If you are here, you are likely wondering who your buyer persona is, and possibly even, what is a buyer persona. First and foremost, you must understand what a buyer persona is. A buyer persona is a fictional representation, or sketch, of your ideal customer. Every business has a buyer persona, sometimes even multiple.
A buyer persona contains important information such as their goals, pain points, major objections to buying your product or service, and more. Having insight into this information makes it easier for a business to understand how and why their clients make decisions so that you can tailor your marketing efforts to their behaviors.
Now that you understand what a buyer persona is, perhaps you are wondering why you should bother creating buyer personas, considering it requires a lot of research. With detailed buyer personas, you have a clearly defined target audience, and by knowing them inside and out, you are able to tailor your marketing messages to speak directly to the people whom you want to buy your products or services.
Once you understand your buyer personas, you are able to understand exactly what might matter to your buyer and therefore convey the message in a manner that a personal friend might use. This removes the guesswork and gives you the opportunity to exceed your revenue and lead goals.
How to Create a Buyer Persona
First, we highly recommend putting together a rough sketch of whom you think your buyer persona (s) might be, including information such as their industry, age, problems they face, goals, and their objections to purchasing your products or services.
More than likely, you already have an idea as to who your buyer persona(s) might be, but in order to have a successful buyer persona summary, you must understand who your ideal audience is, find insights into how they think, and identify problems they are trying to solve through your product or service.
For example, many of ours clients come to us looking for a modern and functional website that will make it easier for their customers to find out information, contact them, or purchase a product or service. Knowing who your audience is, and understanding what problem they are trying to solve, is crucial.
Are you ready to take advantage of buyer personas and start driving more sales through your marketing campaigns? Here’s how you can create your own fool-proof buyer personas.
Learn About Your Customers
First and foremost, you can't create marketing messages that appeal to your customers or build an accurate buyer persona if you do not know what makes them tick. Begin by understanding your customer, and finding answers for the following questions:
- What is the buyer’s gender?
- What is the buyer’s age?
- What is the buyer’s household income?
- Who lives with the buyer at home?
- Does the buyer live in an urban, suburban or rural environment?
- How does the buyer spend his/her day?
- Who does the buyer look up to?
- What does the buyer read for fun?
- What does the buyer do for fun?
- What level of education has the buyer achieved?
- What type of company does the buyer work for?
- What is the buyer’s role/title in the company?
- What are the buyer’s biggest challenges at work?
- How does the buyer define success in the workplace?
- What are the buyer’s career goals?
- What are the buyer’s biggest fears (or “pain points”)?
- What are the buyer’s most common objections?
- How can your product or service help solve the buyer’s challenges?
- How tech-savvy is the buyer?
- Which social networks does the buyer prefer?
- How does the buyer prefer to communicate?
As you might expect, the specific questions for which you’ll need to find answers will vary. If you are having a hard time gathering the information, you could survey existing customers, invest in one-on-one interviews, check your analytics, talk to your employees, or use programs such as Clearbit Enrichment that builds a persona with 85 data points out of any email or domain name.
The most important thing to remember when creating buyer personas is that you should never assume. Guesswork could throw off your online marketing campaigns drastically because you wouldn’t target them in the same way. Investing in buyer persona research can be a big investment but having that concrete data, rather than a bunch of guesswork, is bound to save cash in the long run.
Determine How To Segment Your Customers
Now that you have all the answers to your buyer persona questions, it is time to put your customers into groups. For example, at Eternity we have more than one buyer persona. We work with non-profits, for profit businesses, and all ages. However, it is important to break down your audiences and determine what bucket they fit in.
Perhaps you have a group for Older Management, with individuals who have been in business for decades and aren't open to new ideas. On the contrary, you might have a second group for Up and Coming Entrepreneurs and small business owners with an interest in new technology. Either way, it is important to understand each of your buyer personas and put your customers into the appropriate group.
Create Your Buyer Persona Template
Great news! Now that you have collected the answers to your sets of questions, and gotten your information divided into the types of customers you have, you are close to the finish line! However, your job isn't over yet. Now you have to put your buyer personas together, and we highly recommend doing this in your own buyer persona template.
This can look something like this:
Overview: A brief overview of the customer.
Demographics: Age, Gender, Location, Education
Challenges or pain points: Why is the customer purchasing your product or service? What problem are they trying to solve?
Biggest fears: Determine not only the goals, but also their biggest fears.
Hobbies: What hobbies and interests do they have? Are they into sports? Gardening? Technology?
Common objections: What does the customer want to achieve by using your product or service?
Now that you have a template, you are good to go! As time goes on and your business evolves, you will have to create more buyer personas and determine new ways to meet their needs and create effective messaging. This is important, because it allows you to reach your audience and increase sales. You are not only solving a problem for your customer, but you are also creating more business for yourself.
If you have any questions about buyer personas, do not hesitate to contact us today. Thank you for reading!
