How did they find you?
- What problems have you helped them solve?
- What have they expected from you in the past?
- What do they expect from you going forward?
- Do they have any suggestions for you?
Research the Type of Language Your Ideal Audience is Using
All the steps that were mentioned so far will help you to understand what the language of your audience is. In addition, it is very important to use their terms and not your old and technical ones.
You must know that keyword research is a great way to figure out the terms people are using. Here are some keyword tools that will assist you during this process:
KeywordSpy
If you have identified any potential competitor, you can check which keywords they are using on the KeywordSpy website.
WordStream’s Keyword Suggestion Tool
All of this will give you a good idea of your customers’ mindset and how they behave. Now define them by sex, age group, typical problems, hobbies, what they would be doing during their free time, and what kind of material they would be likely to read.
This will help you to create content that is outside of your typical business topics but is important for the clients. This helps you break the serious routine of sending them heavy and professional articles or emails and allows you to start talking about topics that are not directly related to your business, but they are important and pertinent from the perspective of the client.
