Persona-Driven Messaging for Startup Success
Launching a product isn’t easy. You need to get the product right and make an immediate impact on your audience. But without the right positioning and messaging, your odds of missing the mark are high. Knowing your target personas goes a long way towards simplifying the launch process and achieving the engagement and sales that are the hallmarks of a winning product launch.
Why Personas Matter
Who do you want to buy your product? The answer to this question, and there are probably several, are the personas or ideal customers that you should be focusing on. This is where research and most importantly data come into play. High-value data will tell you what each persona, or customer type needs, their potential pain points and the most effective way to engage with them based on their behavior. Growth consultancy ITSMA, found that nearly half of companies that use buyer personas report higher conversion rates. The data is in: The more targeted your positioning and messaging, the better you can respond to challenges from your audience, leading to faster adoption and greater trust.
Tailoring Messaging
Address Pain Points Clearly
Each persona has its own unique challenges and concerns. Demonstrating how your product can resolve these at the persona level let’s prospects and customers know that you understand them. For example, if your product targets both CTOs and project managers, your messaging to CTOs will likely focus on security and scalability, while project managers might be more concerned with ease of implementation and use.
Speak Their Language
It’s no secret that the tech world tends to use a lot of jargon and industry terminology. Some companies even have their own unique acronyms for products or systems. But using words that don’t resonate with your target person can significantly hinder the success of your launch, as well as confuse your target customer. A recent Salesforce study found that 4 out of 5 customers prefer to do business with a company that ‘speaks in their language’. Using persona-specific messaging on landing pages, email campaigns, and sales enablement content can help make prospects and customers feel both seen and heard.
Highlight Unique Value
Most products have more than one benefit, but not every benefit is going to be of equal importance to your target customer. A value proposition that’s tailored to each audience increases the relevance of your message, and the likelihood of engagement with that message. For example, a cybersecurity startup might emphasize cost-effectiveness for small business owners and advanced threat protection for enterprise clients.
Building Effective Personas
Leverage Data
Research, research, research. To build accurate personas, you need to do research on your prospects and customers. Tools such as Google Analytics, your chosen CRM, and even customer feedback can help you get the data and insights you need to discover who your target personas really are. You might be surprised to learn that they aren’t who you thought or that you have untapped growth opportunities. According to HubSpot businesses with well-researched personas enjoy email click-through rates that are 73% higher than those that don’t.
Segment Your Audience
How you Identify the distinct groups within your target market will vary depending on your industry, business goals and product offerings. Your segments might be based on job roles, company size, or purchase motivations. The clearer the distinction between each segment, the easier it is to craft precise messaging and get meaningful engagement.
Persona-Driven Success
Asana is a popular project management tool. But much of its success is due to its persona-driven approach. When the tool first launched, it used several different personalized messaging approaches targeted to each of its intended audiences. This included team leaders, freelancers, and even large enterprises. Each segment received messaging focused on their specific needs, such as collaboration for teams or simplicity for solo users. This approach helped Asana achieve rapid adoption across diverse markets.
Outlook
Launching a product (successfully) is about more than just having a great idea; it’s about helping your target audience understand how your product can help them. But no two customers are exactly alike. With persona-driven messaging, you can cut through the noise and speak directly to each persona to build a deeper connection that addresses their needs and challenges.
Don’t just talk about your product—speak to the people that you want to use it.
