How do you create a Customer Persona for a Startup?

How do you create a customer persona for a Startup business?

This one question many startups have been asking and many of them don't seem to find the right answer.

I recall when I started my own freelancing business and needed to develop a customer persona. I read through several blogs on how to build one, but none of them answered my main questions.

Most of the answers were driven towards businesses who already have clients and leads on their list.

I got confused.

I don't have an existing leads or customers

There is no or little traffic coming to my website that provides enough data for analytics to process.

I don't have enough money to pay for a survey

How do I go about building a customer persona without all these?

In this post, we are going to explore 3 simple and easy ways to create a customer persona for a startup business without any existing customer base.

Let us get started...

How To Create a Customer Persona For a Startup

In your quest to creating a customer persona the questions you will be asking are;

• Who are your customers
• Where are they located
• What is their gender
• What is their age group
• What is their relationship status
• What is their occupation
• How much do they earn
• What challenges they are facing

These are the core information you need to create your customer persona, I'm I, right?

If I am, then let us see how to answer these questions.

Create a Customer Persona with Brain Storming

Building a customer persona for your startup/business starts with you answering a few questions about your brand and how it will help your future customers.

To start the process of creating your ideal customer persona or customer, ask yourself the following questions.

• What inspired me to start the business
• What challenges does my services/product solve
• What problems are the challenges of using my product or services
• How is my product/services better than others
• What is my target location

Providing answers to the above question will give you answers to this question,

• What challenges your potential clients are facing.

Create a Customer Persona knowing your Competitors Customers

What is the one thing that you and your competitors share?

The same customers - which automatically translate to the same customer persona.

Get started by quickly carrying out a Google search for your top competitors using keywords of services or product that your render.

Note if your service is tailored to a particular location, including the location while making the search.

Once the result pops up, take note of the top ten websites (both organic and paid) showing on the first page.

Visit each of the websites and scan through. Take note of,

• The kind of pictures they use
• Their storytelling
• their offers 
• And their website design

How does this help?

Scanning your competitors' website gives you an idea of who your target audience is.

But that not all. Let us dig deeper for more information.

To get more information to create your customer persona we are going to use a tool called Alexa

Alexa isn't totally free but you have the opportunity to try it for 14 days. You can cancel before your trial runs out.

Signup for Alexa to get started

Once you have finished signing up, log in to your account.

Type in your competitors URL and let the magic happen.

Alexa will provide you with loads of information about your competitor.

Take note of the section with audience demography and geography.

You also want to look at the keywords section. See what is driving traffic to their website both organic and paid.

Carrying out competitive research with Alexa will answer who your buyers/ customers are in terms of age, gender, earnings, location, education, and type of devices they use in accessing the internet. Oh, I forgot it also tells you their ethnicity... Wow

With all this information you should have a headway of who your customers are and thus build your customer persona around this information.

Before you get so excited about Alexa, Let us look at the last method to create a customer persona.

Create a Customer Persona using Facebook Insights

Facebook has more information about its users and you can leverage this information to build the right customer persona.

The main purpose of the audience insights is to help create a more targeted audience for your Facebook ads but it is also a great place to get more information about your customers

Log into your Facebook ads manager and choose audience insight from the menu

Ok, I missed one thing, Facebook audience insight works with keywords that your customers are interested in.

You can start by putting in your competitors' company's name in the interest box.  Once the interest has been accepted, Facebook will give you information about your customers base on their demography, pages liked, location and their activity.

To get more accurate information from facebook audience insight, brainstorm on a few keywords that your customers may be interested in..

Take for example:
As a digital agency looking to build a customer persona using Facebook audience insights my customer interest will follow this pattern

• Hobbies: Email marketing, Graphics design, digital marketing, social media marketing, website
• Tools: MailChimp, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, WordPress, e.t.c
• Competitors/influencers: Any popular digital agency

Once this has been figured out. Take a pen and paper to do some writing.

Search for these interest one after the other, not all at once.

• Demographics show you information base on the age, gender, marital status, income.

• Page Likes shows you the type of pages your customers follow on facebook. Through page likes, you get to know a little more about your customers like the movies the watch, books they read, companies they are interested in and more.

Take note of this information and you won't just build a customer persona but also a target audience for your ads.

