• Buyer Personas: Connecting Your Brand to Your Customers

    Buyer Personas: Connecting Your Brand to Your Customers

    So, you just met someone, and you’re trying to break the ice. You may start with a few questions, like: Where did you grow up? Where do you live now? What do you do for work? What do you do for fun?

    Each question gives you valuable information about who the person is — details that can help you make a stronger connection. For example, if you both love craft beer, boom, you can attend an upcoming craft beer festival together and bond over your shared passion for suds.

    Now, think of a time when someone showed you that they know you inside-out. Maybe they gave you a first edition copy of your favorite book or tickets to see your favorite band. It probably felt pretty excellent to be truly seen by that person and to witness the effort that went into tailoring a gift or experience specific to your interests.

    That’s why we build buyer personas.Knowing your ideal customer like the back of your hand is the key to your marketing’s success. In fact, 82% of companies that use buyer personas improve their value proposition, and websites that are built using personas are 2-5 times more effective (and considered easier to use by targeted users). Sounds pretty awesome, right? Now, the big question: How do you do it? Let us show you the way.

    First off, what is a buyer persona?

    A buyer persona is a fictional representation of a brand’s ideal customer defined in the early stages of a marketing strategy, based on data and research. Personas illustrate your target audience, highlighting their pain points, goals, characteristics and key insights that will resonate with them most. Ultimately, buyer personas inform custom messages about products and services that make the buyer feel an emotional connection to the brand.

    What makes up a buyer persona?

    Buyer personas can include a wide range of data about a target audience, including demographics like age, gender, income, occupation, number of children and more. Those stats are essential, but it’s also very important to dive into more qualitative audience details to inform your marketing efforts. What do they care about? What keeps them up at night? What are their goals? What content do they consume? Where do they consume content? Intricate details like the media channels your audience uses and the hours spent on a platform can help create and launch effective marketing campaigns that stand out amongst the competition.

    How Matter Creates Buyer Personas

    We have several tried-and-true methods of gathering data to create personas. We conduct both internal stakeholder interviews with those who know their customers best, and customer interviews to ask the audience directly about their activities, challenges, wants, influences, content habits and more. Additionally, we pull data from trusted vendors to learn more about the target’s demographics, lifestyle, hobbies, personal values and media consumption.

    Once the data is collected, the persona begins to come to life. We assign a name to each persona, add a picture that matches their demographic description and craft a background narrative based on key insights — creating a real-life snapshot that closely resembles the buyer persona.

    How to Use a Buyer Persona

    To develop an effective marketing strategy that will attract a brand’s desired audience, we put our buyer personas to work. These personas allow a brand to create custom messaging for each of its target audiences’ unique perspectives. They also identify a content strategy that provides each target audience with assets that speak to their unique challenges and needs. And when it comes to developing campaigns, personas provide the basis for targeting your key audience in paid advertising programs.

    By using personas, brands can maximize the effectiveness of their marketing strategy, create consistent messaging and build assets across channels that speak directly to their audiences’ preferences. The result: increased audience engagement and more high value leads.

    Start Building Your Own Personas

    Try building a persona for your brand. Here are a few questions to ask your target audience:

    B2B PERSONAS:

    • What are the biggest challenges in your job?
    • What are the goals for your department?
    • What type of industry content do you consume?
    • Where do you consume content or industry news?
    • What solutions or tools would make your job easier?

    B2C PERSONAS:

    • What are the biggest challenges in your day-to-day life?
    • What are your hobbies?
    • What are your goals?
    • What platforms do you use to consume content?

    To learn more about how you can build buyer personas to boost qualified leads and what other integrated marketing tactics your brand could benefit from, fill out the form below to chat with one of our digital marketing strategists.

    Sara Roberts

  • Is your podcast a slow burner or a page turner?

