Image via Garrison Everest

What Actors can Teach us about Consumer Marketing

When Actors land a role to play, they need to memorize their lines but for

their delivery to be believable, they need to become the character. Actors

become the character they play by doing research. This research is conducted

by: reading books/watching videos about the life of the character, conducting

interviews with the real life person if they are alive and/or meeting with

people who knew them.

From this research, actors can identify the strengths, weaknesses, challenges

and pain points in this person’s life; all of which can help them successfully

become this person.

How this Research is applied to Customer Marketing

Successful Marketers have to conduct similar research to identify their target

customer. For Marketing to be successful, businesses must understand their

target market; analyzing their ideal customer similar to what Actor need to

do.

To analyze this ideal customer, businesses need to do research to understand

the life of their ideal customer. The result of this research is known as a Buyer

Persona. According to research conducted by MarkteingSherpa: Marketers

generated 171 % more revenue as result of using buyer personas.

According to research by the Buyer Persona Institute in 2016:

1.27% of businesses have no buyer persona

2. 44% of businesses have a buyer persona

3. interest in having buyer personas is growing as 29% of businesses surveyed

said will have them in the next year.

Creating a Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a guide to understanding the needs, challenges and pain

points of customers.

Questions to ask

What are these customer’s habits?

What concerns, needs and challenges do they have?

What actions are customers taking to address their needs and challenges?

Why do customers need to take these actions?

This question may be applied to multiple action steps described in Hooked by

Nir Eyal as the 5 Whys.

What makes them want to buy?

Where do they look for information?

What type of content and medium do they use access the information?

What days and times are they most likely to look for information and consume

content?

It is important to note that businesses with multiple products and more than

one target market will need to create buyer personas for each ideal customer.

image via content marketing institute /Bigstock

Where to obtain information on the Ideal Customer

1. Interview current customers and prospects.

2. Send out targeted surveys via email, direct mail and on Social Networks.

Offer incentives such as gift cards and discounts to encourage people to

provide the information needed.

3. Read biography and history books about your ideal customer.

4. Study the news.

5. Study existing research conducted by Market Research firms.

Building buyer personas will result in:

1. Creating and implementing better and more targeted product messaging

and communication

2. Getting the product in front of customers who truly will benefit from its use

This is how to create a Buyer Persona.

How are you using your buyer personas? Comment below.

Article sources & images

Garrison Everest

Content Marketing Institute

MarketingSherpa.com/intecnic.com

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