Conclusion

So now, how do you create a customer persona for a startup?

It is easy and only takes a few hours of your time.

Follow the steps provided in this article and you are on your way to building a successful business.

What do you think? Are there other easier ways of creating a customer persona for startups without existing customers?

Share with us in the comment section

6 Hints for Writing Powerful Social Media Ad Copy

Do you want to create extra powerful social media ad? Wondering how to write ads that produce conversions?

In this article, you’ll discover six hints for writing powerful social media ad copy that converts.

6 Hints for Writing Powerful Social Media Ad Copy

#1: Extend Your Brand Voice to Your Ad Copy

Every commercial enterprise needs to have its own voice, one that emulates that of its fans. When customers scroll through their feed, they should be capable of understanding your brand voice right away.

If your business is more of a casual/fun type fashion dressing, avoid using phrases that mirror that of a corporate suit and tie person. The wording for your advert consists of the language your demographic makes use of. Incorporate certain popular local language, slang, and grammar to match. Yes, how you spell the phrases to your advert makes a large distinction here.

This also works for B2B that uses greater professional and enterprise-like language while you speak and write. Mimic that style to your advert sales copy.

Read also: Comprehensive Guide on Social Media Marketing

#2: Clearly Communicate the Who, What, When, Where, and Why

Your social media ads do not only best need CTA but also needs to answer the who, what, when, where and why questions that might pop up from your customers. Whatever the social media platform (Facebook, Instagram or Twitter) communicating those information enables /ensure customers have all of the statistics they want to know when they do interact with the ad, they turn out to be a heated engagement and no longer only an informal liker who double-taps on anything the scroll by.

Go returned to the social media ad you’re currently running. Does the advert copy answer the who, what, when, where, and why for the consumer? It should, and if it doesn’t, pause, edit and republish those ads.

If you’re having a hard time seeking to get a solution for all of the W’s above, think about your goal demographic ’s problems. To make an outstanding story from your advert, you want to recognize your audience and recognize not just what makes them tick however additionally what they want.

#3: Test Ad Copy Length for Performance

On a few social media systems, you have the option to use lengthy ads copy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to write something very long before people can understand what your ads are about. If you are able to communicate your message in a three to five words sentence with a call to action, why not go for it.

Some social media professionals argue that shorter ads text as a better effect, even as others say longer copy converts better; break up checking out will assist you to discover which of them your audience prefers. What’s most vital is attending to the point and making sure users understand the message you’re conveying.

Make use of a Split test to see which one works best.

Read also: Social Manager Skills needed in 2019

#4: Combine Your Copy With Complementary Visuals and Targeting

One of the reasons users flock to social media is to take a break and be entertained with the aid of what they read and notice. They do this when they are bored, they’re waiting for their food, or their interest span of 3 seconds has expired.

Whatever the reason, it’s crucial that both your textual content and image content are harmonious. Having creative images to decorate your text is like adding more-credit score points on a quiz. Your textual content gets the call to action (the primary point) made, but the visual communicates that factor.

Make sure all of the components of your advert (the description, headline, URL) all work collectively and deliver a tale to users. This will make customers more likely to want to research greater and now not just “like” the advert.

#5: Align Your Ad Copy With Specific Sales Funnel Targeting

Ad copy is basically what brings in sales. But with social media advertisements, it can’t appear or feel like you are selling something. This is because social media is more of a relationship building platform, hence you can't hard sell as you do like Google Ads. This is the main reason while conversion on social media takes longer than expected when compared to other marketing efforts

To assist get around the anti-income hurdle, think about the TOFU (top of the funnel), MOFU (middle of the funnel) and BOFU (back of the funnel) strategy. While this entails developing masses of commercials and custom audiences, the outcomes will make it worth the effort.

TOFU

This ad is designed for the pinnacle of the funnel sales copy. It’s mild, harmless, and friendly. This ad copy focuses on introducing your brand to your audience. You’re now not looking to promote or pressure customers to take any motion with this advert. I repeat, no promoting!

MOFU

In MOFU also you aren't selling yet, though your brand voice has been heard, visual seen and people now know your business exists. The next step is to let your potential customers know how you can solve their problems/ assist them. In the ad copy, provide an explanation for what you offer and what ache points your resolve.

