e-Commerce makes retail much easier than it used to be and now anyone can open an online store and start selling products. With such a crowded playing field, marketing becomes your most valuable asset.
To get potential customers to notice your business over competitors, you need more than the right product. You need your e-Commerce marketing content to stand out, to resonate with shoppers and evoke an emotional reaction. Generic marketing strategies can reach millions of shoppers, but it’s precision that will gain loyal shoppers at a lower cost. The best way to get started is by creating and targeting your buyer personas.
WHAT ARE THE 6 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CREATING YOUR PERSONAS:
What is a buyer persona?
Why are buyer personas important for your online store?
Defining your target audience
Understanding your customers' behaviour
How to research your buyer personas?
Getting even more out of your personas
1. WHAT IS A BUYER PERSONA?
A buyer persona is a mold of your ideal customer. This is a customer that takes an active interest in your brand or products and purchases them.
Let’s say your online store specialises in sneakers. You'll definitely attract a variety of potential shoppers and there is no doubt about it. These shoppers will all be interested in sneakers, but from different demographics with a range of shopping habits.
For example, the following buyer personas may be most likely to interact with your brand:
Suburban teens interested in latest fashion trends and swag
Middle-aged men with lower incomes in urban areas
25-35 year old females with higher disposable incomes and interest in outdoor festivals.
While these groups all express interest in sneakers, they’ll engage with your marketing content differently.
Buyer personas relevant to your business are unique to you. Moreover, understanding and defining who they are is critical to running a successful digital marketing campaign.
2. WHY ARE BUYER PERSONAS IMPORTANT FOR YOUR ONLINE STORE?
Creating these personas lets you “put a face” to the shoppers you want to attract - humanising the marketing journey. You’re no longer advertising with the masses in mind, but rather to individuals.
By gaining better insight into who your customers are, you can create marketing material that resonates with them emotionally and intellectually. Marketing content that evokes a reaction will increase the likelihood of potential shoppers taking notice and connecting with your business.
3. DEFINING YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Defining your target audience may seem intuitive and unnecessary, but it’s a critical first step to understanding your buyer personas. If you’re running a larger business, this becomes even more important. Having a clearly defined target audience can help you and your team collectively focus your marketing efforts.
Creating a buyer persona usually starts with gender, age, geographic region and income.
Putting it together, a basic buyer persona may look something like this:
Gender: Male
Age: 25-35
Area: Clifton
Income: 100K - 150Kpm
Additional aspects you may want to research, include:
Hobbies and interests
Ideals and values
Lifestyle
If your online store caters to other businesses (B2B), you should add an industry and job title to your persona. Similar to B2C personas, B2B personas differ from company to company and should be tailored to maximize your effectiveness.
4. UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOUR
Creating basic personas is just the start. Once you have this covered, dive deeper to understand your target audience’s needs, wants and behaviours.
Start by addressing your customer’s pain points. Pain points are any needs or problems people may have, which your products or services can answer. If your products can fulfill a real need your target audience has, they’re more likely to buy them.
When researching customer shopping behaviour, consider the following:
When do they shop?
Where do they shop?
What devices do they use to shop (mobile or desktop)?
How often do they buy products similar to yours?
How much do they typically spend on these products?
While understanding consumer shopping behaviour can get overwhelming, it offers more information and increases the accuracy of your ad campaigns. You can target different audiences throughout the year, or create campaigns that target your competitor’s customers. Data and creativity are the only limitation.
5. HOW TO RESEARCH YOUR BUYER PERSONAS?
Gathering all this information is complex and time-consuming, but we have mastered it. We recommend our clients to use CRM systems, analytics from their online store, Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel. Creating a satisfaction survey, and sending it to your clients or requesting will also help you in your research.
6. GETTING EVEN MORE OUT OF YOUR PERSONAS
Efficient, sales-boosting marketing is just one plus side of creating buyer personas. Once you have a thorough understanding of your audience, you can improve on many aspects of your customer interactions.
The most important thing is to begin the process. Once you get the ball rolling, you’ll quickly see the benefits.
Use the following checklist to start developing buyer personas for your business:
Focus on one or two target groups
Define their age, gender, region and income
Find your shoppers’ pain points
Define your personas’ shopping behaviors
Create negative buyer personas
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