    The ultimate guide to releasing your branded podcast

     

    Give your team a round of applause. Pat yourself on the back. You just finished recording and editing an entire season of your branded podcast, which is a huge friggin’ deal. And you know what? It came out pretty dang good! But wait, before you blow your entire prosecco budget prematurely, you need to know your work here isn’t done. Check this out: your great podcast deserves an equally great distribution strategy. One that maximizes audience engagement and fits your season content perfectly. Now imagine Netflix is on one shoulder telling you to indulge your audience’s desire to binge – drop it all at once, it tells you. But HBO is on the other recommending that you tease your audience, make them crave each episode with weekly releases. So, what are you supposed to do? 

    Well, we’re here with some answers based on our experience producing and releasing branded podcasts and other long-form content. And if you want to continue the conversation, reach out to the team by filling out the form at the bottom of the page. 

    In the meantime, we invite you to take our quiz. Yup – it’s a Cosmo what-should-I-do-with-my-life style romp into deciding what kind of distribution strategy to take. All you have to do is tally your score based on your answers to these three questions, and we’ll give you some real, actionable advice based on your identified needs. Sounds fun, right? Well, let’s get started! 

    What kind of experience are you trying to create for your audience?  

    • A very long engagement (3 points): Is your show especially binge-worthy? Like, the kind of content you think your audience would consume in one fell swoop during a long drive? Then tally three points for yourself. Releasing your full season on the same day allows your audience to dictate how much they consume of your season and when. Doing it this way is perfectly suited for entertaining stories with twists, turns and cliffhangers. 
    • A little here, a little there (2 points): Each episode of your season is so rich with heady insights and lessons that you’d want to break it up to fully absorb everything. So, maybe not the kind of thing they’d sit down and listen to for three hours straight.  
    • Hmm, good question (1 point): If you’re still wondering if releasing episodes over time will enhance or diminish the experience, don’t worry. Give yourself one point and try this quick exercise: Share your season with a small group (like colleagues and industry experts) and survey them for some outside opinions. How would they want to consume it? Their insights could help drive your decision-making process. 

    What are your marketing goals and promotional bandwidth? 

    • Pretty limited right now (3 points): You want to prioritize making a big splash out of the gate with a long tail to promote the episodes as appropriate. This is great if you don’t have the resources to support a rolling promotion schedule and want people to spend a lot of time with your show in a short time period.  
    • Going all in for the win (2 points): You want to prioritize building a community through engagement and repeat exposure over time, and you have the resources and presence of mind to keep up with a rolling promotion schedule and social media engagement. 
    • Let me check with the team (1 point): Consider how podcast promotion can support (and not cannibalize) your overall content strategy: if you have a lot of other marketing projects on your calendar, you might benefit from one large release to get your show shipped. 

    Is your show relevant RIGHT NOW? 

    • The iron is extremely hot (3 points): If your season feels powerfully tied to the current moment and your audience might not be as captivated by the topics you cover in a few weeks or months, sounds like you should strike now. Keep in mind that newsjacking is tricky, but it can be a powerful tactic when executed well. 
    • Topical, but not exactly part of the zeitgeist (2 points): If your show incorporates elements of day-to-day current events or newsworthiness, then releasing at spaced out intervals means you can stay timely to what’s going on. 
    • Either. No, wait… both! (1 point): If your season’s content is evergreen and not tied to current events, you can go with either approach. 

    Drop it like it’s hot (7-9 points) 

    Your subject matter is trending, and you need to get your podcast into the mix. It’s compelling, binge-worthy, ready to be consumed in its glorious entirety. And most importantly, your audience needs it right now. Sounds to us like what you need is to stop reading this post, sort out all the details with the team and get this bad boy out to your audience ASAP. You won’t regret it. So, what are you waiting for? 

    Slow and low is the tempo (4-6 points) 

    You know you’ve got a winner on your hands. It’s buzzworthy but not red hot, and it’ll give your audience something they can look forward to each week. Plus, you’ve got the resources to promote it on a long-term basis. Seriously, you’re set up for success here. So, schedule your release triggers, get the social team in the mix and consider ways to cross-promote it with your other podcasts. Wait, it’s not your only pod, is it? Interesting. Check out this blog on the benefits of producing multiple branded podcasts so you can build more, stronger relationships with your audiences. 

