Plain Talk

Here is the crux of customer conversion: engaging with the personas that you’ve meticulously crafted. The bridge from awareness to interest is not merely a step; it's a strategic leap that requires a blend of creativity, analytics, and empathetic communication. This part of the journey is where marketers need to apply tailored strategies to kindle the initial sparks of awareness into the steady flames of interest.

Leveraging Omnichannel Strategies
Personas don’t interact with your brand through a single channel. They might discover you on social media, research on your website, and make inquiries via email. Consider the traveling professional from Part 1 of this series. They might browse products on their mobile during a flight, use a laptop to revisit these items from a hotel, and finally make purchases through a desktop at home or work. A brand that synchronizes its messaging and services across these devices not only caters to that persona’s lifestyle but also reinforces their decision to buy.

By implementing a unified omnichannel strategy, the brand ensures that every touchpoint—from mobile push notifications about ongoing sales to follow‑up emails after purchase—is coherent and connected, significantly enhancing the shopping experience.

Buxton Smart Tip: Utilizing a CRM or CDP can significantly improve how you understand and track customer interactions, offering a comprehensive view of the customer journey. Additionally, Buxton's personas help you identify unique customer characteristics and can be uploaded directly into your CRM/CDP. Combining your customer data and persona insights into one central location streamlines your omnichannel strategies.

Customizing Content
Content is king, but context is its kingdom. A deep understanding of each persona's preferences, pain points, and platforms is vital. This means not just creating high‑quality content but ensuring it is customized for each persona.

In Part 1 of this series, we used the persona example of a young professional who travels for work. To grab the interest of the travelling professional persona, for example, a brand could tailor content to highlight the convenience and functionality of its travel‑friendly products. Featuring articles or videos on "Top Travel Essentials for the Busy Professional" or "How to Stay Productive While on the Go" not only appeals directly to their lifestyle but also positions the brand as a knowledgeable resource. Additionally, using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) techniques ensures your content and creative is not only findable but also resonates with the persona’s search intent.

Engaging through Personalization
Personalization is the secret sauce of customer engagement. That’s where data analytics comes into play; it can help you tailor not just what you say, but how and when you say it. With data analytics, you may uncover that one of your most valuable personas is the travelling professional. Knowing this, you could include dynamic content in emails, such as travel tips, packing checklists, or how‑to guides for products they’ve already purchased. Personalizing product recommendations based on their purchase history (i.e. they bought a travel bag, so they may need packing cubes) is another great way to cater to the persona’s lifestyle and interests. Remember, personalization extends beyond addressing someone by their name; it's about relevant, timely, and personalized communication that speaks directly to the persona’s needs and preferences.

Buxton Smart Tip: Customer analytics is the key to perfecting your personalization strategy. By identifying "who" your best customer segments are, "how" and "where" to target them, and "when" to target based on who’s ready to spend, Buxton’s analytics can help you deliver highly targeted communications that resonate deeply with each customer's unique needs and timing.

Utilizing Social Proof and Influencer Partnerships
Social proof, such as customer testimonials, user reviews, and case studies, can powerfully influence personas at this stage. If a retail brand, specializing in travel essentials, for example, wants to cater to young professionals, then they should showcase reviews and testimonials from similar career‑oriented travelers. Doing so, validates the functionality and style of its products.

Additionally, partnering with influencers who document their business travels can demonstrate the real‑world application and benefits of these essentials. This authentic engagement not only enhances authenticity and credibility but also directly connects the brand’s offerings with the specific needs and aspirations of the persona, making the marketing message more relevant and compelling.

Measuring and Optimizing Your Engagement
To ensure your marketing campaigns truly resonate, it’s crucial to measure their effectiveness. Begin with clearly defined goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as engagement rates, click‑through rates, and conversion rates, that align with your strategic objectives. This quantitative foundation allows marketers to track the success of their efforts and make informed decisions.

Continual refinement is also important; regular A/B testing across all channels helps fine‑tune your messaging, offers, and timing based on KPI results and evolving customer data. Alternatively, consider multivariate tests that evaluate several variables simultaneously. This approach not only refines your strategies across all channels more dynamically but also adapts to rapidly changing customer behaviors and trends, ensuring that your marketing remains agile and insightful.

Buxton Smart Tip: Utilizing Buxton’s customer analytics, your brand can improve the effectiveness of targeted ads and email campaigns by knowing not only which customers to target but also which channels yield the highest ROI.

Bottom line: engaging with your personas is a dynamic process that demands a mix of different strategies. As we transition these engaged personas into the final stage of customer conversion, remember that each interaction is an opportunity to deepen their interest and edge closer to a decisive conversion. Check out Part 3, where we'll dive into the nuances of turning interested personas into loyal customers.

Buxton is the leading customer analytics firm that helps organizations identify who their customers are, where those customers are located, and the value those customers have to the organization.

2651 South Polaris Drive
Fort Worth, TX 76137
1-888-2BUXTON

buxtonco.com

Feature Articles

If you have an opinion on the retailing or retail real estate industries, take this opportunity to share your thoughts. Articles should run between 400 and 800 words. Topics can, be general in nature, consumer observation or specific to retail concepts or practices.

Articles will be posted for at least one week and will then be placed in the Editorial Archives. All articles submitted will be read and considered but we cannot guarantee publication. Each published article will carry the submitters byline (if desired) and is a free service to our community.

Article ideas and suggestions are also always welcomed. Contact PVS@PlainVanillaShell.com