Want to make more sales? Here is a quick tool to improve your communications with your target market. Understanding who you are targeting is the key to writing more persuasive copy. It is one of the first steps to take when you develop a copy strategy.
Sales come from trust and engagement. The tone you use in your copy will help you connect with your reader/listener. As soon as you connect you start building trust.
Think beyond statistics. Write for people not numbers.
Male 25-36, urban dweller with 1.6 children is great for Facebook and targeting locations but it doesn’t give you much to go on. How can you hope to start a conversation? Picture a personality and write like you are having a conversation.
What is their attitude to life, their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Understanding the person will help you sell to them. The better you can relate to each other, the better your communication will be.
Create your ideal customer avatar
Let’s look at an example. It could be anything, make-up, sunglasses, anything. But let’s say you want to start a print of demand business selling t-shirts.
You pick a niche – we will look at bikers, that’s our audience, our target market. To make sales we have to come up with a whole bunch of ideas that appeal to them, to start building a following. So how would we do that?
What is your target market spectrum?
Let’s look at an example. It could be anything, make-up, sunglasses, anything. But let’s say you want to start a print of demand business selling t-shirts.
You pick a niche – we will look at bikers, that’s our audience, our target market. To make sales we have to come up with a whole bunch of ideas that appeal to them, to start building a following. So how would we do that?
What drives their decision making?
By sub-dividing your audience into personalities you can relate to, your writing will be more engaging. You can then target your communications to each part or dig even deeper. Let’s look at our example.
Hell Raiser
Wild man, impulsive, likes the wild side-of-life, anti-authority. Image is important.
Daredevil
Likes danger of riding bikes. Speed is the thrill, the adrenalin. Experience is important
Grease Monkey
Builds bikes, like oil and tinkering and the idea of an alternative lifestyle. Wants to customise things to imprint his personality.
James Dean
Likes the image of a rebel but will not create it, they’ll buy it. More of an art-based background. A liberal, the bike confirms their view of themselves
Fat Cat
Doesn’t want anyone second guessing whether he has made it or not. He wants them to know. Has to have the best of everything. Bigger, better more powerful.
Trevor
Loves freedom and the adventure of biking but will minimise any discomfort by buying the best gear and safety comes high on their priorities.
If I was doing this I would focus on Daredevil, Grease Monkey and James Dean. The market is already well saturated for the Hell Raiser and Fat Cat and Trevor will probably only buy established brands.
Fine-tune your communications
Now you have a tool to refine your copy. I find it much easier to write if I can picture a person. What makes them tick gives you a clue how to engage with them.
You can use this spectrum to develop new products or if you think you only want to target a section of this spectrum, pick your target and expand it again to drill down to the different personality types to uncover their motivations.
Works for any group
If it’s make-up, it could be a spectrum from day to night, or party girl to office girl. Sunglasses could be extrovert to introvert, or practical to impractical, sport to fashion, street to catwalk.
Knowing your target market can help you map out your product line and can even give you ideas for new ways to make sales.
Conclusion
To write more persuasive copy you need to improve the rapport between you and your target market. People will buy from you if they like and trust you. It is a circle, the more they engage with you, the more they will trust your judgement and opinion. Better engagement comes from a deeper understanding of what makes them tick. Taking a moment to segment your target and pinpoint the emotional triggers that make them act will make your promotional copy much more personal and effective.
How would you break down your target market?