    Phone a friend (0-3 points) 

    OK, so you’re still not sure what to do – no problem! Chances are your situation is a bit too complex for the Cosmo quiz format, and that’s more common than you might think. In our experience, definitive answers are few and far between and the perfect combination of timing, strategy and luck is rare. See, each approach to releasing your podcast season has its pros and cons, and how each applies to your situation might be hard to pin down. But you need to decide which camp you fall into, and the best way to figure that out is with a clear-eyed assessment of the kind of show you have and what your marketing resources are. 

    That’s where we come in. At Matter, we have the experience and expertise to guide you toward the right strategy for your content and its audience. Reach out with the form below and schedule a strategy call to discuss your specific circumstances. 

    Gabe Gerzon

  • Matter Health Achieves 2X Growth Across Revenue, Staff and Client Portfolio

    Integrated Agency’s Dedicated Healthcare Team Supports Growing Organizations and Industry Verticals Amidst the Past Year’s Unparalleled Innovation.

    BOSTON – August 10, 2021 – Matter Communications — a Brand Elevation Agency specializing in PR, creative services, digital marketing and strategy — announces the explosive growth of its dedicated healthcare team, Matter Health, driven by a rapidly expanding client base and demand from emerging industry verticals. As healthcare innovation reaches new heights, the team has doubled its year-over-year revenue growth, client roster and staff numbers over the past calendar year.

    “While last year, we were laser-focused on helping our clients pivot strategies to fight the pandemic, we’re now guiding them through this intense period of demand and growth happening across the healthcare continuum,” said Ryan Lilly, Vice President of Matter Health. “As we emerge together from the pandemic and a recovering economy, we’re helping to share the important messages of innovators making real differences in healthcare, from medicine to mental health and more.”

    Matter Health’s expertise across diverse healthcare disciplines – including health tech, consumer health, medical devices, payers and providers, pharma and bio-pharma, and nonprofits – continues to expand, recently adding the dental and substance abuse disorder spaces to the list. In addition to supporting new verticals, the team has experienced a notable uptick in demand for PR and marketing services from biopharma and life sciences organizations.

    “Matter has proven to be a seamless extension of our own team, and we couldn’t be happier to have them in our corner,” said David Hunt, Founder and CEO of Cosán Group. “Their comprehensive understanding of our goals and the wider landscape, coupled with a genuine desire to further our mission, have allowed us to make the most of a tumultuous year and position ourselves as industry leaders.”

    Matter Health’s recent addition of notable clients to its roster include:

    Bright.md, the leading virtual care solution used by premier healthcare organizations across North America. Bright.md’s AI-powered, asynchronous care platform has transformed direct-to-patient telehealth for patients, clinicians and health systems.

    Cosán Group, the industry-leading healthcare organization that delivers an intuitive preventative care coordination tool suite to help physicians, healthcare organizations and payers improve patient outcomes.

    Debiopharm, a Swiss-based, privately held global biopharmaceutical company committed to developing and manufacturing innovative therapies and drug delivery technologies that target high unmet medical needs in oncology and infectious diseases.

    Groups Recover Together, the national leader in value-based care for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) that is proven to help people beat addiction through evidence-based medicine, community and holistic care.

    Hospital IQ, whose operations management platform uses artificial intelligence, prescriptive actions, workflow automation and streamlined communication to direct actions, enabling health systems to achieve and sustain peak operational performance that improves patient access, care delivery and staff productivity.

    Market Access Transformation, specializing in developing technologies that help life sciences, medical device and pharmaceutical companies rapidly access the insight needed to assess the real-world value of their products through an innovative online information exchange platform that changes the way organizations approach global payer insights.

    MDClone, a technology firm focused on unlocking healthcare data and empowering self-service exploration, discovery and collaboration to improve patients’ health by overcoming common barriers in healthcare in order to organize, access and protect the privacy of patient data (utilizing synthetic data) while accelerating research, improving operations and driving innovation.

    Sage Dental Management, a leading dental service organization providing comprehensive business and administrative support services to over 65 affiliated Sage Dental practices in Florida and Georgia.

