Of all the possible questions marketing professionals ask, the one I’ve recently heard most often is some variation of the following: “How do I ensure my content is not just seen and shared, but seen and shared by the right people?”
When you evaluate the stats and the stakes, it makes sense that marketers are obsessed with specificity.
For example, Facebook has 2.3 billion users. To capture the portion of that 2.3 billion that is relevant to your brand, you must know your audience and present the individuals within it the right content at the right time.
Now consider that 72% of Pinterest shoppers say Pinterest inspires them to shop when they aren’t actually looking for something. This means that three quarters of the people casually browsing on Pinterest—people who came to Pinterest with no intention to buy something—can be converted if they see a pin that aligns with their values and interests.
What we’re talking about here is paying close attention to attribution and content specificity. The former is a combination of the source and the medium that visitors use to navigate to your website or mobile app. The latter is copywriting that resonates with your target customer. Disregard either of these, and you’ll be shooting metaphoric blanks.
But enough with the doom and gloom. There are many steps you can take to ensure that the right people see and connect with your marketing content. First among these is identifying the personality type for the customer you desire—and you do it before writing any copy at all.
As you brainstorm and ideate, use customer archetypes as your guide. There are five basic customer archetypes that exist online. (“Basic” is an important word here, by the way. After you’ve grouped your audience as below, you can define subgroups using things like trait theory and psychographics. The possibilities for this first step—identifying customers by personality type—are endless, and the lengths to which you take it is up to you.)
Each archetype is unique. Each seeks content of different types from different sources, and each interacts with that content according to his/her needs, preferences, and lifestyle. Get to know these archetypes and you’ll be one step closer to ensuring your content is shared by and connects with the right people.
New & Nows
This group engages with content as a means of projecting their preferences, refining their identity, and defining who they are. Sharing content is, for them, a way of saying “I am.” “I am healthy,” for example…[because I shared this article about kombucha]. They are omnichannel consumers for whom intense, dynamic content is everything. When crafting your marketing copy for New & Nows, skip droll language and use the kind of vivid imagery and action verbs your English lit. teachers encouraged you to use.
Socials
Young, trendy, and interested primarily in provocative content, Socials use multiple social media networks (meaning more possible shares) as much to get attention and incite reactions from others as to communicate. They will often toy with taboos, step slightly over a line in the sand, and mock mainstream ideologies. Marketing content that positions itself as alternative and unrestrained by social constructs resonates strongly with them.
Good Samaritans
Useful, constructive, and encouraging. These are the premiums Good Samaritans place on the content they share. Always looking to help others, they are focused on positivity and learning. Though they can be found on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook, they often share content via email with a smaller collection of intimate friends. Thus, their reach may be small, but their engagement is typically high.
The Professionals
These consumer personalities can be young or old, gay or straight, married or single. What unites them is an interest in news and trends relating to tech, finance, business, and media. They engage and share content on professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Meetup.
Re-re-researchers
Here are your most discerning consumers. Re-re-researchers arrive at decisions slower than their personality archetype counterparts. This doesn’t mean, however, that they are indecisive. Rather, they are discriminating and prudent. They seek information from numerous sources before finalizing a choice, whether that choice is to make a purchase or to share a piece of content. When they do share content, it is generally across traditional platforms—Facebook and email, for example—and either informative or helpful to others.
Get in touch with the copywriters at MarketSmiths to start speaking your audience’s language today.
