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Create a Persona to Visualize and Understand Your Audience

Let me tell you about Stephen King, the author.

He’s published 54 novels; 6 non-fiction books; and nearly 200 short stories. His books have sold a whopping 350 million copies and counting. Feature films have been adapted to some novels.

It’s said that when he writes, he’s writing to just one person, his wife Tabitha. To the right of his computer is her photo. He’s writing to an audience of one.

Maybe not exactly spot on, but it serves my purpose. If you’re trying to write or talk to everyone, you’re talking to no one.

Laser focusing on an audience of one, is instrumental in forming the right message in creating products people will buy from you. This audience of one is called a persona.

A persona is a portrait of a person who is your ideal buyer or prospect.

What is a persona

A persona is a fictitious person that’s made up from a composite of who you believe your prospective customer is likely to be.

Actually, you already know a lot about this persona from the research undertaken to create your empathy map and worldview of your prospect.

I like to think of a persona as being one person that represents the behavioral patterns, attitudes, lifestyle choices, and motivations of your prospect.

Importantly, a persona is an individual, not a demographic. There is no 60% female 40% male, or an age group of between 35-45, or any of the other typical demographics. There is just an individual.

The persona you’ve created you can empathize with. You know this person well. You’ve literally been in their shoes and seen how they view the world.

The benefits of creating a persona

The ultimate benefit of creating a persona is allowing you to visualize and empathize with your prospect or audience. Your focus and message are always about them.

Let me give you two examples.

Recently I mentored and produced a podcast series for Nishita on women’s health. Nishita, in her final year of medicine, digs gynecology and loves sharing all the cool things about the female body in her podcast series.

Before we started recording the series, I asked her to imagine her audience of one – who will she be speaking to each day her podcast is aired? Her podcast addressed a question each episode which formed a building block for future episodes.

Nishita’s initial persona was that of a younger female cousin that knew next to nothing about the female body. She imagined her young cousin leaning across a table over a cup of coffee and quietly asking her a very personal question.

With that vision, Nishita was able to empathize and answer questions in a way her cousin could understand. That’s the power of a persona.

Another example is John Lee Dumas, an extremely successful podcast entrepreneur. John Lee has a daily audience of tens of thousands but he only has one persona or avatar, and that’s Jimmy.

John Lee knows everything about 34-year-old Jimmy who has a wife and 2 kids aged 3 and 5. Jimmy’s commute to work, which is a cubicle job he doesn’t like, takes 27 minutes. His drive home after a 9-hour day takes 32 minutes because of traffic. The persona of Jimmy is very detailed. John Lee even created an entire animated video on Jimmy.

Why? Because John Lee’s podcast series, EOFire, is to inspire Jimmy, and others like him, whilst they drive to work. John Lee knows exactly what Jimmy wants, believes in, and aspires too.

How do you create a persona?

The empathy map you created, and the research for your prospects worldview, will provide you with most of the information you need to construct a persona.

There are the basics such as name, age, gender, income, education, marital status, and children. Then there are the personal details to help you empathize with this person on a more intimate level.

Personal information such as their goals, values, and problems. What are your persona’s needs and what are their influences?

Finally, find a photograph that closely resembles your persona. Would be good to know hair color or do they always wear a cap?

Ultimately you’re creating a persona you can empathize with and who resonates with your target market.

The persona and why it’s important

Creating a persona gives you the opportunity to visualize and empathize with your prospect or audience. It’s your audience of one person who you know so well. What you write or talk about will resonate.

There are no other distractions. You’re at one with this person and empathize with their worldview.

Look at the photo of your persona and think how well you know the person. To write or to talk is as easy as talking to a close friend.

And the persona you’ve created represents your prospective customer.

Your Customers Worldview and Why It Matters

We all have a worldview.

Simply, it’s how we see the world. But it’s far more complex than that because our worldview is responsible for our behavior and actions.

Knowing your prospective customer is understanding their behavior and actions. It’s being able to empathize with them and see their worldview. That’s the starting point to creating products or services they’ll want to buy from you.

Being able to empathize with your prospective customers is literally putting yourself in their shoes to understand their behavior. The best way to do this is to create an empathy map.

But this behavioral information lacks context because we need to know the why behind the behavioral patterns. The why is their worldview and that’s why it matters. How does your prospect see the world?

Why a worldview matters

Our worldview informs how we behave.

Your worldview can be very specific such as, “should I park my car out in the open or undercover” or very general, like having a favorite color. There is no right or wrong because it’s your worldview and that forms the basis for much of your decision making.

Likewise, your customer’s worldview tells you the reason why they behave, such as their purchasing decisions and the goals and objectives they have. It forms the basis of who they are.

