Getting to know your audience
So, how do you get to know your audience?
We build a customer persona by asking questions and interviewing current clients. The interview does not necessarily have to be formal. The information can be gathered simply by talking to people at shows, posting photos of your work on social media, and asking for feedback.
I understand that this can be uncomfortable to do and that some people can be mean; however, it is the best way to arm yourself with the information that will move your sales forward. If you get negative or positive feedback, engage with them and take what good information you can glean and dismiss the haters.
Remember we are fishing for the good fish and releasing the carp back into the pond.
Here is the information you need to be looking for and collecting in order to build out a customer persona.
What Are Their? is the best way to ask questions when building customer personas. Let’s start with the top 7 list.
- Needs – What are they missing or in need of?
- Age – What is their age? Where are they in their spending cycle of life?
- Pain Points or Barriers – What is stopping them from purchasing your product? Pain Points or Barriers could be many things: cost of the product, justifying it to their family, wants versus needs, and personal expenses. They could be a mental or financial block or anything in between. It would be best if you found out what those barriers are. Finding obstacles is done by talking to them rather than selling to them. This information will be used to inform you of your ideal customer, not to manipulate someone into a sale. That will backfire if you are trying to build a business around your artwork.
- Location – Where do they live? Are they in the city, country, traveling from one place to another? Location is a huge one when you are selling artwork. What state, what town, type of neighborhood?
- Action Threshold – How comfortable is your prospect with making a purchase? How hard or easy is it to sell them?
- Education – High school, higher education, self-taught?
- Hobbies – What do they like to do in their free time? What are they interested in?
When creating a customer persona, having one or more types of customer personas is normal. It may also be necessary to divide your advertising campaign to be specific to each type of persona.
After we have answered these questions, it is essential to put it in a format chart that you can easily visualize and understand your customer. This type of chart is called a customer persona or a target persona.
Recap pep-talk:
Whoa, Nelly, This is too much! You might be saying.
Take it easy, you got this. One step at a time, My friend.
I really encourage you not to skip this step. I understand that it can be difficult to come up with this information but it is incredibly important to know this information.
Below is an example.
Develop your own customer persona.
Fill in your own target persona with the information that you know about your current customers. Be as detailed as possible when filling in the form. I find it helps to use a photo of the ideal customer.
Take your time and come up with a few option in your customer persona that will work for your customer. Try not to overthink this step. Write down everything you can think of and then refine the list.
