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If you are reading this, you are not satisfied by the results your business is generating, You might be constantly posting about your business with just the right hashtags and social media efforts, to an audience that is creating a little engagement but generating no sales and losing potential customers. But have you ever wondered why? The answer is you are putting the right effort in the wrong direction- ie: you don’t know who your target audience is and their purchasing behaviors to position your marketing strategies to them.  In this post, we will make you go through a detailed overview of the importance of having an identified customer avatar and a comprehensive free template to assist you in devising your buyer persona. Defining customer avatar/buyer persona? For people who are new to marketing- The buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer based on the market research and data of your customers. Buyer persona documents the personal and behavioral traits, demographics, customer life cycles, empathy map, and online habits, enabling you to visualize your right and ideal customer- so you can position your brand and marketing campaigns towards the right audience base, and generate desirable results with the minimum efforts. Why is creating a buyer persona important? Devising personas is the starting point of all marketing strategies. As consultants, we have often been faced with challenges to devise a strategy that results in scaling growth while keeping the cost of customer acquisition down. And the first thing that we do is- get the customer personas defined. This step is often missed by many companies, resulting in the loss of potential leads. Don’t know how you can gather data to compile Buyer Personas for your business? It can be done through: Survey/interview your repeat customers You may hold surveys with your existing customers to identify what they like and what they don’t like. You may offer some incentives like discounts if you fill out this survey form. Brainstorm You may brainstorm the traits of your dream customers and add them into the buyer persona template. Hangout on platforms they are hanging  Hanging out just among your desired audience tells the most about your dream customers, their wants and needs about certain things. You will get to know their pain points as well as what pleases them.   Get help from tools  Market research tools may help you understand your dream customers and their behaviors better. Such as Think with Google digital marketing toolbox, SurveyMonkey, Ubersuggest, Statista etc. would help to do better analyze who your audience is? Buy data from marketing agencies There are research agencies that have compiled the market data of various niches which may help to identify the traits and behaviors of your dream customers. Not having customer data to start? Then follow this:  Identify your potential competitors  Identify their most engaged and liked the channel  Hangout in their group to identify the potential customer traits Understand their psychology  Collect data about your prospects  Devise a buyer persona accordingly Collect your customer data  Revise the persona according to your research  Do you need both a Customer journey map and buyer persona?  Customer journey is different from Buyer persona but a subsection of it.  Customer journey is the stages or processes your customer goes through while deciding to buy your product or service.  Without targeting the right audience at their right stage will likely get you wrong leads, and waste your budget on people who won’t connect with you. While devising a customer journey map, a strategy for each stage would be formulated. Including buyer touchpoints (spots where customers will connect/ interact with your business), the channels they are visiting, and the marketing that would be done. Each marketing campaign made will have different KPIs to measure the success in each stage of the customer journey, creating a customer-focused mentality and henceforth, resulting in increased customer retention, exactly why it’s vital for organizations to devise a map. Looks like too much to do? Fret not we have devised a template to assist you with all the important information needed to devise a detailed buyer persona- hassle-free. The section below will cover all the points that our template contains and ideally each buyer persona should contain. What all to include in the buyer persona? The buyer persona template is the constitutional document that helps to correctly identify your target audience and direct all your marketing efforts towards your ideal customers. Answering below the question- what a user persona template should include?  Demographics Identifying the demographics and generational chart your audience belongs to is important to position your business and marketing strategies towards your dream buyers.  Personality traits The foremost priority is of identifying the personal and personality traits of your dream buyer. This section should include personality traits like information sources, workout routine, sleep schedule,extravagance, openness to experience and much more  Purchase behavior & journey mapping How they shop and what are their spending habits layouts the positioning plan towards your dream buyer.  Online habits How your dream customer spends their time online is crucial aspect to know in order to identify touchpoints of your marketing message. Empathy Mapping Empathy map layouts the complete structure of how your dream customer thinks, does, sees, hears, feels, and says. Empathy mapping also layouts the wishes, pains, and gains of your target customer to help them understand their emotions and influences thoroughly.  Summing it up- A brand that knows what to sell and to whom to sell wins! We are sharing the most comprehensive Buyer Persona template and build your business hassle-free. DOWNLOAD IT BELOW!  Extra value tip: use the same template to devise a negative buyer persona for people who don’t fit in your target audience to keep your focus aligned. ?