You’re not trying to change their worldview. Far from it. You’re trying to understand their beliefs and attitudes of how they see the world, in order to create a product or service they’ll want to buy.

Worldviews change over time

Think of your own worldview and how it’s developed and changed over time as different events impact your life.

There are obvious reasons for change, such as the influence and opinions of your parents, teachers, and friends. Other reasons are subtle like the type of education you undertake, your work experiences, romance, partners and the kaleidoscope of what is life.

Try and recall the simplicity of your worldview at the age of 6 compared with today. With maturity and age, our worldview develops and we see things through different lenses or filters.

Our worldview may also completely change about a subject or situation. An example could be your political voting intention when you were younger compared with today.

The power of understanding your prospects worldview

It feels good when someone agrees with your views. That’s when someone has a similar worldview on a topic.

They may nod their head in agreement as they read or listen to what you’re saying. They’re attracted to you because you’ve confirmed their worldview.

That’s very powerful particularly if it’s a prospective customer. Your message, and what you have to offer, has resonated with them. They’ve actually made a start on the journey towards making a purchase from you.

How to discover your customers worldview

It comes down to doing research, much of which overlaps with the research required to create an empathy map.

Let’s take a look at some ways to gather information on your customers worldview.

Perform online surveys.
Read comments on blog posts.
Sitting down and having coffee with people who represent the type of person you’re wanting to sell too.
Monitor social media conversations and online communities that represent your prospective customer.
If possible, be a member of the group you’ll sell to.
Eavesdrop on conversations.

The above list, by no means exhaustive, requires both observation and asking the right kind of questions. The answers obtained will provide a general sense of the way your prospect believes the world works.

Keep in mind that your customer’s worldview also changes over time, so your research needs to be of continual monitoring. You can’t be complacent after the initial research phase – it’s ongoing.

Pulling it together

It all seems like a lot of research and yes, it is. But the aim is to define and redefine who your prospect is.

Knowing and understanding your prospective customer is key. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a blog post, a book, creating a product or service. You need to know who you will be serving, otherwise, it’s all for naught.

I haven’t mentioned markets, niches or personas yet. That will come later.

The starting point is being able to emphasize with your prospect and see her worldview. That’s where it starts and that’s actually where the game is won.

The work done in this research phase will give you an understanding of who your prospective customer is and why they will do business with you. That’s invaluable.

Create an Empathy Map to Better Understand Your Customers

Two minutes ago a customer purchased your product online. Like all your other customers this is a person, not a demographic.

Strange as it may seem, a demographic has never pulled out a credit card.

So, what do you really know about your customers?

Knowing your prospective customer is the starting point to creating products or services that people want to buy.

It begins at the emotional level by having empathy with them. What are their feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another? Ideally, it’s putting yourself in their shoes to truly understand them and this can be achieved by creating an empathy map.

An empathy map represents the sensory information of the customer and is usually shown as four quadrants broken into “Thinking”, “Seeing”, “Doing”, and “Feeling”.

This is not about creating a buyer persona or persona – that comes later. Instead, it’s working out who your ideal audience is to buy from you.

Although they may appear the same, an empathy map is different from a persona.

A buyer persona or avatar, is a portrait of a person, one or more, who are your ideal buyers. They exhibit similar behavioral patterns in their purchasing decisions, lifestyle choices, attitudes, and motivations regardless of age, gender, education, and other typical demographics.

Can you see the difference? An empathy map provides emotional information and a buyer persona shows the behavioral patterns of a prospective customer.

What is empathy?

Empathy is understanding the emotions, feelings and thoughts of another person from their perspective. It’s putting yourself in their shoes.

Their perspective is very important because it’s their worldview and how they see the world, not yours.

By being able to emphasize with your prospective customer you’ll understand them. When you understand them, you can create products and services that they’ll want to buy.

Creating an empathy map

An empathy map creates a composite person and although fictional, will be the best guestimate based on your research.

Start by drawing the four quadrants of the empathy map and labeling them:

Thinking
Seeing
Doing
Feeling

You now need to fill in the quadrants to create a realistic and relevant person that will be the customer that you will most likely attract.

Consider the following:

Thinking

What are their hopes and dreams?
What are their worries?
What are they thinking when it comes to the benefits of what your product can offer them?
What do they hope to gain by using your product?

Seeing

What is their environment?
What is their worldview in the context of your product?
What do they see when they view or use your product?

Doing

What are their behavior characteristics?
What are their priorities?
What influences them and how?
What are their communication channels?
What are they doing now they wish was different?
What outcome would they like by using your product?

Feeling

What are their fears?
What holds them back from purchasing?
Are there other motivational hurdles?

I know this may seem like a lot of work, but it’s research that’s needed to understand your customer. In the long run, it will be invaluable and you’ll be able to redefine your customer over time.

