Introduction
One of main things I had learned from business school was the importance of knowing your audience, or client. Business school is a great experience in that it exposed me to a diverse array of clients in a short amount of time, each having their own perspective and objective that I had to cater to in a short amount of time. This was also reinforced in my professional life when presenting information to various customers. Most recently I had just completed reading the book “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” which expands upon this theme with the concept of the buyer persona. This article will address the importance of knowing your audience, how to effectively accomplish this, and expose you to the concept of the buyer persona.

A Diverse Pool
Anyone who has experienced business school certainly understands the concept of diversity. My experience was that I was generally teamed up with four to five different individuals to accomplish a task for a real client who wanted us to solve a problem they had in their business. The teams were diverse not only in professional backgrounds, but also in life experience, and ethnicity as well. Each person would bring their own strengths, weaknesses, perspectives, and agendas to the group. If organized effectively, the diversity of each team stood to strengthen the overall team due to the different backgrounds and strengths that each person brought to the table – for example one team may consist of an engineer, doctor, lawyer, and marketer, however there was also the challenge of working through each of our differences. If disorganized, the team could become a train wreck and a very difficult experience.

Further complicating the matter was that each client that was brought on, in my case we had six different clients, had a different background. For example, one client was a biotechnology company, another was a sports organization, and yet another was a religious organization. Needless to say each client had their own method of communicating, differing backgrounds, objectives, and ground rules for conducting businesses. So as individual teams our challenge was twofold – first to organize, communicate and work effectively together as a team without squashing individuality, and second was that once we could work together as a team, communicate effectively with each respective client.

A Tailored Message
Each individual interaction, whether within the team or outside of the team, required a tailored message for the most effective communication. This involved knowing your audience to include their background, education, professional experience, and industry. For example, attempting to convey the same message with the same delivery message will not work for both a biotechnology and sports organization. In general, the biotech is seeking more research and results based on the scientific method. On the other hand the sports organization is likely uninterested in science but is in tune to intangibles and gut intuition. Although certain generalized stereotypes may be formed, each situation is unique, and requires a unique approach.

As a result each individual message, presentation, or report was tailored to the individual client. This involved speaking the client’s language and breaking the message down to the simplest component possible. When you immerse yourself in the industry of your client or other recipient of your message, communication will occur naturally. Conversely, if you do not bother to do so and use your own vernacular, communication will become forced and therefore short. The ability to empathize with your client in an authentic and sincere manner is invaluable. In general most people like to associate with people like themselves as it is most natural.

The New Rules
As I had mentioned in my last article “World Wide Rave?” I am making my way through David Meerman Scott’s earlier books. I had recently finished “The New Rules Of Marketing & PR” which I also consider to be an excellent work. Many of the ideas in “The New Rules” serve as a foundation for “World Wide Rave” with the author  also focusing on the various mediums of new marketing techniques. I will remind you that the “old rules” involve push marketing designed to interrupt a potential client such as e-mail blasts, commercials, etc. whereas the “new rules” involve pull marketing based on solid action driven content designed to pull the client in by interesting them in your message. Simply put, a television commercial interrupting your favorite show is push marketing whereas a blog with solid non-product specific content which eventually drives the potential customer to seek out your product in a sincere desire to know more is pull marketing.

Similar to “World Wide Rave” I found “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” to be packed with solid, useful content and I highly recommend it to those interested in viral marketing, the evolution of this concept, and the various methods of how to employ the newly identified techniques. However I had found three aspects to be of most value in this book, first I was introduced to the concept of the buyer persona, second the real-world examples that were provided to reinforce the identified concepts, and lastly, the provided acknowledgments.

The Buyer Persona
The first item, that of the buyer persona concept is the focus of a large part of “The New Rules”. David Meerman Scott identifies and expands upon the concept of buyer personas, how to effectively target buyer personas, and how to go about developing a buyer personal profile. Adele Revella, the author of “The Buyer Persona blog” defines a buyer persona as the following in her article “What the bleep is a buyer persona?”:

“A buyer persona is a detailed profile of an example buyer that represents the real audience – an archetype of the target buyer. Marketers can use buyer personas to clarify the goals, concerns, preferences and decision process that are most relevant to their customers.”

