How to open new markets using personas is like imagining your personas are the bees that you want to attract and the honey pots you create with your content are what draws them in. By simply imagining new personas you begin exploring new markets for your business! This is not always easy to do; it requires time, effort and creativity to identify the right personas. But with a bit of imagination, your business can reach new heights!
Imagining personas in your new market
Imagine someone from this new market who may what your product or service and now imagine their goals, challenges and behavior. This is the persona. Personas are like stereotypes that are used as a tool for understanding human behavior, preferences and goals in order to better target them with marketing activity.
Researching your target market
Use online research tools, such as surveys and focus groups, to dive deeper into your potential customer base. Ask questions such as: what is my target audience looking for? What do they value most in a product or service? What are their biggest pain points? How can my product help them?
Creating Honeypots
Once you understand your personas and the needs of your potential customers, it’s time to create content that is tailored to them. Content should be tailored to each persona and should provide them with the answers and solutions to their problems. Content can include blog posts, whitepapers, ebooks, webinars, videos or any other type of content that resonates with your personas.
It’s important to create content aligned to their specific stage of the journey. If it’s the initial contact, then select a topic that captures the persona’s attention which is typically related to the problems or challenges you identified the persona is faced with. If it’s a follow-up engagement, select a topic related to how your product/solution solves their challenge and if it’s the last stage before purchase, then select a topic that arises an emotional experience to drive desire for your product.
Testing and Evaluating
Once you have created content tailored to your personas, it’s time to test and evaluate it. Use analytics to track the performance of your content and further refine it as needed. Monitor everything from web traffic to conversion rates, customer feedback or social media engagement to see what resonates with your personas and what doesn’t.
Finding the next market
When you have identified one new persona, it is time to find more! Keep a lookout for other niche markets that haven’t been identified yet. What about consumers in a different age group or geographic area? Or a different gender or income group? Maybe there are sub-categories within those groups that you haven’t noticed before.