One of the most critical aspects to properly marketing your Coworking space is building member personas. You could be doing tons of hard work and spending time and dollars into your marketing efforts, but if you’re not aiming at the right target, it could be all for naught. Let’s take a look at how and why to build member personas.
What are member personas?
Imagine creating your ideal member, in detail. Consider what characteristics, habits, demographics, and many other factors formulate the member you would most associate with your space.
For example, you could say ‘Tom’ is a local entrepreneur, age 34, who just moved into an apartment for rent in San Diego, losing creative spark due to isolation in his new city, and needs to work a flexible schedule due to other demands. Tom is who you are marketing to.
This guide from our friends at Kisi is a good way to check off the questions you need answered, so that you’re not just marketing to everyone.
But why can’t you just target a wide scope and range of potential members? You’re bound to hit on some of them, yes, but for the most part this isn’t a prudent strategy. You’re going to be wasting your efforts targeting lots of personas that simply don’t match with what your space is all about. If your scope is too wide, your space will be too formal for some, too informal for others. It may be too large or too small. It may be out of driving distance. It may be out of budget.
Important note, as Cat Johnson, Coworking marketing expert, shared, your potential member can get a desk and Wi-Fi in many places. Make sure you’re targeting someone who needs more than that, be it intangible features like community and collaboration, or tangible benefits like conference rooms and after hours access.
How to Create Personas
Commit to doing research. Conduct surveys of your members and prospective members who come in for visits or tours. Your core member base should give you a great idea of exactly what is the persona you’re shooting for. Find out what they value most about your space or what drew them in to begin with. What’s lacking that they would love to have? What are they struggling with?
The more you understand about those who are thriving in your space, the narrower your marketing scope will become and the better defined personas you’ll create.
Look through your own contact database for common threads. Is there a recurring theme? Do most of these prospects characterize with specific traits? However, also take the inverse approach to this as well. In other words, don’t just focus on who you’ve met or contacted, but check for data on who has looked up your space specifically. Google Analytics provides a wealth of knowledge as to who’s searching for you, by age, gender, location, and other factors you need to build your personas.
Building Questions
When you ask questions, make sure they are tailored to help build your data. Per Allwork, which is a tremendous Coworking marketing resource, here are some questions you should ask to get constructive answers:
- What’s your job and industry?
- What does success look like for you?
- What does a typical day look like for you?
- What skills and tools do you use in your work?
- Are you responsible for everything or are you part of a team?
- Are you the decision maker?
- What are your outside interests?
- What are your values?
- What are your biggest challenges, at work and in life?
- What triggered your decision to search for a coworking space?
- What do you hope to get from a coworking space?
- What concerns did you have about joining a space?
If you can build a ‘who – what – why – how’ chart for our persona example, Tom, you’ll solidify your persona and be able to market to that much more effectively. Who is the target? What are their goals, challenges, values? Why do they need your space? How will you market to them?
Check out Allwork, Hubspot, Kisi and other great resources for how to build member personas to effectively market your space and attract the best possible members. To learn more about how Yardi Kube is the ideal platform to power your Coworking space, please click the link below.