The No Jargon Email Issue #06 - Persona's Non-Grata

The No Jargon Email

Curated by Martin Founder - Relearn Digital

Hey No Jargoners'

A bit delayed this week due to me contracting Covid. All is well and the No Jargon email will be back on track for next monday.

This has no connection to marketing (though maybe it resonates with busy business owners) it just made me laugh, a-lot.

Martin's Musings - "Persona's" non grata

Unpopular opinion, but I think personas are mostly useless for smaller businesses.

Cue the eyerolls.

Now I am not saying that understanding your audience is useless, far from it. A smaller business's silver bullet is its ability to get close to its humans and to understand and then meet their needs. But building traditional personas is a bit of a waste of time.

So let's dive into why and tease out a better way to think about your humans that is easier to implement and far more valuable.

The issue inherent in personas for smaller businesses is the inputs needed to do them properly.

Do some googling and you will more than likely find a list like this:

1. Do research
2. Segment your audience.
3. Decide on the layout.
4. Set demographic info.
5. Describe Persona's background.
6. Define Persona's goals.
7. Define motivations and frustrations.

The first step to doing the research is the biggest!! Then you have the components of a persona:

• Persona Group (i.e. web manager)
• Fictional name.
• Job titles and major responsibilities.
• Demographics such as age, education, ethnicity, and family status.
• The goals and tasks they are trying to complete using the site.
• Their physical, social, and technological environment.

I don't know about you but I am exhausted just reading the list. The pure overwhelm from this process for a time-pressured business owner is huge.

Now enter a classic marketing phrase

If you try to market to everyone you will end up marketing to know one.

It's a classic for a reason, it's true. We need to be clear on our audience. But the things we want to be clear about is why they buy, so we can craft messages and content that talk to them. So let's get clear without going through the 1000 steps required to build a persona.

To be clear on our audience and why they buy we only really need to ask 2 questions of them:

• What triggers people to begin the buying journey?- the event that happens that moves them from uninterested in your product or service to in the market
• What job are they trying to get done?- We don't buy because of who we are we buy because we have a job to get done - so need a product or service to full-fill this requirement

Now that feels a lot more doable, here is an example for Relearn:

• Trigger:?John's business has stagnated and he has little time to spend on his marketing which is making he frustrated
• Job to get done:?"I need a solid marketing plan that i have confidence in so i can concentrate on customer service and product quality

Just from this one example, we are clear on "what triggered him" and the job he needs to get done. We have the bones of an audience to talk to. The fact is humans are nuanced and so is your audience, you will be able to refine the answers to these questions to form core audiences and then use the nuance at the edges for messaging and testing.

So where to get the info.

Established businesses can talk to existing customers and learn this information. New businesses can make assumptions and then validate when live (or be cheeky and talk to customers of similar products or services).

Yes, you need to survey your customers or better yet interview them. But fun fact:

Marketers who leverage trigger events spend 80% less on direct marketing costs

So get over it and do it.

But what about age, location, family status etc....For almost every business this type of information is very clear and implied. You will naturally add this to the more useful information on triggers and jobs to get done.

This is how we approach audience research on our courses at Relearn and it resonates with our learners. Hope it resonates with you.

Curated reading

More changes at Instagram?- Another day another tweak to the Instagram algorithm. The new tweak is designed to give more visibility to original content. This is no surprise, but a really interesting development. What does it mean for trending audio, and remixing reels??This is a great post breaking down what Adam Mosseri?said diving into what it means.

Ads coming to Netflix?- This is a great post from one of the most innovative thinkers in marketing, Tom Goodwin. He dives unpicks the?probable shift to advertising for Netflix and proposes a new way. You might be thinking what has this got to do with my business? Tom sees things differently to most and his take on what this "could" mean shows us a different way of thinking about how to use advertising

The power of being an introvert -?I am a bit of an introvert so I love reading stories about how other business owners have overcome this to be successful -?this is a great story from the founder of Dreami

So why do your ads actually appear -?Over the last few No Jargon emails I have been sharing some content around the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of some elements of the vast digital marketing ecosystem.?This is a great post of just how?this system works and how good ads end up and bad sites

Get stuff done: 5 golden rules of email marketing

Email marketing is 1 - 1 communication at scale. It is a great way to talk to your humans (like you reading this) so here are 5 golden rules of email for you to review and implement.

1. Treat your subscribers with respect.?People didn't subscribe to your list to be spammed. People subscribed to your list because you have something to offer and they're interested in you. Keep it that way.
2. Have Systems?(see below) These will keep earning money forever. You need sleep. Systems don't.
3. Treat your subscribers.?They want to know more about you than your followers. That's just how it is. Let them know that you care by giving them discounts or unique offers. Making them feel special is good for business. (keep an eye out for a special offer coming your way next week)
4. Don't Make Them Sick Of You.?Sending emails every day is overkill. If once a week works best, do it once a week. If twice or thrice a week does best, do twice or thrice a week. Don't overdo it. Respect their time and they will respect yours.
5. Reignite The Fire.?If people are not opening your emails, it's because you haven't given them a reason to. So send them an email and give them a reason to. Give them a discount, let them ask you a question, offer some kind of help If that doesn't work, delete. A smaller engaged list is better than a bigger unengaged list.

Digital marketing tools

There are soooo many lists of tools to use for marketing and running your business. That is because there are so many tools...

So I thought i would detail a few I use (as a service-based B2B business) that really helps to streamline work and get stuff done:

• Landing pages -?Carrd.co?for beautiful single pages sites and templates - $19 for the year (so good)
• Learner meetings, Q&A's and sales calls -?Calendly?for smooth integration and UX
• Email -?Convertkit?for it simple automation and relentless focus on creators
• Productivity -?Shift app?for its all-in-one-place flexibility to navigate all the apps and account logins - a godsend
• Creative -?Canva?is the best. Go pro and load in brand styles so all your creative assets are on point.

If you are looking for help on which tools to use for your business I have built a list of over 200+ tools in 18 different categories, all reviewed with up to date pricing -?you can make a copy of it here?(Please share the this with others who might find it useful)

Relearn Digital

Liked the email? If so check out more from Relearn Digital:

• Other?Free Stuff
• Online Courses
• On-Demand?Courses