Develop a Persona Profile of the People You Want to Reach
Advertising and outreach materials that are generically written and targeted at the general public are usually ineffective. If you want your marketing to work, you must target an audience and go after them. You can develop better copy and organize your materials for more effective outreach when you have a target audience in mind when you plan your marketing. The process of developing the persona is also a great listening exercise for your church that helps in all areas of ministry because it forces your ministry team to pay attention to your community more.
A persona is another term for “marketing profile,” borrowed from the world of Web marketing. The idea behind them is to create a profile with a little background story on the people you want to reach by conducting research and using observation.
Personas or profiles are also used by missionaries. They develop detailed profiles of the people groups they want to reach that include historical background, demographics, anthropological insights, and sociological information that is important to help mission teams understand the bridges and barriers to reaching the people with the gospel.
Saddleback Sam
The most famous ministry target profile of all time is “Saddleback Sam” from Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif. Saddleback used its Saddleback Sam (and Samantha) profile as a foundation for all ministry planning. The church has grown from just three attendees on the first Sunday morning to more than 20,000 presently.
Everyone knows demographics can help you plan better ministry communications, but too few take full advantage of them by developing a clear target audience and persona profile. Let me encourage you to go the extra mile and develop a clear target profile persona. The more you know about your target and the more you organize yourself to speak to their real needs, the better you will be able to tailor your marketing around them.
You Can Use Social Media as a Primary Research Tool
Part of the reason for the rise and success of the new social networking Web sites, like FaceBook and MySpace, is their ability to tailor the Web site surfer’s experience to their personal needs and interests. Just look at the information these sites use to develop their services: They have the general demographic information like name, sex, hometown, marital status, and political and religious views. But they also go further; they know about the activities that interest their site users, the books they like, the TV shows and movies they watch, even the music they listen to. Now that’s a profile!
Wouldn’t it be great to know a little more about the people you are trying to reach than just their general demographics and lifestyle?
You Can Create Detailed Profiles of the People You Want to Reach Too!
Here are seven steps to developing a ministry target persona profile, using demographic data and social networking sites, that will help your marketing communicate better:
1. Start by getting your community’s demographics
Use the paid services if you must, but check to see if you can get what you need for free first. If your church is affiliated with a denomination, your denominational offices may already subscribe to a service that allows you to pull demographics for your area at no charge to you. There are many free reports on the Census Bureau Web site; take a look at what you find there. If you have to pay, many direct mail companies have access to demographic services you can use for a reasonable fee.
2. Get the lifestyle information about the people in your area
Consider purchasing a psychographic (lifestyle) report for the area where you serve. Claritas is the most popular service used by marketing companies. They offer a free Zip Code tool you can use. You can find a lot of good information about the lifestyle of your community.
The amount of information available about people in the USA seems staggering at first! But take the time to read the material on the people you want to reach. It looks like a lot of information, but once you study the available books, articles, and research reports that already exist on topics that relate to your people, you will find you can become an “expert” in a short amount of time. There are so many good books on demographics, generational issues, marketing to specific types of lifestyles, you have no excuse to not avail yourself of this great information!
3. Look for as many religious statistics as you can get on your community.
For religious involvement and ministry preferences, take a look at Percept, where you can find information about religious statistics in your area.
4. Conduct your own original research
Hey, you can’t do all this by machine! Get out and talk to the people you want to reach and take their pulse. Learn to conduct surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and do “windshield surveys” by driving through the areas where the people you want to reach live. Don’t forget to also include information from feedback, testing, etc.
5. Surf social networking Web sites looking for people who fit the description of the least reached people in your community.
This is the easy part. Just go browsing for people on MySpace! The site is made-to-order for this kind of research. Just enter the demographics of the people you want to reach in your community, using the zip code of your target community, median income, median age, marital status, education, etc., of your audience. (Click the advanced tab to get the most detailed descriptors.) After you have entered your data, click update. Within seconds MySpace will give you names and faces of actual people in your community who fit the description of your target.
Instantly, you are starring into the eyes of (and reading the profiles) of people in your community, just like the ones you haven’t reached yet! Surf around and learn what you can about what makes the people you want to reach tick. This is not snooping. People make this information public to make connections with other people. You can use it to help you make them aware of the ultimate connection that is available to them–a relationship with Jesus Christ!
Keep in mind, the information you find on these profiles is not a representative sample of the all the people in your target profile, but the information is detailed enough to give you insights and “handles” you can use to understand the people you want to reach better. It is a lot more efficient than guessing what people are like in your audience. Plus, if you have your doubts about an idea, consider contacting one of the people in your audience and asking them to look at your ideas. You might make a friend and win someone to Jesus too!
6. Sort and assemble data you have collected into a “Persona/Profile” that makes sense to you and your communication team.
Take all the information you have about your community and insights you gain from surfing social networking sites and develop a description of your target population. Now you have created a persona profile you can use to help you plan more effective marketing! The trick is you have to use it! Complete this process for all your targeted segments.
7. Use the information to inform your ministry marketing communications planning.
This profile is not for public consumption. It is just an internal document that will help you speak to the people you want to reach. Since it is not public, why not use the pictures of the people you find on social networking sites as part of your creative process? Look at their faces (and their profile pages) and try to put yourself in their shoes. Try to speak directly to them in how you write copy, how you plan events, and when you’re deciding what outreach programs or activities your church will develop. The possibilities are endless! When they see your marketing outreach, they’ll think you have been reading their mail because it speaks to their needs. All because you have just been doing a little listening to what they are saying in public.
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