Effective Prospecting for SMEs/Freelancers: Thoughts around Customer Personas.
Who are your customers? Surely, every smart business owner would have (and have been) asked this question at one time or the other. What is striking then — if you engage SME founders/owners a lot in Nigeria — is that the initial answer is mostly ‘everyone’ or a demographic not backed by sufficient data. And that’s wrong for a lot of reasons. First, no one is literally targeting everyone and they know that. Also, if projecting a huge worth around your business is the goal, thinking and saying ‘everyone’ is your customer is counterproductive. Ambiguity also comes with an unintended consequence — the absence of a clear head and a laser focused marketing effort.
Everything stated above becomes avoidable when you consider the reason behind asking the question in the first place. Sales, I believe. Which is the result of marketing done right. And maybe the question can also come off as ‘how well do you know your customers’ which is probably not as well as you should do. You have to know who you are selling to if you are ever going to sell (and sell well) right? And while I can go right ahead into defining what a customer persona is (which is just a subset of customer segmentation), and how to create one — it’s important to state that, fundamentally, the ‘level’ of thought you put into your business at the beginning will influence whatever you do, going forward, negatively or positively. Primarily, it’s important that you have a list of clearly illustrated problems you are solving (or attempting to solve), the solutions you are proffering, and ‘who for’ — your customer segment — and ‘who first’ — your early, ready adopters who will jump at you immediately they see whatever you have — alongside a clearly stated unique value proposition and solid differentiation points.
Now, let’s get right into what this article is all about.
What is a Customer Persona and how can it help your prospecting?
Adele Revella, founder of Buyer Persona Institute, describes a customer persona like this: Actionable buyer personas reveal insights about your buyers’ decisions-the specific attitudes, concerns and criteria that drive prospective customers to choose you, your competitor or the status quo. @ sdkusin, writing for HubSpot, defines it as: a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customer.
To put it in simpler terms, a customer persona will be an hypothetical archetype of who will buy from you or pay for your services (think a detailed personal profiling of who engages your product and services).
Well, you might ask, how is this different from customer segmentation? Customer segmentation, on one hand, is an overall detailed description of people who share the same demographics, purchase behaviours/buying patterns, preferences, firmagraphics/affiliations which helps to forecast market interest for your product or service, while customer personas, on the other hand, helps to understand the emotional and behavioural triggers behind individual customers within that market group, leveraging, for example, typical behaviors, attitudes, and personal motivations. Why is this important? Because customer personas identify who your customers are on a personal level, they help you to make that fundamental mindset shift that stops you from talking more about what you do than what your customer needs — this ultimately influences and makes your marketing efforts effective because it positions you and your offerings as genuinely understanding and concerned about your customers. And trust me. They eventually notice this. And it could be the literal game changer for you.
Originally published at https://www.davidakinyemi.com on October 24, 2019.
