Know Your Buyers

Often, when I ask someone I’m working with who their ideal client is they’ll give the same answer:

“Well, obviously, anyone who buys my product (or service)”

Obviously they’re right. But knowing the difference between the people who buy your product and the people who are most positively effected by your product can be extremely powerful.

This isn’t a new concept. I spent a long time thinking “if I could just deal with more people like x then my business (and my life) would run a lot simpler”, just as most of us have done. The most groundbreaking ‘discovery’ I made was to work out what made working with x so much better for all involved. Turns out what I’d ‘discovered’ was the act of identifying buyer personas. You might have one, or many, but it’s important to get them identified. A buyer persona is simply a representation of a type of person who has a specific benefit to be gained from working with you. You may give these a name, you may not, but the point is that they are specific. Here’s one of mine:

• Business owner (don’t shy from being obvious!)
• UK based
• Established (5+ years)
• B2C product/service
• Intrigued by Facebook success stories
• Searching for knowledge NOW

None of those points are essential to work with fifty6 (I could deal with a marketing manager of a new, stateside, business to business operation) but those are some of the points I found made up my ‘ideal’ clients – the ones I could do my job best for.

Take an hour to sus out one or more of yours, and you’ll already get your cogs turning on how you can use them. Next time I’ll be talking about what you should be doing with these Buyer Personas, be sure to subscribe to be alerted.