You’ve probably read a few blog posts and eBooks about content marketing…
In each them, the author always seems to be talking about “ideal customers” and “buyer personas”, right?
That was certainly the case when I started my content marketing journey.
So… what is an ideal customer?
Seth Godin defines an ideal customer as someone who wants your product and has the ability and authority to pay for it.
An ideal customer also has the problem that you are solving. They are looking to solve the exact problem that your product is a solution for.
You might be new to content marketing, or you might just need a refresher.
Either way, I’ve discovered the most important information that can help you learn more about why ideal customers are important, and how you can create them from scratch.
Why ideal customers are important
A clear definition of your ideal customer will bring structure to your content marketing program. Here are some more reasons why ideal customers are important:
- They help you create content that they actually want to read.
- They help you develop lead-nurturing campaigns that speak to their challenges, values and goals.
- They help you differentiate your content marketing from all the other companies trying to vie for their attention.
You want to have a good understanding of your ideal customers, because they help you generate higher quality leads and ensure that you spend time nurturing leads that you know are experiencing problems and need a solution.
To help up with creating ideal customers, we can create buyer personas. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer. They are examples of the real buyers who influence or make decisions about the products, services or solutions you market.
How to create buyer personas for ideal customers
Here are the three quick and easy steps to creating buyer personas:
Establish basics and demographics
You need to determine the persona’s job title, key information about the company they work for, and relevant information about their background, education and hobbies. Additionally, from a demographics standpoint, determine your persona’s gender, age, household income and location.
Identify challenges, values and goals
Challenges are problems, or what some people call “pain points.” What are your persona’s biggest challenges? What keeps them up at night?
Values are what your persona holds important to them both in life and at work. What does your persona value? Are they profit driven, or focused more on helping others?
Goals represent what your persona wants to achieve. They are mostly professional goals relating to their job, but can also be personal.
Categorise by industry
The final step is optional, but highly recommended if you want to really segment your buyer personas. You need to identify specific industries for your ideal customer.
Related: A more detailed guide to quickly creating buyer personas
Knowing your ideal customers makes your content marketing more laser-targeted
Remember that content piece that flopped?
Take a look back at that blog post, eBook or video. Did you create this with no ideal customer in mind?
We all make the mistake of forgetting our ideal customers from time to time.
The simple way to stop this from happening is to clearly define your ideal customers.
This will bring better structure to your content marketing and ensure you create content that is valuable and works toward your goals and objectives.
Have you defined your ideal customer?
Use the advice you’ve learnt here to define yours today.
The post What are ideal customers? Why are they important? appeared first on Content Up.