How well do you understand your ideal buyer? Well enough to write a journal entry for them? A little over a month ago I attended a mastermind where Jesse Eker spoke, and challenged us to do just that. Why? Because writing from the perspective of the buyer can be a great way to understand them at a deeper level. It also reveals potential gaps in your knowledge and highlights areas to improve. Areas you can fix. And the better you get at this exercise the more it will help you to craft a marketing message that resonates. One that stands out from your competition. Writing a journal entry for your ideal customer could be the secret sauce in your 2023 marketing success.

This might seem like an odd or even unnecessary thing to do. But it isn't. As marketers we are responsible for crafting messages that resonate with our ideal buyers. A message that speaks to their needs, challenges, and desires. A message that is authentic, relevant, and speaks to their hearts. This is no small task. So why not do everything you can to help yourself? You may spend a ton of energy crafting a message and finding the best words to use. But how much focus do you put on truly understanding who you are trying to connect with? Understanding their pain points, challenges, and desires? Because the better you understand your buyer, the more authentic and powerful your marketing will be. And if you are serious about becoming an authority in your industry, this is a process that you should be doing on a regular basis.

Before you write your journal entry, you need to ask yourself some key questions:

You also need to understand how your product or service will help address their issues and challenges. How would working with you help to make their lives better and address their concerns? Now, it's not something you want to write into the journal entry, but you can leverage it. Ask yourself - how can I use this in my marketing? How can I enter the conversations that's already taking place?

Now that you understand your buyer and their challenges, the next step is to establish their key characteristics and traits. What are they like and how do they operate? What is their personality? What drives them? What makes them tick? What is their thought process? How do they make decisions? What do they do when they are faced with a problem? How do they approach life? How do they interact with others? How do they like to be communicated with? When you know your buyer's personality and characteristics you can better understand how they respond to marketing. Which means your marketing is more likely to resonate with them. We can't know everything about our buyer, but we can make some educated guesses. We can make an effort to understand our buyers better. And the more we can understand about our buyers, the easier it will be to deliver a powerful message that resonates with them.

Now we come to the actual journal entry. What does that mean? Well, you need to take yourself out of the equation and put yourself in your buyers shoes. You need to attempt to see the world from their perspective. You need to imagine what their day-to-day life is like. What their challenges and struggles are. What their hopes and dreams are. What their ideal outcome is. What they want to get out of life. What they want to get out of your product or service. You don't have to be 100% accurate. And you don't have to get everything right. But you want to get as close as you can. You want to get into the mind of your buyer. You want to get a sense of how they think and operate. How they make decisions and what type of language they would use. You want to get a sense of their desires, hopes, and dreams. You want to understand what they want to get out of life. You want to understand what they want to get out of your product or service.

Now that you have written the journal entry and have a better understanding of your buyer, it is time to analyze it. First, go back and reread the entry out loud. Does it sound like them? Would they say those things? Next, open a fresh document and create a list of the top three things that jump out to you. The things that you feel you need to improve on. The things that make you say "wow, I need to work on this." Once you have your list, you are ready to close the gaps. You are ready to create a more authentic and powerful message. You are ready to create a message that resonates with your buyers and inspires action.

Now that you have a better understanding of your buyer and have identified areas for improvement, it is time to put this knowledge to work. You now know what your buyer's characteristics are and what their thoughts and words are. And as a result, you have a better idea of what they want to hear. You have a better idea of the problems their facing and the solutions they need. You have a better idea of how they want to be communicated with. Now that you have a better understanding of your buyer, it is time to use this knowledge to create a more authentic, powerful, and resonating message. This is your chance to take what you have learned and apply it to your marketing. This is your chance to create a message that resonates with your buyer. This is your chance to create a message that enters the conversations that's already going on in their head.

Marketing is about connecting with your buyers and understanding them better. Marketing is about authentic and powerful messaging. And marketing is about being different. Marketing is about standing out from the crowd. And the better you can understand your ideal customer and the better you can understand their challenges and desires, the better your marketing will be. The better your marketing, the more likely your ideal customers are going to notice you. And the more likely they are going to buy from you.