Hello, and welcome to the theory of marketing relativity podcast. I'm JessBurton, a marketing specialist here at Epic Marketing Consultants Corporation. Let's talk all things marketing and merchandising with our epic team. Joining me on today's podcast is Whitney Hoffman. She is one of our magnificent consultants here at epic marketing consultants. So thank you for joining me today Whitney.
Whitney:Thanks so much, Jess, I really am glad that you guys asked me to come and talk.
Jess:Absolutely. I know, after we worked on a project here, I where we know we're talking about personas today, it kind of gave me a whole new appreciation for I guess, the different aspects of marketing that I don't deal with on a daily basis. And I was I like, actually, like, did like learn a lot from like working with you. And when Ann said, like, oh, our next one's on personas. And we talked about it, we were kind of both like, like, you know, Whitney would be a good fit for this, like she knows an in depth amount about them.
Whitney:Well, and they're so terrific. You know, I think part of it is when you're doing content marketing, you really want to be able to talk straight to people, it's really powerful when it when somebody gets an email, or a piece of content, or even an advertisement and it really speaks to whatever their personal situation is, or their pain. You know, it's that golden thing that we're all trying to get to, which is right message to the right person at the right time. So if you really know who your customers are, and who your customers aren't, you can really target those messages. And it can really help you identify which messages to deliver them as they go through the buyers journey at the right time to really, you know, I almost look at it as creating a narrative story arc that's bespoke to the people that you really want to talk to. And it's ridiculously effective. But it's something that a lot of people overlook. When I talk to some small business people, sometimes I'll ask them who their customer is, and they'll say, everybody, and it's like, well, no, everybody is not your customer. Let's talk about who your best customers are and actually who your worst customers are, and who do you want more of. And then we can start, you know, it's always helpful to interview those people. And then you start building your personas, the more detailed, the better. Sometimes you'll have several personas, and then you can really gear your messages straight to them.
Jess:I think yeah, definitely the habit, knowing where your customer comes from, and knowing who your customer is, I think you like totally nailed it on the when people are like everybody's my customer. And you're like, no, like I always am when people say that when I'm on client calls and stuff. I'm like, okay, so yes, theoretically, everybody could be your customer. But which customers are going to actually come in and open an account, which customers are actually going to come in and purchase something which customers are actually going to get you that ROI that you've been looking for. Because like, you know, I always joke that I could be your customer, my mom could be your customer, my grandmother could be your customer. But I might be your customer for one thing, they might be your customer for another thing. I'm I'm not saying...
Whitney:That's right. I mean, I look at it from this perspective. You know, my husband is an obstetrician gynecologist, right, he has a it is clear that his customers, is women, his customer is not men. So I mean, that's sort of a very stark upfront, easy way to put it. But you know, same way, if you are running, let's say, a Hot Topic, or some store like that in the mall, you know, you may get an occasional grandmother who's in there and picking up a Harry Potter wand for their kid or something like that. But that by far and away is not your market, right? You need to talk to the people who really want the stuff that you're trying to sell. So, you know, let's make sure that if you and you know, it's weird, because in some ways, it's like writing a character sketch, if you're writing a novel or whatever, who is this person? What's their job? What's their motivation? How many kids they have? But as you go through that, you know, I look at it as almost like doing a business plan. Once you go through the process of doing all of that you realize and start fine tuning who the people are, you're talking to, what their problems are, and what services or products you have, that are solving those exact problems. Because if you're not solving those exact problems, you know, you could say anything to that person and it's just not going to resonate, and they will and it will just blow on by them. Which means from a marketers perspective, your your messages are not going to be as effective and you're wasting a lot of time and money pointing information to those folks who just don't care. Because they are not at the point in their life where they need your product or service.
Jess:Absolutely. I just had a conversation with somebody we were talking about, when a client we're talking about, you know, what's big. Right now? Like, what? What is the theme, quote unquotes using my air quotes. What is the theme of this season? And she was like, you know, for their business. She's like, it's very much allergies. We're talking about allergies, we're talking about air quality and whatever. So I said to her, I was like, you know, what, who are the people who are dealing with allergies? And who are the people who are most cognizant of allergies? And she's like, what people who are active people who have kids with allergies, you know, parents, she's like, so is it, okay, we're going to target all of our allergy related marketing, towards that age demographic, towards that towards people with kids towards people who are out hiking, I was like, and I basically was like, when you watch Zyrtec, commercial, what you see, and she was like that as a very valid point, I was like, nothing against people who live in like, you know, nursing homes or whatever. But I was like, they don't get out as often. So we're not going to target that age demographic. But you know, a parent who wants to go outside to her kids, you know, tot soccer game, you're surrounded by grass and trees and whatnot. I was like, that's allergy central.
