It’s been seven years since I started The 色花堂 Blog, and I am pleased to publish our very first guest post. I hope you enjoy these recommendations from Irakli Beselidze, CEO of Premier SV in Russia, presenter of Marketing Guru TV show, and now a Certified Practitioner of 色花堂 Institute.
It鈥檚 rash to conclude that the concept of target audience is a meaningful tool for building a marketing strategy. Just because someone is a member of a socio-demographic group doesn鈥檛 mean they鈥檒l buy your products. People buy because they want to improve something about their lives, or their business, with the help of your solution, and you need to know how they think about that.
Have you ever woken up with the idea that you belong to a particular target audience, and must consume marketing messages no less than three times a week in order to decide which product to purchase? Absolutely not! People focus on how to solve their current problems, and they don鈥檛 want to be distracted by anything that doesn’t help them make a good decision.
While developing a marketing strategy, it鈥檚 crucially important to understand what problems people think they will solve by using your product and what communication context unites them during their decision-making process. To identify and provide a structured description of the context a person delves into during the buying process, Premier SV conducts qualitative research on buyers. The result is a detailed description: a buyer persona. It鈥檚 these personas that should serve as the basis for developing a communication strategy.
Here are six situations where buyer personas are a much better tool than a target audience that is determined by socio-demographic characteristics.
1.听听听 Your products aren鈥檛 spontaneously purchased within 10 minutes of discovery. Your buyers prefer to evaluate all possible options because the consequences of making the wrong decision are costly.
If we are dealing with a high-consideration purchase, branding based on knowledge of your target audience and spontaneous brand awareness are no guarantee buyers will choose you. Often, these consumers will ignore your slogans and advertising messages to rely on objective reviews from your former clients, their friends and coworkers.
2.听听听 Your target audience includes a lot of people who are not a potential customer.
If only 1 out of 10 people in your target audience needs your solution, while the other 9 aren鈥檛 prospects, it means you simply waste 90% of your efforts and resources. Though you may increase your brand awareness among your target audience and eventually increase sales, it鈥檒l be impossible to identify if this is the direct result of your marketing campaign.
3.听听听 Your marketing activities are repetitive and very similar to your competitors.
Since companies in direct competition have the same target audience, it鈥檚 unlikely that they鈥檒l have distinctive strategies for marketing campaigns. The result can be intense competition of creative ideas which aren鈥檛 relevant to the buyers鈥 context, but are just focused on framing the solution in new and exciting ways. This might not seem bad, but the further you are from the buyer鈥檚 context, the less likely the buyer will understand you and your messaging. Your marketing should be specific, clear and concise, and focus on how you鈥檒l solve your buyers鈥 real problem.
4.听听听 You鈥檙e not exactly sure what people need to hear to choose you.
Messaging for target audience and buyer personas are different as in the first case you鈥檙e talking about the product while in the second case 鈥 about solving a problem. For example, a well-known slogan created by Premier SV for Herschi-Cola鈥檚 target audience of 10-20 year olds was 鈥Herschi-Cola 鈥 the taste of victory.鈥 While clever, it doesn鈥檛 reveal any particular reason for buyers to choose it. The same goes for the slogan 鈥淎lways Coca-Cola鈥 鈥 it is just a way to show the value of the product, without paying attention to the context of its purchase. That鈥檚 why the winner in these messages鈥 battle will be the one with a bigger media budget.
Premier SV has decided not to participate in these competitions anymore. After analyzing 翱苍诲耻濒颈苍别鈥檚 buyer persona, we鈥檝e transformed the slogan for their roofing materials and male target audience of 30-55 year olds from 鈥淒oesn鈥檛 rust, doesn鈥檛 leak, doesn鈥檛 make noise鈥 to 鈥淥nduline 鈥 easy roof repair鈥. We鈥檝e stressed the core value for buyers 鈥 the simplicity of solving the problem of a leaky roof as it stacks up to other options.
5.听听听 You鈥檙e not sure if you鈥檝e chosen the right communication channels.
It’s difficult to find a brand that鈥檚 100% sure their chosen media plan is the best, even if their marketing campaign is already in place. The reason why we鈥檙e unsure can be connected to an inability to understand how communication channels affect a consumer鈥檚 decision to buy a product. Traditional effectiveness metrics only reveal the number of contacts within your target audience, but no one understands how these contacts transform into an interest in a product or sales.
You won鈥檛 have these problems with buyer personas, because they uncover the sources of buyers鈥 decisions at each stage of the buying cycle, and identify the particular sources of information that influenced the decision.
6.听听听 Your target audience is mixed, or decisions are made by a group of people belonging to different socio-demographic groups.
The classic example of this situation appeared in Premier SV when we were researching buyers for the latest model of Toyota RAV4.聽 We found that in most cases, both men and women contributed to the final decision to purchase the car. Additionally, in most cases both parties had equal weight in the buying process, but opposite evaluation criteria. What should be done in cases like these? Since Toyota is focused on traditional marketing methods, they decided to concentrate on male buyers. Typically, men and women use different sources of information and perceive the RAV4鈥檚 merits differently, so they decided to ignore the section of their target audience which wasn鈥檛 perceived as important.
B2B brands can also encounter the need to target 5-6 people with varying job titles, who work in different departments and all influence the decision-making process. Curious how to solve this problem?
Give up the idea of using your target audience as a tool for identifying decision makers, and start studying buyer personas. This will help you identify their roles in the decision-making process, evaluation criteria and many other factors that help buyers differentiate you from others and assure them that your product will make their life better.
Each year consumers become more savvy and sophisticated in making purchase decisions. To continue influencing them efficiently, you need to better study their behavior in the process of buying your product. Buyer personas are a step forward in this direction. When you research your buyer鈥檚 decisions, you鈥檒l understand your buyers and create more effective marketing communications.
Has your company already interviewed buyers to build buyer personas? What was the most challenging part? Please share your ideas with us.