Ms. Revella continues with the following:

“Imagine how effective marketers could be if we would all stop making stuff up and start aligning our messages and programs with the way real people think.”

This is a lesson I learned the hard way when starting my business. Initially I had taken the approach of constructing a polished, professional message that could be conveyed to customers. This was largely ineffective, and here’s why. Most entrepreneurs and small businesses are unconventional, revolutionary, approachable, and responsive by nature. Most realize that given enough determination and hard work that anyone can provide a given service or product. Therefore the buyer persona for my market segment values trust, approachability, and responsiveness. Above all they want to like you in order to do business with you. If you are not these things they will move on given enough time and availability of other options.

The entrepreneurial and small business buyer personas value these things more so than professional credentials and a polished image and message. In fact most distrust these aspects that are deemed paramount in a corporate environment having been burned in the past by polished marketing without substance. Once I had learned this I had a much easier time of things, especially in the business development arena. I wish I would have come across the concept of a buyer persona much earlier.

Basically the buyer persona personifies the concept of knowing your audience. It is a simple concept yet is extremely important. Consider the second part of Adele Revella’s message about “aligning our messages and programs with the way real people think.” How many companies or individual’s actually do this? By reviewing my e-mail inbox I can confidently say not many. I receive a slew of messages “Save 20% on Product X”, given that Product X is something I would never consider buying it is way off base. Unfortunately this is the rule rather than the exception. Therefore most product e-mails I receive I instantly delete – most without reading.

The buyer persona concept would certainly have been useful to me when starting out and I believe it holds value to many individuals and businesses – so I am going to do my part by spreading the word – starting here. I just became a subscriber of “The Buyer Persona Blog” in the hopes of learning more about this concept and refining my skill in this area. I will write more as I have a chance to read more articles on “The Buyer Persona Bog” and let  you know my thoughts on this as I continue to learn more and evolve. From my personal and professional experience I have found that individuals love personalization – and will generally pay a premium for it. Therefore I believe it is worthwhile to learn more about my buyer personas, how to specifically tailor my message, and as a result pull more clients to my business.

For those interested in learning more on buyer personas I recommend “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”. The topic is comprehensively covered and even provides guidance for how to uncover your buyer personas. I believe this is a worthwhile pursuit regardless of your stage of personal or business development.

Real World Examples & Acknowledgments
One of the other aspects that I really enjoyed about “The New Rules Of Marketing & PR” are the real world examples provided by David Meerman Scott. As demonstrated in “World Wide Rave”, the author has a great ability to solidify concepts with examples of individuals or companies using the identified techniques to further themselves and/or their company. This adds credibility and cements the concepts in my mind.

The final aspect that I found extremely valuable and just as important as the previous two is the “Acknowledgments” section. This is strange as normally I just gloss over this section of a book looking for a name or two that I may recognize. It is unusual that I gain value from this section of a book – actually I think this is the first time it has happened! In any case I found this section of “The New Rules” to be extremely valuable as it is roughly eight pages packed with leading names in the industry and authoritative websites and blogs.

At first glance this seems to be a treasure trove of resources for those seeking to continue their journey down the new rules path. In fact, it was in this section of the book that I found Adele Revella’s blog about the buyer persona, something that I may never have happened upon on my own. Please note however that at this time I cannot attest to all the material in the “Acknowledgments” section as I have just now started making my way through these resources as needed and as time permits. My expectation is that I will find many more valuable resources as I make my way through.

The importance of this information cannot be overstated. For most books I will read through, glean some useful concepts and set it on the shelf. Depending on the usefulness, I may even use the book a few other times as a reference in some capacity. However “The New Rules Of Marketing & PR” will likely be a valuable resource to me for some time to come. Given that the author has specifically detailed his resources, and given that they are dynamic in nature – primarily in the form of ever evolving blogs, I will have much material to wade through and likely make some great discoveries in the process.

Getting To Know Your Customer
I encourage you to get to know your customer and not to merely view them as an impersonal revenue stream or some other metric. Knowing your audience, whether it is a client, customer, or group takes time, but is generally time well spent. At a minimum you will become a much smarter individual or business, the newly acquired knowledge may be used across a variety of avenues. Most likely you will establish a rapport and long term relationship with a client or multiple clients that will lead to mutual profitability.

Know your audience and tailor your message specifically to them!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding