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How to Segment Buyer Personas: A Beginner’s Guide!
"Who are your products and services for?" If the answer is "everyone", then you need to do some serious marketing strategies on high priority! Leave everything else aside! First and foremost, you need to focus on who your target audience is and put efforts into segmentalizing your target market. Just because you are targeting a wider audience base, it doesn't mean that you will generate more leads and conversions. It's a common myth that many new entrepreneurs have!
With this myth busted, you need to realize that trying to reach a vast audience will only mean that your product appeals to no specific party in particular, giving an impression that it is a more generalized, one-size fits all product or marketing message. This will ultimately lead to nowhere, and on top of that, you may end up spending huge capital on your marketing efforts!
This is where persona segmentation comes into play. Read on to learn more about how to segmentize your buyer personas and why it is important to plan effective marketing strategies.
What is Persona Segmentation?
Persona segmentation is the practice of categorizing and identifying similar buyer personas. Buyer personas represent the different target audiences in your market. By creating detailed buyer personas, you can understand what your potential customers are looking for. In this way, you can devise ways to create effective marketing messages to help them find the information they are searching for through engaging communications.
We can further define a buyer persona as a semi-fictional character who represents the image of an ideal customer. You create buyer personas by gathering data and insights into market research, competitor analysis, and customer behaviors. While every business has a broad target audience, you need to categorize it into different segments based on common interests, needs, and demands. This market segmentation simplifies your marketing efforts, thus yielding higher and more efficient outcomes.
The Importance of Persona Segmentation
By using diverse persona segmentations, you can achieve different marketing goals and objectives. Here are some benefits and the necessity of segmenting your buyer personas.
Communicate with your buyers effectively − Engage with your customers and communicate with them on a personal level. Try to learn about their pain points, preferences, needs, interests, and attitudes. Try to address the unique requirements of your potential buyers, and segment their personas accordingly. Also, determine the right channels you need to use to communicate with specific audiences.
Identify where your customers are in the buyer's journey − The three primary stages of a buyer funnel include Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion. There are subdivisions of this too, but the key idea is to put more effort into moving a potential buyer toward the end result, which is conversion. If you don't identify where your customers are on the buyer's journey, you cannot create effective marketing messages.
Determine the right communication pillars and channels to reach your customers − Next comes the segmentation of your personas based on the media channel they use and are most active on. It helps you to target them on those channels, thus building stronger customer relationships and engagement. By building deeper connections with them, you know what to say and how to pitch your brand and its products or solutions.
Nurture your customers effectively based on their position in the buyer funnel − After identifying and segmenting your buyers based on where they are in the buyer funnel, take the necessary action. Nurture your customers by delivering high-value content and appropriate marketing messages. As a result, you can help them move forward in your buyer's journey.
Track the segments you need to focus your resources on − Based on how engaged your customers are with your brand and its products, determine which of them uses up the most resources, including time, money, and people. By categorizing them into personas, you can make better decisions regarding the reallocation or redistribution of your time and money. For example, you can choose to allocate less time and money to your high-volume-generating customers, and vice versa.
4 Approaches of Segmenting Buyer Personas
Now that we have learned the importance of creating buyer personas, let's jump right into the different methods of creating persona segmentations.
1. Product Engagement
Based on how frequently your customers use your products and services, you categorize them into the product engagement segment. This category basically includes the buyers who are quite engaged with your brand, your products, and your solutions. Make a list of all the customers who have been with you for years, as well as the new ones. So, each subgroup now receives a different marketing message or newsletter, and hence, enjoys different offers. For instance, you can provide a sign-up bonus for your new visitors, and a special discount coupon for your existing clients.
2. Product Feature Use
Under this segment, you can include all those buyers who are using your products for their distinct features or benefits. Here, you can list down information regarding how your buyers use unique product features. For example, let's say you sell smartwatches. One user may use it out of a passion for cool digital wearables and to perform basic functions like receiving calls, checking messages, etc. While, on the other hand, another user may use it as a fitness tracker to track his steps or pulse rates. By having this vital information, you can create personalized messages for each user, encouraging them to try out other features too.
3. User Interaction
Different customers interact with the same product in different ways. For instance, let's assume you are a food delivery service company. Try to create segments depending on how different users interact with your brand and your services. So, your segments may look something like the delivery personnel, the restaurant or food chains you work with, and the buyers who place orders via your food delivery app.
4. Online Channels
Living in a dynamic eCommerce market, it's obvious that you will be communicating with your new and existing customers through different channels (if not, it's high time you open up multiple channels). So, segment your buyer personas based on their preferred communication platforms, be it email, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or phone calls. Hence, you can get an idea of which communication channel you need to work on and plan profitable strategies to reach the right target group. You can also optimize your website for SEO and invite your visitors to sign up for your newsletter to get higher value and updates, while also getting detailed insights into the topic they are willing to learn about.
Final Words
In this world of personalization, what can really make you stand out is to offer tailored messages and customized product suggestions based on their buying behaviors and search patterns. In today's dynamic marketplace, when customers have shorter attention spans, it’s important to grab their attention by creating appealing marketing messages and targeting the right audience. Identify your target group well because you cannot afford to waste your valuable resources in targeting the wrong market.
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