One of the mistakes that many businesses make is creating marketing campaigns based on data alone. While this is good, it is not enough to drive considerable engagement. The best way of doing that is by understanding buyers’ personas.
While you can use demographic surveys to understand your buyer persona, you need to use a combination of methods to obtain the best results. This article will show you how to create a buyer’s persona.
What Is A Buyer Persona?
Also referred to as a customer persona or audience persona, a buyer persona refers to a person who represents your ideal customer. While fictitious, he is based on deep research of your existing and target audience.
While it’s impossible to know all your customers individually, you can create a representation of your ideal customer. But, since you will have different kinds of customers buying your products and services, you may need to have more than one persona.
You will need to capture the details of your buyer persona, such as:
- Name
- Interest
- Demographic details
- Behavior traits
- Goals
- Consumer buying patterns and behavior
- Paint points
You may even take it to the next level by giving them a face from a stock photo. But all in all, you want to take this buyer’s persona as a real person. This way, you can create marketing messages that speak directly to him. It will also enable you to have a consistent marketing message.
Importance of Having a Buyer’s Persona
Address your buyer’s priorities.
A buyer’s persona is an integral part of marketing as it helps you address your buyer’s priorities instead of your own. If you want to benefit from having a social media strategy, you should think of your buyer’s persona.
If you are starting a new campaign on the best social media platform, consider if it addresses the needs of at least one of your buyer’s persona. After defining your buyer persona, you can create campaigns that speak directly to your defined customer.
Build a bond with customers.
Before you even create a budget for social media advertising, ensure that the campaign is aimed at helping customers meet their goals. This will enable you to build a bond with the customers they represent. This will help you build customer loyalty and streamline your sales process.
Personalize your marketing.
Customer personalization helps in customer retention and repeat customers. According to 94% of marketers, personalization helps increase sales. Customers who feel that a business understands their needs are more likely to become repeat customers.
For instance, if you email your customers informing them that their favorite products are in stock, they are likely to come and buy.
Helps in product development.
When doing product development, the information you get during customer research will help you create a product that meets the customer’s needs. When you understand what your ideal customer goes through daily and their challenges, you can use the information to grow your brand.
A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating A Buyer’s Persona
Here are the steps to follow when creating your buyer’s personas.
Research your audience.
As we noted earlier, the gist of a buyer persona is in the audience. Therefore, it makes sense to start by researching your audience. Some of the questions you need to ask yourself when researching the customers are:
- Who is your target audience?
- Who consists of your social audience?
- Who are your competitors targeting?
You can then use social media data analytics tools to collect information such as age, language, location, spending patterns and powers, challenges, interests, stage in life, and much more. If you are doing a B2B persona, it can help you understand the business size.
Understand your customer’s pain points.
Depending on your product, your customers’ goals may be personal or professional. You need to understand what motivates them and what their endgame is. Consider the problem they are trying to solve using your products or services.
Ask yourself what it is that is preventing them from achieving success. You can get answers to these questions through customer support and sales team feedback. You can also keep track of your brand mentions on social media.
Consider the solution you offer.
You now already have an idea of the customer’s goals and pain points. Now, it’s time to think of a solution you will provide them with. Other than the features, consider what benefits the product offers your customers. How will the product make your customer’s life easier?
What are your audience’s main buying barriers? Which stage of the buying journey are your customers in? Once you get answers to these questions, consider how you can help the customer.
Create the buyer’s persona.
Now, do your research and start looking at the typical characteristics of the buyer. You will clearly understand the buyer persona when you put the characteristics into groups. Give them a name and all the defining characteristics.
For instance, if you found a main customer group to be 45, you can have something like “she is 45 years old, urban woman, single, with two kids, and has a passion for golfing. In this case, your buyer persona is Ashley, a high achiever. Below is a buyer persona template.
Understanding the negative buyer’s persona
The buyer’s persona doesn’t have to be that of your ideal customer. It can also be one of the customers you would like to avoid. In such a case, you will be creating a negative buyer persona.
This can help you segment the bad apples from your ideal customers. You will follow the same steps as in a positive buyer persona. A negative buyer persona can also help you to increase sales productivity as you can achieve a lower cost per lead or a lower cost per sale.
Final Thoughts
A buyer’s persona can be a great tool to give you a picture of your target customers. If you are unsure where to start creating one, our guide will help you get started.
