Let us be absolutely, unequivocally, clear.
You cannot produce responsive, performance creative that is compelling and motivates a prospect to take action unless you understand them. That means:
Knowing their anxieties.
Understanding their aspirations.
Feeling WHAT they want to achieve and WHEN they want to achieve it.
And, not forgetting, what they DON'T want to achieve too.
This, of course, is not easy.
To put yourself in another person's shoes is, in some cases, an out of body experience. Not only do you have to picture how they see the world, but also how they would behave in it.
So, what practical steps can you take to start?
We begin with profiling your prospects. Depending on your product and services, this could be between 3-5 core targets.
Each profile may consist of the following kinds of information:
Education
Income
Residence
Job role and title
Marital status
Children
Media consumption
These are surface-level demographics that give a rough ballpark. But, you'll need to go deeper if you want to genuinely trigger and motivate people.
A Paper&Pixles technique is to picture someone we know personally. This helps to allocate the tone and style we need to consider. Then, we rename them but pull together real-world identity.
We ask questions like what bothers them?
What are their hopes?
What do they want to get out of life?
What programmes do they watch?
Who is their favourite comedian?
Who is their football team?
Where do they shop for groceries?
What music do they listen to?
What do they read?
What fashion brands do they tend to favour?
Why do we do this? Because…
As you can see from the above, demographics only tell part of the story. And with performance creative, where every pound spent is scrutinised – you need the whole picture.
The more you understand your prospect's reality, and their context, the more relevant your message and positioning are. Making it easier for you to isolate and develop angles that make what you have to say resonate with their wants and needs.
Need help profiling a prospect? Email: james@paperandpixles.com and get a free list of profile questions.
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