Audience (or buyer) personas help us personalise content for different audiences.
The benefits of developing buyer personas
A buyer persona helps a marketing team develop insight into their main target customer segments.
Personas are the foundation of every major ad campaign you've seen, built with market research and data analysis.
The good news is that you don't need a big marketing budget to develop an effective user persona template.
Buyer personas are based on data
Creating any audience persona always begins with data.
Some of the most common sources of customer data are:
- information gathered during onboarding
- Google Analytics (GA) and social media insights
- market research (telemarketing calls, email, customer feedback)
- email databases (or your CRM)
- lessons learned from previous campaigns
In addition to these sources, a marketer can use SIC codes to gain a better understanding of their ideal customer profile and audience.
What is a SIC code?
Standard Industrial Classification ("SIC") codes are used to categorise similar companies into industries for data collection, analysis, and publication.
In what ways do they help marketers?
Targeting by industry is the most obvious way to use SIC codes as part of your marketing strategy.
You may know who your ideal prospect is, but SIC code segmentation helps you determine which industries best represent your target audience.
Identification of new markets
SIC codes begin with two digits that represent an industry grouping. This number will help you find similar businesses to your existing audience.
Why do marketers use the SIC code system?
Managing your time and resources efficiently begins with precise targeting - and companies can target customers more precisely using SIC codes.
The SIC system for marketing
- match SIC codes to contacts in your existing customer database,
- find the most common SIC codes that represent your customers. For more established businesses, you may be able to narrow this down into the sic code containing your most valuable customers.
- using this data, target similar companies using the same SIC codes.
Limitations of SIC Codes
Although the SIC system today has many uses, it has some major limitations. These limitations include:
Misclassification of businesses
It is not possible to take into account the specifics of each business using the SIC code system. A significant number of UK businesses are classified as ‘Other’. Currently, little information is available about the activities of businesses in the 'Other' SIC codes
It does not take modern businesses into account
SIC codes originated in traditional industries before the 1970s. In the intervening years, businesses have shifted from being primarily manufacturing-based to being almost entirely service-based.
Often doesn’t take into account newer industries
Since SIC has limited capabilities for accounting for modern businesses, it has been slow to identify new and emerging industries, such as those related to computer, software, and IT.
Targeted marketing with More Than Words
With More Than Words Marketing, you can obtain a database of high-level buyers and decision makers in the primary SIC code of your choice.
The marketers on our team have decades of direct marketing experience.
Our clients get more leads and sales as a result of our planning, data sourcing, and marketing campaigns.
Our mailing lists can be broken down into industry sectors and alphabetical B2B data lists, allowing our clients to obtain the most highly targeted lists of potential customers.
Contacting us is the first step. Tell us about your company, your products, and why clients value your services and products.
Our team will locate contact information for decision makers in businesses, schools, and the public sector that need your products.
Let us know how you'd like to market to them - by phone, email, or postal mail. We will respond within 24 hours with a cost estimate and a count. Reach us on 0330 010 8300 or email info@morethanwordsuk.co.uk