Before taking you through what is brand positioning, I would like to enlighten you with neuro study of human brains  Amongst everything the brain is good at its subconscious function is to help an individual to first survive, second thrive and third self-actualize- MASLOW HIERARCHY OF NEED Hence, any information not pertaining to these three sections tends to be ignored by humans. The major reason why brands fail is that they fail to position their product or services to help customers achieve these three different stages (survive, thrive, and self-actualize) in their life, in the easiest and clearest way to be understood. Now coming back – What is brand positioning and why is it important? Brand positioning is the value a customer perceives when they hear your brand name – to own that tiniest yet most expensive space in their minds that differentiates you from your competitors. To me, it all boils down to one question i.e.: what value proposition is required by your customer persona and how can you fulfill it? In this competitive era where millions are selling the same thing, it is of a most essential requirement now than ever to stand out in the market to own that tiny space within consumers’ perspectives. To elaborate it further – Let’s take an example of Burger King and McDonald’s. Burger King Burger King is a familiar name, this chain of hamburgers operates around the globe. They started in the year 1953 with a commitment to providing the best recipes, premium ingredients, and cordial dining experience. With charbroiled burgers on the go (flame-grilled meat), being healthier than fried burgers. What did they do?They built their target audience around individuals who are health conscious and perceived charbroiled better option than fried burgers. People who still want to enjoy a juicy beef Pattie differentiating themselves with McDonald’s. (Although, both McDonald’s and Burger King uses frozen not fresh meat) According to The American Heart Association – it considers broiling is a healthier cooking method than frying, which adds fat and calories and thus increases the risk of weight gain and coronary artery disease. McDonald’s On the other hand, McDonald’s started in 1955, with their value preposition being” Low-Priced, Quality Hamburger with Quicker Delivery”. No doubt they are standing tall by it. With a recent backlash on Mc Donald’s burgers having a life on eternity (I have to say that video went viral- and I was in shock too). Burger King took it to their advantage and if you have noticed all their campaigns, the one thing that they try to project is the credibility of the firm. They try to position themselves across to people that Burger King cares about its customers and provides them with premium charbroiled burgers. The idea was to prove to its customers that their food does not contain any preservatives. In this case, they proved it by utilizing the heat in the market against Mc Donald’s So now when I hear Burger King, I perceive it as fresh high-quality burgers with value for money as compared to McDonald’s (even though both are made of frozen meat). That is what brand positioning does.  But the positioning doesn’t end here- From your logo to your mission statement, your packaging, advertising and even customer service all should align with what you want your customers to feel and strategize accordingly.  Below is the chart of the perceived value of fast-food burger chains in my mind Do you have a great brand positioning strategy in place?  Try answering these questions to yourself about your brand Who is your target audience?  How well can you align yourself with your audience? Identify what drives their wants  What are your target audience’s pain points and what benefits are they looking for?  What unique feature can you bring to the market to outdo your competitors?  What value can you add to your customer’s life through your product or service? Your positioning strategy can be anything between these  Quality positioning – focusing and differentiating through quality Price positioning – Standing yourself out in a competitive market just by price differentiating yourself, providing value for money (I personally do not recommend this in long term, but is often opted by huge brands who built themselves through a loss leader strategy)  Unique seller preposition positioning – Identifying customer problems and wants and coming up with a solution to them in a unique way Celebrity driven positioning – positioning yourself in the market through influencers and celebrities mainly Customer service positioning – providing first-class customer service and going out of the way to solve their problems Status, lifestyle positioning – Making customers perceive how different and yet better their lives would get or be if they bought your product or service  Disruptive positioning – standing out, turning the market upside down by creatively thinking and shaking things up Understanding the power of positioning would enable you to enter a much-saturated market with an opportunity, if you do it well, you are bound to see amazing growth. If you need assistance in creating one! Then the first step would be to hop on would be 40 mins call with us!  How are you marketing your brand positioning?