    Say Yes! COVID Test, an innovative community health initiative that provided two communities in the U.S. with free, rapid antigen tests with the aim of determining if frequent self-administered COVID-19 testing helps residents reduce community transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

    Shields Health Solutions, leveraging its proven collaborative care model; integrated care technologies; and dedicated teams to accelerate integrated specialty pharmacy programs and empower health systems to deliver superior patient outcomes for the most complex patient populations.

    The team was also recently recognized for outstanding client work:

    2021 Medigy Awards
    Agency Ad of the Year – Matter Health

    PR Club Bell Ringer Awards
    Bronze for Consumer Campaign – CVS Health
    Bronze for Byline Placement – Corindus, a Siemens Healthineers Company

    For more information about Matter Health, visit our website.

    With +200 professionals across offices in Boston and Newburyport, MA, Providence, RI, Pittsburgh, PA, Boulder, CO, and Portland, OR, Matter is one of the fastest-growing PR, creative services, digital marketing and strategy firms in the country. Recently named to Forbes List of America’s Best PR Agencies for 2021, Matter has won 14 “Agency of the Year” accolades and has been consistently recognized as a top place to work.

    About Matter Communications

    Matter is a Brand Elevation Agency unifying PR, creative services, digital marketing and strategy into content-rich communications campaigns that inspire action and build value. Founded in 2003, with offices across North America, Matter works with the world’s most innovative companies across healthcare, high-technology, consumer technology, professional services and consumer markets. For more information, visit https://www.matternow.com.

    Contact
    Matter
    Greg Amaral, 401-330-2800
    [email protected]
    www.matternow.com

    Matter

  • The Latest + Greatest from Matter Video + Audio: Q2 2021

    Thank you clients and collaborators!

    It’s hard to believe we’ve crossed the halfway point of 2021, but here we are. And there’s so much to report. Ted Lasso Season 2. Another big win at the Oscars for Pixar, with Soul walking off with two golden statuettes. Oh, and how could we not mention Loki? What a ride! And like the mythical Marvel trickster, we’ve accomplished a lot over the course of the last few months. 

    Sure, we didn’t hunt an alternate version of ourselves while tearing down the fabric of time (spoiler!), but we’re equally proud of what we did in such a short period. From brand anthems to product announcements, hybrid events to award-winning podcasts – we’re stoked to present our Q2 2021 Video + Audio reel: 

    JFC / J-Basket / Dynasty Foods Brand Anthems

    We shop. We cook. We eat. We find cool recipes, try new things and maybe add a little spice. Heck, some of us go so far as reading the labels for the ingredients we use! But even when we do, we don’t tend to see the company behind the label. The brand behind the brand, as it were. 

    JFC is a century-old distributor that asked us to help tell the stories of its corporate brand (JFC) as well as a couple specific food brands, J-Basket and Dynasty Foods. Our mouths are watering just thinking about some of the treats our food stylists put together on set! 

    Monotype’s Helvetica Now Variable Announcement

    In 2019, Monotype revamped the world’s most important font, releasing Helvetica Now. We had the absolute pleasure of partnering with Monotype to develop and produce an animated video that captured both the spirit of the release and the impact of this new font library. (ICYMI check out the original HERE.)

    This year, Monotype approached us with a similar challenge: express the energy of Helvetica Now Variable while showing off just how powerful this new variable font could be for the world of type (and beyond). The results are… we’ll let the video speak for itself. 

    Hitachi X Rainforest Connection Case Study

    As an agency, not every client or project we support actively seeks to improve the world. Hitachi Vantara’s Social Innovations program, however, does exactly that.

    How can we use the power of data to create a better society, environment and economy? Hitachi’s partnership with Rainforest Connection is an inspiring, hands-on example of how tech can support constructive change. With travel restrictions, we weren’t able to bring our team down to Brazil to shoot video, but the result was beautiful nonetheless, and the message is beyond powerful. Enjoy! 

    Looking for help with your video marketing strategy or starting your branded podcast? Fill out the form below to schedule a free strategy call with our team. 

    Nick Murray

    ,