Finding your customers' need

What do your customers need?

We've discussed that your inbound marketing approach should help you formulate your content with the audience in mind. You're filling in a need.

You're looking to fill in a specific need, for a specific customer in a specific situation. If you've nailed this, then you can create and tailor a specific message for that particular segment. After optimizing your content all systems are GO to gain the top positions on the precious first page of Google.

So, what does your audience need? Ask them. This is where the subject of buyer's personas enter the scene.

Buyer's personas

You'll want your message to reach the perfect, ideal, most magnificent customer you can imagine. You'll be tailoring your messages to that particular customer. This is not a catch-all game, you need to target your message to the right audience.

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is a mental picture of your ideal customer. One possible synonym for it could be a "segment" of your target audience.

Example of buyer persona

Take for example the Dog Food brand from earlier. Dog Food Brand wants people to buy their product. They're looking to expand their online sales. Do to this, they need to figure out who their potential customers are and what they need.

Dog Food brand did the following:

1. Who are our customers?
   1. Learn who is already buying our Dog Food
      What are our customers' demographics (age, location, language, income, ...)?
      
   2. How do our customers use the internet?
      Do they buy online or not? Do they share pictures of their dog online? Are they looking for deals online?
      
   3. What does our competition do?
      Who are they tailoring their message to? What is their 'tone of voice'?
      
2. Identify our (potential) customers' pain points.
   1. What do our (potential) customers need?
      Ask around! Check your socials! Find out what it is that would truly solve their problems. Perhaps their dog is sick and needs specially made food. Great! You've got just the perfect product for that.
      
   2. Identify how you fill in their need.
      The benefit of using your product is that it makes your customer's life easier.
      
3. Turn your research in buyer personas
   1. Lisa, 33 years old, living in a big metropolitan city, hardworking but not so well-off, buys all her stuff online.
   2. Her dog has been with her since she was a child and she has been taking care of it ever since her parents died.
   3. She obviously wants the best for her dog.
   4. Her vet says that her dog is getting older and needs special food to prevent kidney failures.
   5. This special wet food is expensive, says the vet.
   6. So she resorts to Google: "cheap dog food good for kidneys", and what'd you know? She stumbles upon your web page where she finds an extensive guide on how to affordably get the most of the dog food, with a handy link to your online webshop.

Dog Food Brand has created one buyer persona: a young metropolitan girl that wants the best for her sick dog. You make her life easier if she starts using your product. She has a need that you will gladly alleviate.

How many buyer personas do I need?

As much as you can muster. You'll want a complete overview of your potential customers so you can start targeting your messages to precisely THAT customer with THIS particular need.

Buyer's Journeys

To help you target your messages even more, it's probably good to adhere to the art of copywriting (AIDA) according to the purchase decision progress of your customers -- so they'll feel enticed to go to the next step.

We're going to skip this part for another blog because we're touching upon the content creation part of inbound marketing. Content marketing deserves a little more love than the character limit I've set upon myself for this blog.

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