A buyer persona is a description of your company’s ideal customer. It should guide most of your business activities, from product development to the channels and marketing messages you use to promote your brand.
It’s important for your business to establish a buyer persona because it helps you focus on the needs of your customers. Having buyer personas also help ensure:
- The marketing strategies to acquire customers are planned and implemented with your target audience in mind.
- You provide a customer service experience tailored to your ideal buyer.
- You appeal and connect authentically with your target customers.
When you present your products or services as solutions to your target market’s problems, it’s easier to convince them to buy from you. Read on for more information on how to create a buyer persona.
1. Research your customers
Taking from its definition, a buyer persona is based on real-world data from your existing customers and market research. Compile information about your current customers and target audience. Take note of demographics, such as age, location, language, job, income, interests, and background. Collect data on psychographics, including spending patterns, challenges, lifestyle, and goals.
2. Understand all of their interests
Next, you need to understand the buyer persona’s interests. You’re looking for answers to questions, such as “What do they do for fun?” “Where do they spend their free time?” and “How do they get their information?”
This is important because knowing how your customers spend their time will tell you what’s important to them. It also gives you insight into their values and how you can reach them.
For instance, you might not be able to reach customers who stream entertainment, like movies and music, through traditional advertising. This means you might need to employ digital marketing, such as social media or inbound marketing.
3. Apply interests to customer pain points
Customer pain points refer to the problems potential customers are trying to solve. It might be what’s holding them back from reaching their goals.
For example, if a buyer persona’s goal is to lose weight through eating right and exercising, you can apply their interests to address their pain points. If their interests are green smoothies, yoga, and celebrity or influencer endorsements, you could attract their attention via content marketing. You can create content on yoga and healthy smoothie recipes and reach your target market through social media.
4. Continue to do more research
Creating your own buyer persona helps you have a deeper understanding of your customers as real people. You’ll be able to anticipate their needs and address them. You’ll also be able to focus your marketing efforts to promote lead generation. Your leads will be easier to convert because they are your ideal customer.
However, remember that trends change, and your customers are dynamic. So, it’s important to continually monitor and review your buyer personas. This way, you can adapt your marketing campaigns based on changes to your buyer personas.
Buyer persona examples
To help you develop your own buyer personas, below are some examples for inspiration. There are also many buyer persona templates available online.
Buyer persona: Virtual assistant Victoria
In this example, let’s assume you’re trying to sell Victoria accounting and bookkeeping systems.
Personal background:
- Age: 26
- Location: Chicago, Illinois
- Hobbies: Traveling, night outs with friends
- Education: Associate degree
- Role: Freelancer
- Income: $30,000 to 40,000 annually
- Single
Interests:
- Active on social media platforms
- Relatively tech-savvy
- Likes to gather information for products and services from recommendations of colleagues
- Likes to compare products and services through demos or free trials
- Motivated by free products and discounts
Values and fears:
- Worries about not being able to pay her bills
- Values her independence and being able to travel whenever she wants
Goals:
- Find a system that makes sending invoices and receiving payments easy for Victoria and her clients
- Spend less time on bookkeeping activities
Challenges:
- Has limited free time
- Manages multiple accounts and clients
Pain points:
- Not confident in her ability to manage accounting and bookkeeping