Whitney:Well, that's right. And you know, and I've got some late allergies myself, just, you know, but I never until I never knew how allergic I was still hay until my kids, I had gone a hay ride with my kids. And I was just one giant mess. And, you know, I'm starting to get like big, bulging, you know, swollen, horrible. And I'm like, okay, that would put hay back on the list of things I'm allergic to, and maybe I don't want to go do that hayride. My husband can next year, you know, but it's like, note to self. But yeah, you know, I think like, let's take a typical situation. Um, you know, we were dealing with some customers recently with Epic, that we're interested in selling some financial services to them. And, you know, it's for people who are want to make investments, hopefully, for long term, and this might fit into their overall investment strategy. So if you really want to tune something to that, it's like, okay, you know, you can, there's probably a slice of the market that's in the 20 to 30, that are new to investments, and this may be something they want to consider. But if the company has certain sales goals, maybe we want to target people who have more money to invest, in which case, then you're going to move that customer speed up a little bit. And to people who have more disposable income, people who are worried about saving for college and retirement or whatever. So you're probably looking at 35 to 45, maybe 50 year olds, and then part of it is like, okay, what's happening in those people's lives at that point, you know, and this is where I go, and I do things like I pull up census data. If it's geographic, I look up the geographic area, I look where the pockets of where different people live, that helps us then target where we're going to be spending Google ad dollars or Facebook dollars, because you can pick the different areas. It gives you a sense of what are the jobs of the people who do there and everything else? Well, the gold standard, of course, is to interview some existing customers. You know, if you're a business, you should interview some of your best customers and ask them different questions. HubSpot has a great blog article that's all about building personas that we'll put a link to, I think, in here, where you can go through like the 20 questions to ask, and interview thing. And, you know, part of it is trying to model this person. And then when you build your personas, it's sort of a composite of a bunch of people. So when we were doing personas for this project, I was thinking of like, who are the five friends that I know that are in the 35 to 45 year old bracket, some of them are single couples, some of them are married, you know, okay, maybe those are two different personas, what are their needs? Short term, long term? What are their problems and their daily life? And where does this fit in? And where does this product fit in into their overall perspective? And that way, you can really say like, Alright, so then when the team's got to put the messages together, they have a picture of who it is they're talking to in their brain, and then they can talk right to that person, rather than trying to go so broad and so general that just aren't getting them. It doesn't feel like you're having that conversation over coffee or a backyard fence. You don't get that voice that really feels like hey, you're in the right space. Let me show you what we can do to help you out.
Jess:Absolutely. I think one of the the two big things that I always, you know, tell people about marketing is you need to know your content pillars. So like things that you can talk about. But then you also need to always be in mind of your buyer. Like if you have buyers or client, those personas, we I know here at Epic, we laugh all the time, because like, we kind of equate some of our clients demographics to like different employees here, where like, we'll be talking about something like, well, I'm not their target age demographic, like 30 unmarried is not their target age demographic. But you know, and like, you know, Ann who is married with kids, just like she might be their age demographic. So we just like laugh sometimes, because like, we'd like a lot of time, like you said, like, you just think about the people you know, in your life, and which one of them would purchase this product or invest in this or open this account, because that's kind of like the easiest way to create a persona, as well as interviewing people who are already coming into your store coming into your institution, the whole nine yards, that's kind of like, given information.
Whitney:Well, and sometimes I'll call one of my friends who fits that general demographic, that I'm thinking up and I'll be like, hey, what do you think about this product or service? Because it kind of gives you a sense of like, alright, well, you know, what's good or bad about this? And where does this fit in? So you can kind of test whether or not you're doing a decent job about whether any of that resonates with again, somebody you know, and again, personas are not really people, but they're composite people, you know, and so it's helpful to have an imagination, it's helpful to kind of, you know, you can say that it's stereotypes, but, you know, sometimes stereotypes is sort of trying to get that broad sense of where your market is. And, and, again, it's so much better than doing the typical. Everybody's might customer and I'm like, yeah, nobody's your customer. But I think but I think the other portion to think about is, who are the negative personas, who is this not for? You know, if you are selling, again, ear warmers, you know, people without ears would not be your customer. But I mean, it's whatever it is, right? So, you know, and if there's particular customers that are the folks that eat up 80% of your time, but only give you 20% of the revenue, how do we kind of discourage other people like that from opting in? You know, how do we construct offers that say, you know, maybe this isn't your scene? And, and that's really okay, you know, it's okay not to service everybody, because you will serve as the people you want to serve us a lot better and attract more of the customers you really want by also, you know, discouraging people who are taking up more of your time and wasting more of your effort, but not delivering the results you want.