Again, you aren’t selling yet. You’ve waved to the consumer from throughout the road and are actually knocking on their door with a plate of freshly baked cookies. All of your TOFU audiences that engage with this ad get placed into a separate custom target audience, a hotter target market.

BOFU

Now’s the time to ask for the sale. This is where you make use of a discount code, you CTA, time factor and the overall story. You have already got a heat target audience that knows your business and is aware of what you provide. Now give them all you’ve in other to convert them.

Anyone who engages with this advert is a hot lead already and more likely to transform than the TOFU target market that is more of an introduction. You’ve formally been invited within the house and you have a threat to talk business over coffee inside the kitchen.

Conclusion

A proper social media ad copy isn’t just a beautifully created image or a 45-second video. The ad copy itself can make or wreck engagement chances. It’s time to get past the concept that we’re all too busy to examine.

A powerful social media ad copy should inform and entertain users so as to grab their attention as they go through their feed. If your ad copy is going to interrupt whatever your user are reading, then it should worth their while.

Social Media Manager - Skills needed in 2019

Are you applying for the post of a Social Media Manager?

Do you know what the job description entails?

As consumers are looking for ways to interact with their brands in a more personal way, the internet has offered up a solution - Social Media

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter. Instagram and the likes offer up an easier way for brands to connect with consumers and vice versa.

This has led to the creation of many jobs that never existed a decade ago. One of these many jobs is the post of a Social Media Manager.

Brands now hire people who can respond to customer queries via Social Media, respond effectively to negative comments, create memes and write engaging content.

In this article, we will be looking at Who a Social Media Manager is, Why they are needed and the Skills and etiquette demanded of them

Who is a Social Media Manager?

Monster.com did well to give us a clear understanding and idea of  who a social media manager really is;

"social media manager(s) is responsible for developing and implementing marketing strategies for business(es) social media sites. This might include blogging, creating social media profiles, managing regular post and responding to followers"

in other words, the social media manager is responsible for handling a company's social media marketing and customer services. The position requires the person involved  too;

• plan and set goals
• build brand awareness and online reputation
• content marketing
• search engine optimization and search engine marketing
• cultivating leads and sales

Monster.com further noted that a social media manager "must stay at the leading edge of industry trends and is responsible for evaluating the success of their marketing effort and tweak the marketing strategy as needed." That is the social media while also monitoring the effect of his/her marketing strategies and apply changes when necessary. A social media manager is creative and highly motivated.

Why Firms need Social Media Manager?

A lot of people particularly business owner be like 'oh why do I need someone to manage my business social profiles? I can handle it on my own.' One thing some business owners forget that social media management is totally marketing and that means time and focus. Managing social media for companies is a delicate duty and a full-time job. It needs an ultimate concentration for effectiveness and result.

Secondly, brands and companies have come to acknowledge that social media plays a vital role in marketing thanks to statistics that prove this. Social media platforms help drive sales, quality traffic, leads and boost online reputation. Thus the need for a professional with enough time on his/her hands cannot be debunked.

The Responsibilities

First and foremost a social media manager is a marketer, brand manager and to an extent a public relations personnel. He/She creates and implements a social media plan which according to krusecontrolinc.com involves;

• Brand development
• identifying the target market
• setting clear objectives/realistic goals
• visual design and web development strategy
• content marketing strategy
• promotion strategy
• engagement strategy
• conversion
• measurement and analysis to establish ROI

However, the responsibilities of a social media manager including but not limited to the following

1. developing relevant contents topics for target customers or audience
2. managing publish content
3. monitoring, listening and responding to users in a social way (customer service)
4. Promoting brand products and services via social media channels
5. develop and expand community/influencer outreach efforts via social media
6. design, create and manage promotions and social ad campaigns.
7. manage efforts in building online reviews and reputation.
8. analyze key performance indicators and modify strategies if required
9. compile reports for management showing Returns on Investment

What are the skills needed?

