Targeting Your Digital Marketing | Building a Buyer Persona

Picture Times Square, one of the most iconic locations on the face of the earth; imagine standing in the very center of it, that place where all the pictures are taken. What you see around you is the physical representation of the digital marketplace. The cascade of flashing lights is just one small facet of marketers fighting for the attention of their clients that doesn’t even take into account all the other methods. Now more than ever you have to be specific and target your digital marketing to make sure you’re getting exactly who you want to view your content.

Targeting Your Digital Marketing

“Long gone are the days of broad marketing tactics”

Targeted marketing is both more of a necessity and easier than ever due to social media. People are almost literally lining up with their personal biography, just waiting to hand it to any business, all you need to do is ask. Or, in a more literal sense you need to go out and observe your clients; their posts, profiles, and interests all play a big part in how you should be approaching them. Either way, long gone are the days of broad marketing tactics.

The fact that targeted marketing has moved so mainstream is both a curse and blessing, we’re able to get more intimate with our customers than ever before but because it’s so easy to do it’s become the standard. In our Times Square reference, the odds that you would notice any one advertisement, in particular, is very unlikely unless that company took time to create something that resonates with you. To add to this analogy, what resonates with you is probably something that wouldn’t resonate with me, you need to understand who you’re trying to reach and how you can reach that specific person.

Building a Buyer Persona

To make creating your target market a little bit easier you can use a buyer persona exercise to create a fictional person who represents your target market. To conduct this exercise, you and your team should create a fictional character and give them the following information:

Name
Education
Industry
Job Title

From there you need to fill in a short biography of your buyer persona, explaining some information such as their goals, job difficulties, social habits, and other interesting points. By doing this you’re identifying the key points and mediums you need to utilize when trying to stand out to your market.

To solidify the idea of a buyer persona picture Joe Millennial, your average millennial guy. If you were a company that wanted to sell something to a millennial or, in this case, Joe, you could take this buyer persona and have an accurate way of targeting a 20-something male. Have a look at the graphic below for some more information about our example character, Joe Millennial.

If you were targeting an advertisement to him, creating something that reflects his personality and then placing it on a social platform or in one of his favorite hangout spots will make sure it’s getting to him. For example, if you wanted to reach him in the physical world you could advertise at coffee shops, parks, and bars to make sure that he’s seeing the advertisements where they’re at.

Reaching Joe Millennial in the digital world is also outlined in this document in the area it states, “He’s often on his phone using the most up-and-coming social media mediums.” Once you’ve identified the location you can double back on your buyer persona and see that Joe wants to feel empowered and intelligent based on the information you’ve gathered. Leveraging all of this information can help make sure you’re not only reaching your target but you’re consistently making the sale.

Using the buyer persona method, you’re able to identify your target market and specific attributes about that market, from where they hang out to the issues they have in life. Looking at this information in depth can lay out exactly how you’re going to reach your buyers and what you’re going to supply to them. With such a crowded marketing space, targeting your digital marketing is more necessary than ever, and building a buyer persona can make that process quick and painless.