Jess:Absolutely, I think once you find that, you're referred to them as like niche personas. So the people who fit the personas that kind of benefit you the most. The you know, if you pick a client that fits your persona, and they're a constant customer, they're a constant client, they're always involved, they might invite their friends who may also now become your niche person, like fit that one niche persona. There's something to be said about. Like you said earlier about having multiple personas, but figuring out which ones are most beneficial to you. Not all personas are created equal. I know like sometimes, like I said, like some of our clients have seasonal products or seasonal things that they offer. And the things they offer in the spring might fit persona A, B, and C, but the things that they're promoting in the summer might fit, you know, D, E, and F. So it is things to be aware of while this person while these personas are great for these products, we also have to have these other ones for these other products so that we can find our niches where they are.
Whitney:Well, absolutely, so there's one set of clients that I deal with that are that deal with HVAC issues and they sell some of these. They sell these ductless air conditioning units and they're really great because if you live in an older house that doesn't have air conditioning, you can put in this heat pump system that can provide you know spot AC and heat through one unit. And you can heat different areas of your house. They're very efficient and they can be great particularly again, if you have a house that was not that doesn't have central AC or if you've got those rooms like the bonus room of your house or a basement or something that you can never just heat evenly these these things are great for those things. But you know, so for those clients, we do a lot of case studies that talk about the different applications of these things. And each of those case studies is essentially talking about the persona of the person who bought it, really. And it's trying to tell their story a little bit. So when somebody else reads that, they really have a good sense of like, Oh, that's how they solve that problem. This is exactly what I need for my house, you know. But again, you know, that's seasonal, too. You know, it's heating season versus cooling season, what do people need? You know, do they live in an area where having air conditioners on the first floor sticking out of the house is actually a safety issue? You know, in which case, you know, there's a whole persona that may be safety related, you know, there may be a whole persona that's, you know, this old house, older house people, and then there's the whole people that may even have a new house, but they need their basement or their attic, or whatever else fixed. So those are all different personas at but by having content that speaks to each of them on the website, everybody can find something that that is talking about solving their problem with the one thing that they're on sale here, which is, you know, those different kinds of ductless air conditioning systems.
Jess:Absolutely. I think that, yeah, knowing knowing your audience will help you tenfold when it comes to targeting your audiences, through all of your marketing, whether it's social, print, digital, like digital, print, digital, digital...
Whitney:Everything.
Jess:I mean, even to I just had a conversation with somebody. They were talking about how their demographic is older. And
Whitney:Well, and you know, and this is why it's important to I said, you know, and it was like, my grandmother's age demographic, and I was like, you know, she's 80. I was like, she keep up with like, Mary Bleeker does her internet trends report doesn't have, you know, social media. She doesn't go on the internet. I was like, honestly, she reads the newspaper, like, she still gets a physical newspaper every morning. I was every year, and I always go to the Pew Center does a great like, so if that's something that you're and they were like, I didn't even know that was an option. And I'm like, well, of course, it's an option. But yeah, like I was like, again, when you create those buyer personas, you realize that certain, you know, I tell people all the time, I'm like, let's get a TikTok, and I'm like, your age demographic is 45. There are nobody in 45 years old, there's I mean, there are, but there are less 45 year old five year olds on TikTok, than they might be on Facebook. So that's always a fu conversation to have about gu ding people towards. bunch of research on who's online and who's not. So for example, 54% of people over 65 have broadband at home. So that means, you know, about 50% are on, 50% off. So, you know, what o you do now that people a e trying to get vaccines and si n up? How do you make sure th t 50% that's not necessarily h ve broadband, you know, they re trying to do it on their c ll phones, or they're trying to et their kids to do it for them? Or what does that look like? ou know, 20% of people use th ir internet devices, they use t eir cell phones as their primary internet device. So you know, yo have to keep all these differen factors in mind when you're fig ring out right channel, right ti e, right place. So we have a ouple of retirement communitie that we represent. And we've d ne great work with Epic in terms of doing their brochures and e erything else. From th digital standpoint, we make ure that we've got digital ve sions of that, because whether it's the person who's moving in, or their children, they can get that instantaneous hit an get the brochure long before you know waiting a week and a half for getting things in the m il. But, you know, again, wha I, they have a Facebook page they do very well with their Facebook page, because a lot of eople in that demograph c are on Facebook, becaus they're keeping up with their kids and their grandkids and e erything else. And it does
