Every business should have a target market they want to compete for, on a whole. This is usually derived from several factors such as the cost of your product, your desired selling price, its application and who is it most useful for.
Your target market is also dependent on who you want to compete against in the market and all factors considered - where your product falls in the spectrum of similar or alternate products currently available in the market.
If you have a variety of offerings then each of your products/services could have their own target markets.
If you are launching a product with no existing competitors - then evaluating your price and who it benefits the most is a good place to start in defining your target market.
Once you have identified a range of people that may potentially be keen on purchasing your product or appreciate its benefits, the next step is to dive deeper into the science behind what appeals to them and why.
And while this may sound difficult - we will show you how to go about gradually yet steadily understanding your buyers in ways that enrich their experience and entices them to purchase from you.
For Eg: As an animated video explainer company - B2W focusses on pure B2B companies to promote their product.
Our audience is determined by the geographical locations that use English as their primary business language.
A close study of our past clientele has revealed that industries such as Tech, Internet, and Banking are most likely to use our services and only companies with a resource size of 200 or more people can comfortably afford our services.
Thus - my buyer persona begins with identifying the key decision makers applicable to these factors from my target industries.
‘Buyer Personas’ is essentially an assumed personality of your ideal buyer. While your product may appeal to a wide variety of users - The exercise of defining your personas is to critically narrow down your most ideal prospects into various types of buyers of your product.
This usually requires a deeper study of your target profile, their habits, likes/dislikes and online habits.
In today’s day and age - this is probably the first thing you need to determine before setting up your target demographics. The location/country that you wish to sell to.
For B2B - it’s a good place to first determine the kind of companies you want to sell to and their employee size. This will allow you to determine the ideal route at approaching these companies.
Your base price helps you in determining what company sizes can afford what you are selling and the ideal designations that could be your potential decision makers.
A quick analysis of your past clientele can give you a fair idea of the industries more inclined to purchase from you.
If this is unclear - you can start with narrowing down industries that benefit the most from your offerings and building on from there.
In biggers sized firms - the decision maker is usually not the point of contact but merely the controller of budgets and expenses.
While choosing your ideal persona designation in a firm - take into consideration their immediate teams, department size and hierarchy structures before making your move.
You will find that several times in B2B - you will be required to appeal to both the junior and senior designation of your buyer persona.
In other words - while a CMO might be the ideal choice for your products - you might have to first reach out to the Marketing Manager or Senior Manager as well in order to establish alternate routes to make a sale.
For eg: As an animated video explainer company - B2W focusses on pure B2B companies to promote their product.
Our audience is determined by the geographical locations that use English as their primary business language.
A close study of our past clientele has revealed that industries such as Tech, Internet, and Banking are most likely to use our services and only companies with a resource size of 200 or more people can comfortably afford our services.
And it was either CMOs or Content Marketers that cared for our services.
The next step is to define your personas with greater detail. Their age, tastes, preferences, digital presence, online habits, social interactions, interests and key areas of concern.
This can be determined from their job profile, immediate professional networks and by drawing conclusions from a variety of rational assumptions.
For eg: Assume that your target persona is in the age bracket of 45-60 from a 500+ company within the biochemical industry - It would be safe to assume their social interactions are majorly on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin as the rest may be too new or too old for them to invest in realistically.
From here it becomes easier determined their likes, dislikes and potential interest given their age, background, and station in life.
Once you have an image of a person and understand what their day to day looks like - you should try and identify the key areas of concern that your prospect is looking to improve.
These pain points may be personal to the buyer, for the organization as a whole or roadblocks in between the established goals of your target persona.
By identifying these areas - you are able to position your offerings in a way that directly addresses top concerns and showcase a desirable value component to your prospective buyers.
Answer questions such as what they value the most? Is it customer experience? Convenience? Price?