Do you have a clear understanding of your brand’s ideal buyer? Or is your team chasing too many personas with little results?
In this #ContentChat recap, we’re joined by Pam Slim (@PamSlim), a writer, business coach, and co-founder of the Main Street Learning Lab, to explore why content marketers should rethink their ideal customers. Read the full recap below, where we explain how to define your brand’s ideal customers, ways to find untapped markets, and why it’s essential to partner with complementary businesses.
If you’re looking to learn more from Pam on how to build a thriving business, order a copy of her book today.
If anyone wants a workbook that has all the exercises from The Widest Net, you can grab it here: https://t.co/qpqcyMFrDC #ContentChat
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
Q1: How do you define your ideal customers? How do you group them and what key details do you include?
Pam and the community recommend defining your ideal customers by problems or challenges they face or their aspirations.
Q1: I define ideal customers using @susanbaier ‘s Audience Audit method — defining them by problem, challenge or aspiration #ContentChat
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
Q1: So for example, for one of my audience segments, they are biz owners with significant body of work who need to find alternative ways to share their IP b/c they are burnt out from delivering workshops #ContentChat
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
+1
I always focus on the pain points — what can our product/service alleviate in their day-to-day? #ContentChat https://t.co/MnOrnUpDla— Melanie Graham (@WriterGirlMel) February 14, 2022
Which is so important because it puts your focus on the customer, instead of your company. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Content Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) February 14, 2022
For sure! And then for folks who may shy away from thinking of every element as “pain,” I use words like “aspirations”
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
A1: Our ideal customer is anyone in a small to medium business who strives to manage their contacts and people-related processes as efficiently as possible. We like to focus on working smarter, better, and faster 🙂 ~Julie #ContentChat
— Nimble (@Nimble) February 14, 2022
I like that a lot. I could see the pain point angle would be biz owners who are exhausted by operating without plans and processes
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
Minimal demographic information could be helpful (especially for general consumer-facing companies), as long there is a clear purpose for including that information.
Q1: To add details, it might be some demographic info, like biz owners who focus on equity, or who are at 500k+ in revenue #ContentChat
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
A1: I group my ideal customers based upon their shared problem statements.
I don’t focus a ton on demographics, since that isn’t always that useful to me from a content marketing perspective. Instead, I focus on who influences them + where they gather purchase data. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Content Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) February 14, 2022
Indeed! demographics can be important sometimes (like here at the Learning Lab where we focus on BIPOC entrepreneurs), but often less important than nailing the problems
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
A1 We define our ideal customers as people with assets that they want to actively protect, and are interested in understand their coverages
We generally group them by location, age, and a few other minor factors
-Alyx#ContentChat https://t.co/8t6rHLJXKs— Charlie & Alyx – Charlie Appel Agency (@ColfaxInsurance) February 14, 2022
Ask “who can my business *really* serve” to most effectively define your ideal customers.
A1: In addition to pain points, I think it’s also important to look at what makes the most sense for your business focus and resources. Who can you *really* serve? Don’t make a sale just to make a sale. #ContentChat
— Melanie Graham (@WriterGirlMel) February 14, 2022
YES!!! Too often, especially when a company is just starting out, they can try to be everything to everyone. But that just burns you out. It’s important to understand your sweet spot. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Content Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) February 14, 2022
Most business owners can effectively support three separate audience segments before getting too scattered.
Q1: In general, most biz owners can support 3 audience segments (aka different problems) before getting scattered #ContentChat
— Pamela Slim (@pamslim) February 14, 2022
This is such an important point.
When I onboard a new client and see they have 12 personas, I can readily anticipate they are having a hard time creating enough differentiated content to drive action and engagement. #ContentChat
— Erika Heald | Content Marketing Consultant (@SFerika) February 14, 2022