Jess:Absolutely, I think it's never, it's never too late to it does surprisingly well rom that perspective. However, ou know, people that have tried Twitter account, Twitter is ju create your personas. And it's never a bad time to update them. t not the place for them. Now, Twitter's great if they want As your businesses change as your business changes, as the o monitor things that are going on in the community by health world shifts, I feel like a lot of businesses not to beat a dead r connect with other businesses but it's not a customer channel for them. And Lord help me you know, if they want to attract e horse, but this past year has just been, I feel like I'm in one of those machines or like trying to grab money. Like it's ployees, Instagram is fine a d can be exciting. And you just chaotic. can show pictures, and this i a great place to work. But it i not for new residents, you know because there aren't a lot of grandmas that are hanging out on the gram all day. So you know I mean, again, it's the, there' lots of different channels. The e's lots of different things t choose. But the closer you, the more you know that persona, the more you can match up the messag and the medium. So it's hitting them right where they're going t be. And you get the right me sage right place right time, be ause you need all of those hree pieces, if you've got the ight person, but you've got c appy messages, you know, you're till nowhere. But if you've got reat messages and and you've got your personas down, you still ha e to work on that timing, place issue to make sure that you'll et the conversions and everythi g that you really want and expec out of your marketing rogram. Absolutely, I agree with you 100%. But yes, it is it is a it's one of those things, like I said, with the along with content pillars, it those are like the two big things that will always kind of keep your marketing train on the right tracks, especially when you're like I have no ideas left. Because they kind of they give you restrictions so that you can kind of come up with ideas versus like, the world is my oyster.
Whitney:Yeah, no, and I think that's really helpful. The other thing, you know, is I use tools like my note, which is one of these mind mapping tools. So you can build like these little chains. So I will start out with the persona and then start building like, Okay, what questions does this person need to answer. And then I start putting through and thinking through the process, like I am the that persona going through the buyer's journey, and I'm really mapping it out so you can see it at the same time. That's really great for clients to see, it's a really great exercise for anybody to do, because it gives you a really good sense of where they are. And then you kind of figure out what pieces of information people need, what the timing is, and it gives you the whole content map right there like, okay, you know, I've got three of these things. But I'm really missing a fourth, I haven't really answered some of the critical questions that people have, like, why do I need this? Where is it? Why is this the best thing for me? You know, and that's another content piece that, you know, as you're looking at your personas, what are the questions those people have, if you can answer all of those FAQs, and content and in your marketing, you will go a long way to helping educate the buyer about what they really want to know. And then making it easy for them to convert. Sure.
Jess:So I'm sure businesses have changed, which means that if you started your business 10 years ago, you picked business personas, or you picked buyer personas 10 years ago, I can guarantee you they've probably shifted and changed if at least a little bit from you know, 2010.
Whitney:Well, sure. And you know, and we're gonna have to look at them as everybody's coming out of the whole pandemic, too. Because just think about you know, I always think about State Street, you know, Center Kennett Square, because it's sort of like hometown America, kind of thing in your in my head. You know, there's all these little businesses that had to convert from in person, let's have this great atmosphere kind of business to now all of a sudden, I have to be a takeout business. You know, that is an entirely different market. What What can you make that goes well, and will transport well, from home to table, like, I have yet to find any place that can make sure that the you get french fries home, and they're not soggy and nasty when we get home. It's not their fault, but it's just it's just the beast,
Jess:It's the nature of the food. right?
