Should You Market to Pain or Persona?

Christopher Ryaninfo@fusionmarketingpartners.com

What is Persona Marketing?

The technical definition of persona is “the way you present yourself to the world.” But in marketing terms, we think of personas as

individuals who share common characteristics that represent important segments of your

target audience.

The Goal of Persona Marketing

The idea is to focus your messaging as if you were speaking to one individual and not just a bunch of nameless and faceless prospects.

In the hands of a talented copywriter, persona marketing can be much more effective than (pardon my French) the “spray and pray” approach.

Buyer Persona Canvas

The Buyer Persona Canvas from Tony Zambito, is a useful tool to manage the research, hypotheses and testing involved in persona marketing.

While persona marketing has its uses, you should also carefully consider marketing to the pain points of your target audience. Basically, products and services exist to answer the needs, challenges and desires of customers. In other words, to overcome their pain points.

Consider Marketing to Pain…

Marketing to Pain Points

When you successfully identify the major pain points of your audience, you then target your messaging, offers and sales process around the alleviation of your prospects’ pain points.

The major point to remember about this type of marketing is that pain transcends personas.

Important Tips About Marketing to Pain

Online media can be extremely effective at both identifying pain points and then creating content, offers and lead nurturing programs to convert prospect pain to awareness, leads and revenues.

The more acute the pain, the more important it is to keep focus on the specific pain point, and the alleviation thereof, than to immediately jump to the totality of your solution.

Reminders

• Persona Marketing is an effective strategy for both B2B and B2C companies.

• Pain Point Marketing can be equally effective and accomplished much faster.

• Instead of Persona vs. Pain, consider adopting both strategies.

Visit Fusion Marketing Partners for lots of helpful marketing resources.