Different ways to capture information

Here are some ways you can capture the information required to fill out the empathy map.

Perform online surveys.
Sitting down and having coffee with people who represent the type of person you’re wanting to sell too.
Social Media observation of groups or communities that represent your ideal audience.
Be the market – be a member of the group you’ll sell to.

Why empathy maps are important

It’s a long game getting a prospective customer to do business with you and it begins at the research phase.

For starters, you literally want to be in their shoes. You need to be able to empathize with them and the best way to do that is with an empathy map.

Creating an empathy map provides the emotional information you’ll need to understand your prospective customer in the context of their worldview.

In the next article I’ll explore the worldview, which is the why behind behavioral patterns developed with the empathy map.

How a Struggling Business Can Create Content to Skyrocket Sales

Bill’s proud of the fine cheese his family has made for the last three generations. His cows are milked twice a day to produce cheese that’s sold locally. But sales are dismal and there seemed no hope for 4th generation succession.

He told me his story as I tasted a variety of cheese in the shop front of his dairy. No one else was there. He could sell a lot more cheese but didn’t know any other way apart from door sales, local, and occasional wholesale.

The copyright at the bottom of the website told a story without a word being uttered – Copyright 2007. Yes, a social media presence is important and a Facebook page was created last year. But sales have not increased and after the initial flurry of likes from friends and people that visit the dairy, the Facebook page fizzled – it obviously doesn’t work.

Cynthia, Bill’s 21-year-old daughter, has just come back from a year in France. She completed an internship at MonS-Fromager, the supplier to some of the greatest restaurants throughout the world in high-quality cheese. Her love and knowledge of cheese will pave the way for the business to be 4th generation.

But Bill is at a loss. He can’t see the business being able to support another generation and maybe not even the current one. Growth in sales is negligible and this is his problem. Although exhausted, sleep is beyond him most nights, until early morning when it’s almost time to wake and supervise the cow milking.

He offers me a different style of cheese to taste. It’s now my turn to talk and I offer some obvious upbeat points. The family business:

Has acquired invaluable knowledge from generations of cheese production.
Can anticipate every question a customer or wholesaler could possibly ask.
Has the ability to produce different cheese styles and tastes depending on demand.
Has Cynthia, with her internationally recognized internship from MonS-Fromager.

A nodding head agrees, but the facial expression says “so what?”

I urge him to imagine the cheese produced from the milk of his cows being consumed internationally in the fine eateries serving wine and cheese after dinner. I continue by saying that his cheese is internationally known, enjoyed and recognized for its fine quality.

With arms crossed, Bill’s disbelief is obvious. Actually, it’s worse than that and only softens when I mention that Cynthia would be instrumental in an online content marketing strategy that would transform the family cheese dairy.

The marketing process would begin by writing and answering all the questions that customers have asked over the many years. Cynthia is ideal to write these short articles, or blog posts, as she knows all aspects of cheese production which is further supported by the knowledge obtained from her internship at MonS-Fromager. Her articles would be the content that creates global awareness and sales.

Bill leans forward and I explain a 7 stage process of content marketing that will give him the benefit of increased sales and international recognition.

1. Content is the Cornerstone

As simple as it may be, Bill’s potential customers search the Internet to seek answers to questions and problems they have about cheese.

As specifically as possible, it will be Cynthia who will answer their questions and concerns in the blog posts she writes. Every possible question will be addressed, and these are the same questions the family has been answering for decades.

An unknown asset is indeed Cynthia. Her articles and posts will exude enthusiasm, knowledge, and empathy given her background and recent internship. She’s the “real deal”. She has authenticity and in time she’ll earn authority.

But importantly, no matter how brilliant the content, it has to be found among some 1 billion websites. I detect a slump in Bill’s shoulders and quickly start with addressing the website which will ultimately be responsible for Cynthia’s content being distributed.

2. New Mobile Responsive Website

A small fortune was invested 7 years ago to create a website that’s now obsolete. A new inexpensive website is required that has the following:

A WordPress site powered by the Genesis Framework.
A Genesis theme that is mobile responsive for viewing on any device.
Blog to publish Cynthia’s posts, thereby enabling them to be shared on Social Media.
Subscribe box for free blog updates.
A Members area that is free to join and ensures Members receive news of impending new releases of cheese at a discount, special reports, and webinars.

The Members area demonstrates a level of trust by your customer and potential customer, for them to give you their email address.

Bill needs an explanation and again I ask him to imagine someone stumbling across one of Cynthia’s articles through social media or search. They probably don’t know Cynthia, so they’re at the outer level of knowing, liking and trusting someone to buy from. The strategy is to draw them closer by inviting them to opt-in for free Membership to the site to start the process of knowing and liking.

