There are many factors when it comes to launching a successful digital marketing campaign.

In fact, you might feel lost or overwhelmed about what to do.

Well, there is one core fundamental that you must focus on so your campaign will succeed.

In order to succeed with your: Social media ads, video content, emails and etc.

This core fundamental can be summarised in just one word.

This one word is something that many small business owners often forget.

Because it’s very easy to get lost in thinking and focusing on the different features of your product or service.

It’s easy to get lost in wanting to highlight a specific feature in your social media ads or in your website.

So what’s the one word? It is: “Who”.

You want to think about:

• Who you are speaking to
• Who do you want to attract
• Who is likely to buy your product or service because it satisfies a problem or desire

Picture in your mind who is this ONE person.

Then, write down specifically who is this one person.

Because without defining your ‘who’, it will be disastrous.

Your marketing messages will fall flat and your videos will feel unrelatable. Like as though you’re trying to speak to a crowd in the middle of a dessert.

Defining Your “Who”: A List of Examples

Sometimes, people start defining their ‘who’ by specifying a specific age group or gender.

So people will write down:

• Women from age 25 to 42
• Men in their 20s or 30s

For me, I like to start defining my ‘who’ by thinking about their roles in life or work.

So it’ll look like this:

• Homeowners
• Mothers with newborn children
• HR managers and executives
• Single parents
• Working Executive who aspires to be in a leadership position
• Couples who are engaged

A Deeper Example of Your ‘Who’

To give you a clearer picture, let’s dive into a more specific example.

Imagine that you sell vacuum cleaners.

In this case, your ‘who’ may be: Homeowners.

But you can take a step further and expand your who and write: Homeowners with carpets.

Or it could be: New homeowners who have non-vinyl flooring.

Yes, you can define more than one group of people as your ‘who’.

There isn’t a rule that you must only define one group of people. You may have 3. You may have 5. Just write them all down. Don’t get stuck.

Your Who May Change & That’s Okay

I remember working with a coffee company in the B2B industry.

They mainly sell coffee beans to offices on a monthly subscription basis.

When I met them, I asked them questions to find out about their ‘who’.

Their ‘who’ was offices.

As we spoke further, their ‘who’ were specifically: human resource executives or managers, office administrators.

Then, as we began their marketing campaign and their website inquiries started pouring in, we identified another group of people. Cafe Owners.

Knowing this piece of knowledge allowed us to come up with different marketing messages to speak directly to this other group of people.

A Step-by-Step Recap to Define Your “Who” for Your Product or Service

Let’s recap what we’ve talked about.

If you can’t decide where to start, use the 3 steps below…

Step 1: Visualize your ‘who’ by thinking about the specific role a person plays in life or work, rather than focusing on demographics. (Remember, it can be more than one person.)

Step 2: Write down your list of ‘who’ that you visualize. Just list them all without overthinking.

Step 3: Elaborate on your ‘who’ or groups of ‘who.’ Expand the details to make them more specific and eliminate anything that is not relevant.

What’s Next?

If you are already clear about your ‘who’, great! Just remember to write it down specifically. Because it spills into every corner of your business. Without a North Star, it’s like moving around without a clear purpose.

In a future newsletter, we’ll talk about how to research about your who so you can craft powerful marketing messages or content.

Keep moving forward,
Glen Tiew
The Marketing Notebook