Postcron gives us an insight into the skills required from a social media manager;

• Graphic design: the ability to use photoshop, text editing, PowerPoint, and Excel
• Excellent written and oral communication skill
• Knowledge of HTML and website management
• must be familiar with web analytics tools and the ability to use it.
• must be familiar with social media platforms and their tools
• familiar with managing blogs, discussion forums, ratings and reviews
• must be able to manage a computer both Mac and PC.
• knowledge of marketing and brand management
• content writing and development
• familiar with different advertising systems and paid promotion
• knowledge of ROI analysis, conversions, and social media key performance indicators.
• SEO and SEM knowledge.
• must be open minded and ready to learn

Conclusion

Social media plays a vital part in digital marketing and every organization understands it benefit and thus do not joke with it. Becoming a social media manager is a Herculean task, however, it doesn't need that special degree or you going to some special classes to learn the job (though the classes and degree/certificate are an added advantage). To become a good social media manager requires the zeal to study and as I always tell my friends 'the greatest library in the world is the Internet where every trade can be learned for free.

What I described above is the duties and description of what the job of a  'Social Media Manager.

But  then expect that some companies may need more or less of these duties so continue researching and if you get stuck, remember Google Search engine is your friend.'

1. be passionate about your work
2. be thorough and observant in other to detect threats, opportunities and trends
3. always plan and always update your strategies with a future view of where you want your community to be in the later years to come
4. review and adjust to new trends.
5. admit your failures and right them.
6. have a good sense of humour
7. remember you are dealing with potential customers, customers and leads, so don't let negative comments and response get to you.
8. be patient and persistent
9. always research.
10. and lastly seek help from allies, volunteers and others you know can help you.

With these skills, you are ready to become a social media manager. Goodluck.

A Comprehensive Guide on Social Media Marketing

Do you want to start a career in Social Media?

Looking for a Guide to help you understand what it entails?

Social media is now a part of our lives whether we want it or not. To be fair it is now the driving force of Digital Marketing or Digital Media Marketing whichever you may call it.

Every business or organization see social media as a very big part of their organization marketing strategy. Social Media Platforms are now used as a  medium to get inbound traffic as well as to promote brands.

This article entails a comprehensive guide on social media marketing

A Comprehensive Guide on Social Media Marketing

So what is Social Media Marketing?

According to Wikipedia,  “Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.”

In other words...
 Social media marketing is the process of using social media platforms to positively influence consumers toward a website, company, brand, product, service, or a person.

The endpoint of every social media marketing campaign is to bring the conversion to businesses and organization and when done wrong can destroy one's reputation online and eventually kill one business. That is why when one is running a social media marketing campaign, he or she needs to understand, listen and respond positively to customers no matter the negative comment they make.

What Social Media Marketing is and is not.....

Currently, Social media is a big deal. It is where your customers, audience, leads, the prospect is and want to be. It can be used by any organization no matter their services for marketing. And it is all about your customers, prospect, leads, and audience.

Social Media is not the first step for marketing, neither is it a fad or magic or is it totally free or a replacement for traditional marketing. Most importantly social media marketing is not about you 

Why is Social Media Marketing so important to businesses

• It is where our audience and customers are gathered
• It helps produce traffic to the business website.
• It helps to increase sales
• It helps to build important business contact 
• It is the best branding tool
• It simple, easy to use and cost-effective
• It helps in link building for bloggers and 
• It increases business popularity and brings leads to our niche area.

To become a good Social Media Marketer, there are two categories of skills you must possess.

1. Technical Skills
2. Personal Attributes

Technical Skills

The technical skills include;

• Basic computer skills
• ability to use search engines and social platforms
• and a basic knowledge of graphic designs

 Personal Skills

Personal skills matter a lot in social media marketing.

• Creativity and Passion
• Personable
• Diverse vocabulary
• Listening and strong reading skills
• Lastly Professionalism in responding to negative content.

The way you respond to potential customers even valuable customers can do a lot of damage to your business reputation and can kill your business before it starts.

We have looked at the definition of social media marketing, what it is and what it is not. We have also talked about why it is important to businesses and the skills a social media marketer needs to possess.
However what is required to become a successful social media marketers?

There are 8 elements required to be successful as a social media marketer

Let us look at them.

1.  Have a targeted mind: you need to know your goals to your target audience and where you can find them.
2. Stay focused
3. Measurement: Measure the success of your campaign.
4. Produce great content: they say content is key. a very content causes engagement in an interesting way.
5. Integrating with other digital marketing methods
6. Simple: Keep your marketing simple and easy to grab. Drive home your point.
7. Memorable: let your social media campaign give your customers a very positive unique experience.
8. Stay updated. The digital world is growing many new social platforms are popping up. you must keep abreast of the new changes occurring.