To encourage them to become a Member, they’ll receive a free special report on cheese production on signing up. They can also be assured of receiving other special reports, discounted offers on new cheese releases and occasional Google+ Hangouts with Cynthia on various topics.

But the kicker is when it’s time to make an offer to Members, whatever that may be, they don’t need to be sold too – they want to buy from her. Cynthia’s content and the like, know, and trust factor has already done 90% of the selling.

3. Social Media Presence

Bill reminds me he has this covered with a Facebook page. I remind him that his cheese is on a journey to the finest restaurants and that requires an agile strategy that considers all aspects of content marketing.

Facebook is just one of four major social media platforms, the others being Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. It’s Google+ that’s important, not just because of Google search, or that it’s more topic orientated, but because it recognizes the author.

Cynthia will be recognized by Google as the author of the posts she has written, once her Google+ profile and a Google+ page for the dairy has been set up. Every time she writes a post and shares onto Google+, it will have its own unique identity which may then be indexed by Google.

Better still, if it’s indexed, it will contain a thumbnail photo of Cynthia alongside the summary of her post, thereby increasing the likelihood of being clicked on and driving traffic back to the website.

A little lost, maybe, but Bill certainly gets the next point. Because Cynthia’s high-quality content answers the concerns and issues of potential customers, it is likely it will be shared by them. The more it is shared, the more Google will consider it to be important.

Spinning back to the other 3 platforms, two are discounted immediately. Firstly, LinkedIn is mainly for professionals rather than consumers. Secondly, Facebook doesn’t have consistency with policy on business pages, with owners now having to pay for them to appear.

Twitter, with its 140 characters no-nonsense delivery is ideal for promoting new blog posts and “corralling”, to use a cow term, an audience of people and influencers interested in cheese.

Ultimately the 2 social media networks, being Google+ and Twitter, will be used for distributing the content created by Cynthia.

4. How to Get Noticed on Social Media

Bill leans forward and his arms aren’t folded. But even he knows getting attention online is next to impossible. Yet there is a glimmer of hope in his eyes and I explain a two-step process.

The first part is getting noticed by influencers and bloggers, achieved by identifying, following, and appropriately engaging them. However, there is a fine line between a shrinking violet and a stalker, and Cynthia must take the middle ground.

That involves constructive commentary and sharing what they tweet or post. In short time she’ll get known and respected for her insightful comments and in particular, gratitude for the sharing of their content. On that alone she will be followed – she’ll be known and liked.

The second part of getting attention is Cynthia posting her own content and people following her because of her compelling content. This is the beginning of building her audience. They like what she writes as it addresses them and their concerns and questions. She seems able to nail it every time for them. They feel part of the team and indeed evangelize the dairy brand and products. Cynthia’s audience will grow and keep growing.

5. The Audience is Growing and Listening

It’s refreshing. Cynthia’s content is a breath of fresh air. Her posts stimulate commentary, are shared, plussed and liked. People subscribe to get blog updates and opt-in to free Membership of the site. They are also eager to learn the release date of a new style of cheese. All along, Cynthia has been updating Members of how proud the dairy is of the current cheese nearing the end of its maturity.

Her content and the strong social signals of endorsement is exactly what Google wants. With her Google+ authorship and photo next to the summary of each post, Cynthia’s posts start to rank well in search. She is now not only known and liked, she’s also becoming trusted.

6. From Great Content and Search Results Comes Authority

Momentum is strong. Growing rapidly are the audience numbers on social media, the sharing of her content and people visiting the website. Importantly, site Membership has increased dramatically.

Cynthia is offered guest blogging spots on respected sites which further enhance her profile and traffic back to the website. There’s also crossover blogging with the wine industry. She starts blogging about different cheese making styles and the aging of cheese that draws deeply on her internship at MonS-Fromager. She has become very well-known, liked, and respected.

Cynthia is an Authority.

Simultaneously, reviews of the cheese produced by the dairy have been excellent.

Bill, staring in disbelief, is gobsmacked.

7. The Cheese is Sold

The sales process mainly has its origins from the Membership list, for amongst them are wholesalers, restaurateurs, owners and buyers for all types of eateries.

A week prior to the release date, Members receive an email with links to glowing reviews of the cheese and advises them to keep a look out in their inbox for the actual release. When it arrives, they’re able to purchase the cheese at a discount for a one week period or until sold out. The email, short and to the point, takes the Member to a Landing Page to specify the quantity and make the purchase.

Bill’s cheese is no longer local – it’s global and it’s in demand. The opportunities for the dairy are limitless.

Successful Content Marketing is a strategy as shown in the article above. It’s an agile ongoing process. It’s a long game that has great rewards and opportunities.