Whitney:Right, so do you want to really change up your food to Yeah, you know, and it's funny, there is an old old Thank you so much. If people want to get in contact meet that market? And then what happens if you have to pivot Seth Godin blog post that's called Seth Godin, for some with you, maybe they want to ask you to build their personas back? How do you do limited openings, you know, if there's Where can they find you marketing, respect, and the way ideas spread, and it's eight something that's got to be piping hot, but you're going to questions and a why. And it's like, Who are you trying to be serving it outside, and it's only 62 out, you know, that please? What are you promising? How much money are you trying to thing's gonna get ice cold, and then the person's not make? How much freedom? Are you willing to trade for necessarily going to come back again. So, so what can you do opportunity? How much are you trying to change? What do you that is meets all of those things. And, you know, it want people to say about you? Which people? And do you? Do we doesn't matter what business you're in these days, you have care about you? And then after each of those questions, ask to be light on your feet, you have to be able to pivot, we why. And it's one of those things like, I've printed this certainly found that out with a pandemic and coming out of it. out, and it's on my little post here, because, again, it's just It's going to require pivoting and trying to meet people. But a good reference for like, alright, what's the plan? What's you know, your personas give you a really good footing to figure and where are we going? And why are we doing it this way? You that out. And if you start seeing a lot of different people, or you see things are kind of changing, you know, know, planning will let you then pivot all you want when things going back to personas and buyers journey is really, it's change, but if you don't have a plan in place, it's going to be those cornerstones that once you have that everything else is really improvising without knowing you know, what you have it's much easier to plan. But if you don't have that, you get to improvise with is more difficult. something that I call random acts of marketing. You know, I try and tell all my clients, I do not want to do any random acts of marketing. I want a purpose, a plan and a goal. You know, and I try and keep them to SMART goals and everything else but you know, they'll come up and it's like let's just have a party and I'm like, okay, so why do you want to have a party? You know, what's the goal? What are you going to get out of it? You know, what's the ROI, if you just want to flush $8,000, you know, I'm happy to do that. But you know, at the same time, you know, if you're not getting the conversions you want on the other end, it won't be that we hadn't talked through the process. So occasionally, I feel like a wet blanket. But I because we can count everything, you know, between different CRMs and everything else. There's Google Analytics, everything, there's no reason not to make sure that you've got good goals for your marketing and can see what's working and what's not. And that's the only way you're really going to be able to then pivot and change what's working and make sure that you're maximizing your dollars.
Jess:Absolutely, that's such a good point about everything should be done with a purpose, even if it is like last minute, like you should have a purpose and a goal. I know that I have definitely been in that wet blanket situation where I've been like, okay, but why? Absolutely. Whitney, thank you so much for joining me. They can always find me at whitney@epicmc2.com. And, and if you want to get a hold of me on Facebook, I'm Whitney Hoffman, very easy to find me. I'm on Twitter as LD podcast. And you know, you can run me down, I'm on LinkedIn. You know, I'm the 55 year old on on Whitney Hoffman on there, there's a couple others, but I'm pretty easy to find. And I'd love to talk to you because I love this stuff. And I really love being able to show that, you know, all the theory that I have about great ideas and marketing that because I track it all, I actually know that it's effective. And that is the most satisfying thing ever, because it's like being able to prove your religion, right. Right. I feel like marketing is such a hard. We've gotten better at it more recently, like with numbers, but for a while it was very hard to track, like be effective, like with absolute, not absolute certainty. Nothing's absolutely certain, but with confidence, how things were gonna work.
Whitney:Oh, absolutely. I used to call it faith based marketing. You know, you put something out there and you just assume like you hope it work and, you know, kind of prayer and and see what would happen. But now that you actually know, you know, I like the accountability, because I can look and say, you know, out of this whole automated emails, chain that I put out this whole workflow, you know, these were really popular, but these weren't as popular or weren't as popular this time as they were the last time we put people through this workflow. So do I need to tweak the subject line? What is that's not working quite the same way? And then I can iterate. You know, I think sometimes people think like, well, it's binary, if something works, or it doesn't. But the point is, we're only going to get better and fine tune things to our audience by looking at what happens. And we can do more of that as we have more experience. And you know, even when you start with personas, eventually it's going to be about narrowing down those messages. So it really speaks to them. The first ones may not be perfect, but you start finding out more about that audience and then you can really fine tune it and then it's like hitting the target every time.
Jess:Absolutely. I feel like we all have to like let Ann know I feel like we just found another podcast topic, ROI. I am not, Ann is 100% our data person and I know how to like look at the numbers and interpret them. But like it is always fascinating to me like different ROI. So we'll have to have you back some time to chat about all of your fun statistics.
Whitney:No problem. Yeah, I'm a bit of an a data nerd so you know that as well so that will take us for forever.
Jess:Well, thank you.
Whitney:Well, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Jess:Thank you all for tuning in this week. We hope this theory is relative to your marketing needs. Make sure you subscribe to get notified of our latest episodes.