First things first, before deciding on the content we are creating, we need to figure out our buyer personas.
WHO IS YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER?
When building buyer personas, it is important to know our audience: Who NEEDS pet services? Then we can move on to deciding how we want to target these customers. What are pet o wners searching for when they are looking for services like ours, and what keywords are they using? What channels are they using to get this information? What influences their decisions to buy our products or services?
Once you know the answers to these questions, you can start building your campaigns around those buyer personas. On your first attempt at creating these personas, it is helpful to think about age, demographic details, profession, goals, pain points, interests, and buying behaviors of these buyers. Later, we can customize this to our specific business and services that we offer.
Hootsuite has a blog about how to create a buyer persona on their website, which can provide even more insight and go into more detail about how to create a buyer persona. For this post, we are going to focus on how the pet industry can benefit from buyer personas!
WHAT KEYWORDS DO PET OWNERS USE?
Obviously, we are targeting pet owners that want the best for their pets, and they are probably searching specifically for the products or services they need when they search up things for their pets. Our buyer personas search for things like “Local pet groomer”, “Local dog boarding”, “Where can I find someone to watch my dog when I am away?”, maybe even “local nail clipping for pets.” Knowing that they will be using keywords such as grooming, pet sitting, nail tech, veterinary services, and more allows us to fine-tune everything from our website SEO to the paid campaigns we are running around those keywords.
WHAT CHANNELS ARE THESE CUSTOMERS USING TO FIND INFORMATION?
As most of us that have been in the industry a while know, there is not just one or two age demographics for our buyer personas. This can span from the young adult and first-time pet owner to the elderly client who has a senior pet and spans many areas in between. We must think about this when picking the channels we will use to target those customers. The younger audience may use social media, and the next generation up from there might use Google, and the next generation up may use the local paper that comes on Sundays and word of mouth because they aren’t technology-savvy. We must remember this when building our content, placing our ads, or even choosing whether to attend local events and get face-to-face with our older audience members if we need to.
WHAT MAKES OUR CUSTOMERS TAKE ACTION?
In the pet industry, it is now more important than ever to showcase authenticity, a passion for the industry we are in, professionalism, expertise about the product or service we offer, and a passion for pets; putting them first in everything that we do. This is where we need to build our buyer persona more specifically to our business and know what they are looking for when they search for toys for their pet or what breeds they want a specialized groomer for.
Start building your buyer persona today! Even if you already have a website, social media channels, and other forms of marketing published, you can always update and adjust materials as the industry changes. My suggestion is to learn and get to know your buyer personas based on who most often buys your products/services or uses your services rather than others, and why? This will allow you to answer the customer’s “WHY?” and convince them to use your business for their needs not only now but in the future.
Let’s show our customers that we are paying attention to them!
Ashley Lee
“Pet Pro gone Marketing Pro!”
