Defining a narrow target audience is key to executing an effective marketing plan. It’s necessary to understand the folks we are marketing to create an effective marketing campaign that helps us achieve goals. The most effective way to achieve this is by narrowing a target audience down to a buyer persona. This buyer persona will serve as the average person to whom you are marketing. The importance of a buyer person also applies in the higher education industry. Like any industry, the buyer persona will change depending on the message a university and/or college is trying to communicate.
Some buyer personas a marketer in higher education may deem appropriate are: the typical high school student researching colleges, their parents, and students completing associate’s degrees who may be looking to transfer to a new school to finish their education. It usually helps to name these personas so, for the sake of this article, we’ll call them Martha, Robert, and Luz, respectively.
When researching building your buyer persona(s) it is important to do the demographic and psychographic research on the audience to build effective messages. You would not market to Martha the same way you market to Robert or even Luz. Each buyer persona exists so that you, as a marketer, can then more effectively market to them. For example, Martha is most likely in her teens while her parent, Robert, is much older. The ideas, messages, and modes of communication we’ll use for each of them are very different. For example, we may market different aspects of an educational experience to different buyer personas.
It is safe to assume that Martha, being fresh from high school, is not only interested in academics, but life at a college and/or university. It’s important that we market the whole university experience to Martha. However, her father, Robert, is likely more interested in the value of the education being offered and the opportunities that will become available for Martha after completing her degree. Luz is also likely more interested in finding a university and/or college that makes the most of her current credit load.
Although the overall theme and feel for the messages may be similar, the messages themselves would be customized for each buyer persona. Developing strong buyer personas will ensure that we are making the most of the information available about our target audience and solidify the methods by which, and what, we choose to communicate to each.