Let’s Talk Personas in Email Marketing
- What is a persona?
- How can personas bring value for your audience?
- Why personas and email marketing?
- Can personas be beneficial to your organization’s market research?
These are all great questions to have. Below I will help you get a better understanding of these concepts which can help you as a professional marketer!
First, we must understand what a persona is, a well-written definition of a marketing persona from Ardath Albee states “a marketing persona is a composite sketch of a key segment of your audience. For content marketing purposes, you need personas to help you deliver content that will be most relevant and useful to your audience” (Lee, 2018).
This is important to know as creating a marketing persona can aid you in finding solutions to better target and solve the needs of your customers.
Personas are “fundamental to marketing because without knowing them, you will never be able to offer anything other than a generic message that is designed to ‘catch all’ and hope that it resonates with the majority of your audience” (Lee, 2018).
Another important step in creating personas is interviewing people! Interviewing people through quantitative or qualitative research can give you a better understanding of WHO your potential customers are.
It’s important to note the following are elements that are generally included in a “persona” that you should take notes of as you have a clear understanding of who your audience is .
- Name
- Values/fears
- Demographics
- Job title
- Need for product
- Interest in products
- Shopping habits
Okay so, now what? What do I do with this information!?
As stated from HubSpot marketing “the strongest buyer personas are based on market research as well as insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.). Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas, or as many as 10 or 20. But if you’re new to personas, start small! You can always develop more personas later if needed” (Vaughan, 2015).
Now that we have collected data based on what potential customers we can gauge who they are. We now can have a clear understanding of who we are targeting, how to write content, and how to appeal to our specific audience. As well, how we can express our message, values, products, services, etc. to our different audiences.
The more that you target and cater your emails to the prospective customer persona the better the relationship you can create and your emails will be more opened and read.
Below are several tips to help you communicate more effectively with your desired audience through email marketing. These are all helpful suggestions that will allow you to better understand, serve, and target your customers.
- Use Words your buyer persona will identify with – choose words that your audience knows, understands, and can relate to, as this will draw them in more
- Be Unique – stand out and get the attention of your reader. Be different from your competitors
- Use Quality Images – use quality eye-catching images to lure readers that are relevant to your customer’s persona and related to your content. Images are just as important as content make sure they both have a purpose.
- Write Good Copy which leads to more clicks and opens – write a compelling copy as it is one of the best ways to generate more engagement. Focus on stressing and showing the value and benefits of the product and service you are promoting.
- Nail Your Email Marketing Strategy – ensure that every email campaign has a goal and purpose, for example, it can include building trust, increasing conversions, building awareness, adding value for customers, growing of referral business. Having established and clear goals help you determine what type of content you want to send in your emails.
- Understand you’re Personas and Use a Call to Action – use a Call to Action to draw the attention of your consumers and provide them with an offer they can’t resist! An offer could be something like save 50%, free trial, first month free, and provide them with an incentive to learn more and lead to a conversion.
Okay, wow that was a lot of information to take in. Now it’s your turn to try! As you have learned all about the tips and tricks to creating successful personas and implementing them into email marketing. Give it a shot as it can be beneficial to your company!
Best of luck!
Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts, opinions, and experiences with personas and email marketing!
Sources:
“4 Simple but Powerful Tactics for Writing Compelling Ad Copy.” WordStream, 3 Sept. 2019, https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/01/12/how-to-write-great-advertising-copy.
“How To Create Personas For Marketing In 2019.” Digital Agency Network, 20 Mar. 2019, https://digitalagencynetwork.com/how-to-create-personas-for-marketing-in-2019/.
Lee, Kevan. “The Beginner’s Guide to Creating Marketing Personas: Buffer.” Buffer Marketing Library, Buffer Social Blog, 30 Nov. 2018, https://buffer.com/library/marketing-personas-beginners-guide.
Thomsen, Rikke Berg. “How to Align Email Marketing to Your Buyer Personas (w/ Examples).” Sleeknote, 27 Sept. 2017, https://sleeknote.com/blog/buyer-personas.
Vaughan, Pamela. “How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free Persona Template].” HubSpot Blog, HubSpot, 2015, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research.