Social media is a great medium to improve brand awareness among customers, to engage customers in exchange for long-term loyalty, and to boost product sales.

Very Easy Facebook Marketing Tips To Follow

‎Social Media is a part of the backbone for digital marketing and there are several facts to back that up. This year Facebook turned 16  and for these years Facebook has proven they are here to stay with a lot of testimonies.

Put in mind also that it has the highest users of other social media platform with over 1 billion logins every day. Now the question is, with the high amount of users on Facebook. how do we use it to our advantage?

Very Easy Facebook Marketing Tips  To Follow

First of all, Have a clear Proposition:

Every businessman starts their business by finding the problems of people and giving them solutions. As you plan your marketing strategy, you must clear value proposition. Communicate how you solve problems in your business niche, the benefits your business brings on the table and why your business is different from other competitor and better than them. This communique should be consistent and spread along all your marketing channels. 

Add Facebook to your marketing strategy: 

When writing your market strategy or plan, do not forget to add Facebook to it. Be clear on what the goals of your marketing strategy are and how Facebook can help you reach that goal. Every business has their target audience, be it young, old, female, male, teenagers. Start with your fan base as they are the first steps to announcing your business on Facebook. You must have a plan to attract the right fans by keeping the existing fans engaged with a quality post.

Setup a Facebook Page:

After integrating Facebook into your marketing plan, you will need a Facebook page for your business. This will be your brand face on Facebook. After getting your Facebook page. You optimize it for the best result. Use your business logo or a professional picture for the profile picture, a nice attractive and compelling banner. Write the description of your service offer, for people to know what your business is about on Your about page. Fill in the right business address and contact details so people can reach you. Remember, a Facebook page isn't a substitute for your website, so add your website link on your Facebook page. Also, make sure that any product you post on Facebook should have a direct link to your website.

Build Your Audience: 

Everybody already has lots of Facebook friends, these are the first point of spreading the word out the group. For newly launched businesses your friends' list is your first advertising ground on Facebook. Send an invitation to your friends on Facebook and asked them to do the same for their friend's list.  For those who already have their business and are just integrating into Facebook marketing, you can send an email to your best customers and send them an email. You can do these through the build an audience section of the Facebook page. Also, ‎remember to add Facebook social plugins such as the "like" and "share" buttons on your website to increase audience and shares.

Keep your Post short and specific with your goal in-sight: ‎

there are different ways to share your content on your Facebook page and each of them has their effects.

• Status update leads to comments. 
• Sharing links leads to click through and lastly 
• Media such as photo and videos leads to like and shares. 

Use this wisely to your advantage depending on your marketing campaign and put in mind the keyword "content quality."

‎Know your Target Audience: 

Facebook demographics tells you everything about your audience. Study this to really know who your main customers are. The info provided by this will help you advance your strategy, understand your customer and know the kind of content more preferable to your customer.

Post frequently and timely:

posting frequently might be easy but the timing isn't. However, there is a lot of research done to cover up this. Pay attention to your customer, engage them. According to research, 1 out of 3 customers run to competitors if they are ignored on Social media.

Use Facebook Call-to-action button: 

According to Facebook news, the reason for the Call-to-action button integration is to help businesses reach their goal whether on Facebook or off Facebook. Now there are seven call-to-action available.

1. Book now,
2. Contact us,
3. Use App,
4. Play Game
5. Shop now
6. Sign up and
7. Watch video.

Pay Attention to Your Facebook Insight:

Facebook insight is an analytic tool that helps you monitor your page performance. It is through this that you measure your post successes and from the data adjust your market strategy. Here are the insight metrics and their meanings.      

• Impression: this is the number of times your post was seen on Facebook news feeds.
• Engagements: this is the total comments, reaction and shares of your post
• Link clicks: total number of clicks on your posts that has links.
• Organic likes: this is the total number of new users who liked your content.
• Unlikes: number of people who unlike your content
• Net likes: Total number of paid and organic likes minus total number of likes.
• Followers: This is the total number of your followers gotten from sponsored update.
• Total Fans: total number of your Fans