Hello there online demographics!!
If you’re familiar with the inbound marketing game, then you’re familiar with buyer personas. Buyer personas are targeted, specific marketing identities that help a company identify its ideal market.
Buyer personas drive the ‘nitty-gritty’ of your marketing ideals which is an incredibly useful tool not just when you start your business’ marketing initiatives, but also in helping them grow.
But sometimes, before you can even get to your buyer personas, you need to determine who your general online demographic will be.
For instance, a buyer persona is a complete personality, built from the ground up to describe someone of your ideal demographic.
So while a buyer persona might say:
Male, 35 years old, married with no children, lives in an apartment with a small dog, holds a middle management job, uses Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram.
The general online demographic is:
Male, 25-35, high-level social media user.
Your online demographic can give you a starting point, a general idea of where to begin your buyer persona.
So when you’re trying to determine your online demographic, make sure to take these three things into consideration.
What is your business?
Exactly what the label says.
- What is your business?
- What does your business do?
- What do you sell?
- Do you have a brick and mortar store?
- Are you strictly online?
- Do you sell a physical product?
- Or do you sell a service?
- Are you active on social media?
The answers to all of these questions will be used to determine who your online demographic is and how to generate leads.
Business Example:
Your business is selling handmade teapots using locally sourced and organic materials. You don’t have a brick and mortar store, so your business is entirely online.
You run an Instagram, a Twitter, a Facebook page, and your online store is powered by Shopify. This is valuable information because only a select demographic will shop at a business that meets these specifics.
What kind of people need your business?
This question is also pretty straightforward.
- What kind of people need your business?
- Who is mostly likely to be using your product/service or products/services like it?
- Is your business unique to your region/country/area?
Potential Customer Example:
Your locally sourced, organic, handmade teapot company. Lots of people need teapots, but the people most likely to be buying yours are younger and educated about the environmental and economic effects of local sourcing and organics. They are also likely to be holding down jobs with steady, above minimum wage incomes.
Where do they live?
Now, when I say ‘where do they live?’ I don’t mean ‘what is their address?’ or even ‘do they live in a house or apartment?’ I’m talking about their online presence.
- Where do they live online?
- Where are they most comfortable?
- What social media platforms do they use?
Online Location Example:
Your locally sourced, organic, handmade teapot company is solely online. So the people who find you are also going to spend a lot of time online, most likely looking at either teapots, organic merchandise, or locally sourced merchandise. This group is comfortable online and on social media.
These three questions will give you a solid foundation to build your customer’s buyer persona.
With just three simple questions, we managed to build a general online demographic – Young, educated, earns above minimum wage, spends a lot of time online and on social media. This is an online demographic profile that you can use for just about everything in your marketing initiatives: creating your buyer personas, as well as building your social media accounts and your social media plan.
So get to it! Find your demographic and start building today!
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Need a little extra help? Contact us today and we can help you narrow in on your online demographic!
