When we watch mission-driven organizations turn out stellar marketing, we get excited. And then a little jealous. But mainly excited about their on-point messaging and creative campaigns that are reaching their desired targets. This all starts with deeply understanding buyer personas.
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. As we’ve discussed these past few weeks, your target stakeholders are a huge piece of growing your business. More often than not, these stakeholders crossover into buyer personas as well.
Here are four mission-driven organizations we want to applaud for understanding their buyer personas.
Charity:Water: If you haven’t heard of Charity Water, click over to their website as soon as possible. Their mission is to provide clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Charity:Water really understands their buyer personas, which is evident in their campaigns. You could argue that they target anyone and everyone who wants to give back, but I believe one of their key personas is one who is active on social media and have a strong base of supporters, whether those relationships exist online or off. They cater to this persona with beautiful digital design and clever social media content, which is easily shareable. The charity has an ongoing call-to-action for their stakeholders to give water for their birthday, shave their heads for water, host a lemonade stand for water or do whatever they feel inspired by in order to raise money. Everything you need to have a campaign with Charity:Water is online and your campaign to raise money can quite easily be made into a social media sensation. They understand that their ideal buyer persona will share their water campaign online, which will spur a domino effect in others getting involved.
Warby Parker: This eyewear brand’s mission is to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially conscious businesses to turn other industries on their heads. They have created a model of providing high-quality prescription glasses at a set price of $95, and for every pair bought, a pair is given to someone in need. Warby Parker has many buyer personas, but they understand that one key ingredient in all of them is those who desire to have great, fashion-forward eyewear. With that in mind, they offer a large variety of frames, add and change their selection throughout the year, and make trendiness a key element of their brand voice. If there is a new collection added, Warby Parker sends an email to previous customers and schedules social media posts to alert their followers. Their social media puts eyewear and trends at the center. Warby Parker knows that they are calling upon fashionable prospective customers, so they have to be relevant and forward-thinking to keep their
Piece & Co: Piece & Co focuses on helping artisan women support their families and realize their dreams. They partner with leading fashion and retail brands to create beautiful, handmade products and accessories, which provides artisans with consistent work. Piece & Co. recognizes that their main buyer personas are fashionable women and the fashion companies that cater to them. Many of their products are higher end, making their target buyer more discerning. Piece & Co. differentiates themselves in this competitive market through a focus on mission and quality, and they use stories to forge an emotional connection with their targets.
Chicago Ideas Week: In an effort to share ideas, inspire action and ignite change to positively impact the world, Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) brings people together for one week in October. They put on over 80 sessions across Chicago aiming to be a platform for sharing big ideas and making big things happen. We believe that CIW really understands their buyer personas because it comes through in every detail of the event they put on. CIW explains themselves as “a platform that continues to be shaped by the people, organizations and institutions that care about the future of Chicago as well as communities around the world.” Their weeklong event changes each year with timely themes and relevant topics to keep up with what their targets desire. It truly is amazing to see how specifically each session is tailored to connect to something happening in our world today across a broad range of topics.
Know of another mission-driven organization that has its buyer personas down? Tell us!
Photo credit: Nicolas Nova
