A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Ideally, a buyer persona gives a representation of your target customer deep-rooted in research though fictional. It includes demographic information, such as their location and job title, and psychographic characteristics like personality traits and communication preferences.
When you are creating personas, it is important that they represent your target customers in demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and other aspects in which your business may be able to better cater to their needs.
Read on to learn more about buyer personas, why they are important, and how to create a persona in a few steps.
What Is a Buyer Persona and Why Are They Important?
A buyer persona is an imaginary archetype of an ideal customer. It's important since it lets a business understand its customers on a deeper level and tailor its marketing strategy to fit the needs of specific groups of people.
Creating buyer personas is the first step in creating an effective marketing strategy since it allows you to understand your customers and their individual needs better.
There are five crucial characteristics that all buyer personas should have:
Job titles or job roles: These could be specific positions the business would like to target, such as "copywriter" or "designer."
Business goals: These could be anything from increasing sales to maintaining relationships with clients. Knowing what these goals are for each persona will give you an idea of how they use products and how you can help them achieve their goals through yours. It will also allow you to tailor your marketing efforts toward different types of buyers.
Challenges: These could be anything from small everyday obstacles to major marketing problems, such as struggling with social media integration or not finding enough qualified talent. It could also include pain points that your product might help alleviate, like spending too much time searching for new clients or struggling with keeping new and old clients up-to-date.
Behaviors: These could be anything from reading industry-related blogs to going to networking events. Understanding which behaviors your buyer personas engage in will allow you to tailor your marketing efforts toward those specific groups of people and help build trust within those communities.
Communication preferences: These could include anything from conducting business by telephone only, due to long commutes or lack of a quiet work environment, to preferring email communication over more direct forms of contact.
How To Create Buyer Personas in 6 Easy Steps
Now that you understand the benefits of buyer personas and their importance, you're ready to get started on creating them.
Here are the steps to create buyer persona profiles with success:
1. Set Your Goals
The first step to creating buyer personas is setting your goals and knowing exactly who you're trying to reach. You will need to know what those goals are so that you can create the right buyer persona.
Examples of such goals include:
Increase traffic to your blog
Find contacts for possible partnerships within certain industries
Attract high-value clients with larger budgets
Know who and where your ideal customers are and what they want.
2. Collect Data on Your Current Customers
Collecting data on your current customers allows you to better understand what your business does well and how you can meet future customers' needs.
You'll need to collect data on demographics, such as age, gender, occupation, location, and household income.
You should also collect behavioral information about what platforms they use, including social media sites like LinkedIn or Twitter; which content they typically read; where they get their business information, such as industry-related websites and what they struggle with.
Here’s a video that provides practical tips on how to collect customer data:
3. Create Your Personas
Once you have collected your data on both current and potential customers, it's time to create your personas. You'll need to find a way to represent your customer in one or more humans by listing specific details about them.
Create a name and background for each persona that helps you to imagine them as real people. The gender, age, job role, the company they work for, what motivates them, and their specific challenges are all important details that can help you understand your personas better.
4. Prioritize Your Personas
It will be important to prioritize your personas to understand which ones are most crucial for your business.
You can also make yourself a spreadsheet or create multiple personas with different levels of priority based on the factors you feel are most important when deciding which type of buyers you want to target.
If you value certain factors more highly, such as budget size or desired outcomes, you can prioritize based on those values.
5. Analyze and Plan
Once you have created your personas and prioritized them, it's time to look at how they fit into the market and whether there are any gaps in the information you currently have about them.
You can do this by comparing your personas to existing research and information that you may already know about potential customers. If there is any relevant data missing, it's important to add it in to have the most accurate buyer profile possible.
6. Use Your Data for Marketing
Once you have created your personas and used them to analyze the market, you can use that information for marketing purposes.
You'll want to collect data based on your personas' specific characteristics and target them appropriately.
For instance, if you know that a specific persona prefers email communication over phone calls or direct communication methods, you can tailor your sales materials accordingly.
You will also be able to identify which marketing channels and tactics appeal to each persona, such as social media or targeted advertisements.
Once you have your buyer personas, they will be an invaluable asset for all of your marketing efforts because you'll be able to understand exactly how to best communicate with them. You can use any information you've gathered about what they like and dislike to create ads and promotions that appeal to their specific wants and needs.
Examples of Companies That Use Buyer Personas in Their Strategies
Buyer personas are incredibly helpful because they allow you to target your specific audience more effectively.
Here are some examples of companies that have used buyer personas to their advantage:
1. Apple
Apple uses buyer personas in its marketing campaigns to better target potential customers.
They have created specific buyers, such as the "Millennial Teacher" and the "Government Professional," that represent some of the main demographics that they want to appeal to.
2. Nike
Nike has used personas in its advertising strategy to find the perfect way to reach its target demographic. They have created specific personas with different characteristics, such as whether they are a runner or cyclist. Nike knows that by targeting these groups separately, they'll be able to maximize their popularity and appeal to more customers.
Procter & Gamble has identified three specific buyer personas for their marketing strategy: "Marketing Moms," "Busy Dads," and "Home Alone Teens."
They know that each of these groups responds differently to different types of advertising, which is why they tailor their ads to appeal directly to each group.
American Express has created four specific buyer personas for their marketing strategy: "Entrepreneurial Couple," "Hands-On Mom," "Political Powerhouse," and "Wealthy Philanthropist."
They know that each of these groups has different needs, so they build personal relationships with each of them.
Conclusion
Creating buyer personas is an extremely beneficial tool for marketing and advertising. By targeting your advertisements to the right demographic, you increase your chances of succeeding with that specific group of people. It's important to take some time and create buyer personas that reflect the types of buyers you want to appeal to.
Once you have created your personas, you can implement them into your marketing strategy to improve the full customer experience. This will help increase brand loyalty and develop a better relationship with your customers - which is exactly what you want for your business.