Quick summary: Have you made a business plan for this year? Have you included the most recent data about your WordPress business buyer personas? By the way, you know what is a buyer persona, also known as ‘avatar’? Sure you do. However, oddly enough, several companies in the WordPress ‘world’ don’t build four or five buyer personas […]
Have you made a business plan for this year?
Have you included the most recent data about your WordPress business buyer personas?
By the way, you know what is a buyer persona, also known as ‘avatar’?
Sure you do.
However, oddly enough, several companies in the WordPress ‘world’ don’t build four or five buyer personas to drive for whom they’re working.
In most cases, they have a wide angle. “People interested in WordPress,” or “people interested in WordPress themes,” or plugins, or services, or builders.
Sorry to tell you, it’s not enough.
You need to go further.
We’ll help you it that.
Get a piece of paper and a pen. It’s time to work.
Draw some vertical lines for:
Leave a space for the picture. You can draw a face or use some photos from an image bank. It will be a way for you to visualize the person. It doesn’t matter who he is; it’s a character.
Congratulations. You have done the first baby step to build some prospects for your business.
They’re your pretender customers, and they’ve one mission: help you better understand how to sell your products or services.
Let’s go one level up.
In case you miss it, let’s repeat: Don’t guess. Use the information you have from actual customers. Join some more from clients you missed.
You have, however, authorization to pick a name.
The age requires a little thought, but nothing hard. If you don’t know the exact age of customer X, Z, or Y, don’t bother to ask.
Here you can have an educated guess.
Your target can be men, women or both and the location is something that you must have or will find out.
The juicy part starts now.
What they have or don’t have is a sort of introduction in this section. But don’t forget to fill that spaces, they are necessary for your plan.
The key element is the end goal of your customer. At first, they will tell you want they want, the end of the journey. You may think that’s all you have to know. It’s not.
You must (mandatory) know and understand what they need.
If you don’t know, sorry, you’ll have to ask your customers. Don´t go creative on that.
From now on, ask that at the beginning of every project, even the smaller ones, when you’re preparing the budget.
A quote attributed to Henry Ford helps you understand why this is imperative:
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
More recently, Steve Jobs used a similar phrase:
“People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
Both state almost the same. People need something but don’t – really – know what they want.
So, you need to find out their goals. But to get there, you need (‘need’ and ‘need,’ get it?) to have a clear vision of the challenges, hurdles, and objections they have.
I know you’re a developer, designer, project manager and not a psychiatrist or profiler. But sometimes you have to be that kind of person to serve your client better.
That way you can see the whole picture and find not only how to sell to them but also the solution they need.
Maybe this process even lead you to identify new opportunities to develop products or services to solve problems other people have.
All the work you’ve made so far is just part of a whole. Is the beginning of the journey.
You know Dorothy, right?
Dorothy had to walk the yellow brick road to reach her goalAfter ‘taken’ by the tornado to the land of Oz, her goal was to get back to Kansas. However, she had to travel the yellow brick road to find the wizard.
Supposedly the wizard was the only person who could solve her problem.
Why do I tell you this?
Because the process of figuring out your company buyer persona and your customer needs, requires a journey, sometimes accomplished with other co-workers.
Dorothy co-workersYou have to perceive how this journey will impact the client.
Between the point A (the problem) and point B (the solution), your customer will undergo a process of transformation. From not having to have something. From frustration to joy. From some sketches to a new website. From an idea to one business.
So, you have to figure out how and why they’ll choose you or your company for the job.
By doing it right, you’ll have insights into how to communicate, how to reach, what types of content to produce on your website how to promote it.
One by one.
Remember I said that you should create 3, 4 or 5 avatars? It’s a rule of thumb for most brands. Unless you work in a very narrow niche, one or two is short. More that five is too broad.
Nevertheless, don’t get communication craziness. Avoid the temptation to speak to all of your avatars at the same time.
Target your content and your proposals to a very specific avatar.
Use for communication:
With time get rid of all the ‘guessing’ and always use real people information.
Developing buyer personas or avatars is not a ‘thing’ for marketers. It’s essential for your WordPress business growth.
Do the exercise once a year. Add new information, remove the one you find that’s not valid anymore.
Now get some paper and pen, and start creating your avatars.