Targeting the Right Audience: How Economic Developers Can Build Effective Buyer Personas

Understanding your target audience is crucial to your success as an economic developer. Identifying target audiences and building buyer personas can help you create targeted marketing strategies that effectively reach and engage potential investors and businesses.

Identifying Different Target Audiences

To identify your target audiences, consider your community's unique benefits and selling points. For example, if you have a strong education system and a skilled workforce, you should target businesses that require a highly-educated workforce. Suppose you have a thriving downtown area with lots of local businesses. In that case, you should target entrepreneurs looking to start a business in a vibrant and supportive community.

Business Owners & Entrepreneurs

This group includes individuals looking to start or expand a business in your community. They may seek information on available properties, incentives, and other resources.

Site Selection Consultants

Site selection consultants are hired by businesses to help them find the best location for their operations. They often work with economic development organizations to gather information on available properties, workforce, infrastructure, and other key factors.

Investors

Investors may include individuals, corporations, or investment groups interested in investing in your community. They may seek information on economic indicators, growth opportunities, and the local business climate.

Workforce

Workforce may include current and potential residents interested in finding employment opportunities in your community. They may seek information on local employers, job openings, and workforce development programs.

Building Buyer Personas

Once you’ve identified your target audiences, the next step is to build buyer personas for each audience. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on research and data about their demographics, goals, challenges, and behavior. While most economic developers are familiar with the concept of buyer personas, ensuring each is truly unique to your community and target audience is essential. Here are some tips for building unique buyer personas.

#1 Conduct In-Dept Research

To truly understand your target audience, you must conduct in-depth research beyond basic demographic data. This might include surveying local businesses and job seekers, conducting focus groups, or analyzing online behavior data to understand what websites and social media platforms your target audience is using.

#2 Focus on Behavior and Motivation

When building your buyer personas, it's important to focus on the behavior and motivation of your ideal customers. What drives their decision-making regarding relocating, starting a business, or seeing employment? What are their pain points, and what motivates them to take action?

#3 Highlight Unique Selling Points

To ensure that your buyer personas are unique to your community, highlight your community’s unique selling points. For example, if your community is located near a major transportation hub, you might want to highlight this as a selling point for businesses that rely on efficient transportation.

#4 Consider the Buyer’s Journey

As you build your buyer personas, it’s essential to consider the entire buyer’s journey – from awareness to consideration to decision. What information and resources do your ideal customers need at each stage of the journey, and how can you effectively communicate this information?

#5 Use Qualitative and Quantitative Data

Finally, be sure to use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data when building your buyer personas. Qualitative data can help you understand the emotions and motivations behind your target audience’s behavior, while quantitative data can help you identify trends and patterns.

Example Buyer Personas

Business Owners and Entrepreneurs

By understanding John’s buyer persona, economic developers can create targeted marketing strategies highlighting their community's unique benefits that appeal to John’s preferences and address his pain points. This might include highlighting transportation infrastructure, low taxes and business costs, a highly-educated workforce, and quality of life amenities that appeal to John and his family.

Entrepreneurs

Economic developers can develop marketing strategies that cater to Sarah's preferences and address her challenges by comprehending her buyer persona. The strategy can showcase the community's unique advantages that attract Sarah and can address the issues that are important to her. This might include highlighting available resources and support for entrepreneurs, showcasing successful startups in the area, and emphasizing the community’s strong network of mentors and investors.

Site Selection Consultants

Economic developers can develop tailored marketing strategies that showcase their community's distinctive advantages, resonate with Michael's preferences, and tackle his pain points by understanding Michael's buyer persona. Strategies include furnishing detailed data and information regarding the community and its economic development initiatives, accentuating the community's proactive and adaptable attitude towards businesses, and underscoring the diverse business opportunities available within the community.

Investors

By understanding Andrew’s buyer persona, economic developers can create targeted marketing strategies highlighting their community's unique benefits that appeal to Andrew’s preferences and address his pain points. This might include providing comprehensive and up-to-date information on investment opportunities in the community, emphasizing the low risk associated with established or proven projects, and highlighting the opportunities for diversification across a range of investment markets. Additionally, showcasing the community’s alignment with Andrew’s values and priorities can further entice him to invest in the community.

Workforce

Economic developers can create targeted marketing strategies for Emily’s buyer persona by highlighting job opportunities with good pay and benefits, workplace safety and health, and growth opportunities. Emphasizing work-life balance and providing resources for Emily’s family, such as affordable housing and quality schools, can also attract and retain a skilled workforce.