Buyer personas are an important part of a good marketing strategy.
You need to know who you’re marketing to so that you can improve your sales strategy.
Today, users only pay attention to marketing strategies that are personalized and relevant to them.
Therefore, buyer personas are the way to address what users need. They help streamline your marketing activities in a manner that ensures conversions.
However, sometimes, you may not get the response you want. Users aren’t responding and no one is purchasing your products. This means your ROI is low and you’re wasting money on marketing.
We live in an ad-heavy world. Every business faces a lot of competition. Therefore, capturing users’ attention is hard.
Instead of advertising, a lot of people prefer to buy products that their friends and family use.
A friend or a family member has no hidden intentions. Therefore, they are able to give their honest opinion about a product.
Therefore, as a marketer, you need to understand which marketing strategies work the best for your brand.
If you wish to be the best and gain more revenue, you need to build buyer personas.
However, we can say it as much as we want but it’ll not help you. That’s why we put together this easy guide to help build buyer personas. Learn what it is with clear examples.
Let’s dive in!
In pochi punti:
What is Buyer Personas?
Let’s start by understanding what buyer personas are.
According to Singlegrain.com, a buyer persona is a description of your target customer.
It is a document that contains everything. It includes the customer’s hobbies to demographic information. In addition, it includes their family size and career history.
It’s like describing an actual person in the most detailed format. It requires a lot of time and effort. Collecting and adding this kind of information is easy if you use a good CRM.
A detailed buyer persona allows you to have a defined target audience.
It’s also what makes it one of the most important elements of a solid marketing plan.
Know them inside out. Include elements like problems they face or motivations they have. This will help you alter your marketing activities in a manner that speaks to them.
It is like a friend who gives you the solutions you need.
For instance, let’s assume your friend wanted a pair of shoes. Then, you would be able to recommend to them the exact pair of shoes they need. You can do this because you know what they like and dislike. In addition, you know the type of shoes they usually wear and their budget. Therefore, this information helps you suggest the perfect pair of shoes for them.
71% of businesses today use buyer personas. It helps them exceed lead and revenue goals.
Think of your user as your friend. You want to know as much about them as possible. This will help you offer them relevant content and personalized services.
It’s easier to design a proper marketing strategy once you have a clear picture of who you are marketing to.
Benefits and Importance of Creating Buyer Personas
It’s easier to design products and marketing strategies when you have an example user in mind.
Instead of guessing or offering what you think might work, you’re able to plan your approach to your users.
Here are 4 benefits of creating buyer personas:
- Enables you to create focused products. Your buyer persona highlights why your users want a product. In addition, it allows you to understand what their expectations are. This information helps you design better products.
- Allows targeted marketing. You’re able to run better ads when you know your target audience. Your social media and content marketing outreach become easier to personalize to your users. It helps you aim for specific types of users based on their demographic information and choice of channels.
- Enables you to provide a tailored customer experience. Users have a preference for channels and methods of communication. They have a particular set of likes and dislikes. Once you know what they like, you can create a better customer experience for them. Creating buyer personas helps you make each user feel special.
- Increased lead generation and better problem-solving. Your customer service team develops a better understanding of your users. In addition, it helps them understand the users’ pain points and background. This information helps them provide faster and better resolution. In addition, it helps the sales team create better strategies to approach potential clients.
What Does It Include?
A good buyer persona contains a lot of information. Therefore, to build an efficient buyer persona, you need to mention the following information:
- Your target demographics. This includes the name, age and occupation of the customer.
- The location of the customer.
- The goals and problems of your customer.
- Customer’s top factors for choosing your brand.
- Brands or businesses they’ve already bought products from.
- Customer’s basic needs.
- The channels they prefer. For instance, it can be a chatbot or an email, etc.
How to Create Buyer Personas
Defining buyer personas requires a lot of time and effort. However, you can break the process into small steps. This will help you create better buyer personas. Here are 5 steps to creating buyer personas:
- Research. This is important to understand who you are marketing to. Understand who is buying your products. Take a look at your existing customers. Start by mentioning demographic information. Then, talk to your customer service team. This will help you understand the kind of customers you have.
- Segment the buyer personas. Start by organizing all the information you collected. Look for similarities in the goals you uncovered during your research. Then, decide how many buyer personas you need to create. You should have a few buyer personas for the customers who buy the most products from you. Then, segment them by their industry or their job title.
- Create a name and story for every buyer persona. Try to paint a picture of your buyer persona. Give the buyer persona a name, age, city and hobbies. In addition, you can give them a career. Challenge yourself to create a full profile. Mention the most important segments for the final persona at the end and share them with your team.
- Focus on goals, roles and challenges. Categorize all the information into three main categories: goals, roles and challenges. Goals help you understand what your buyer persona wants. Roles are the full picture of who your buyer personas are, what they do and what they want from you. Challenges are the pain points of every buyer persona.
- Create a marketing and sales strategy. Familiarize your sales and marketing teams with buyer personas. Develop content and strategies that address the pain points of each buyer persona. This will help you increase customer loyalty and revenue.
2 Best Buyer Persona Examples
Now that you know the importance of buyer personas, let’s take a look at some of the best examples. Analyse these examples to understand what you can improve when you create buyer personas.
Bachelor Brice
From this example, we can see that Brice’s main concern is that if pet ownership is the right choice for him. You can help him take this decision by sending relevant blog posts. In addition, you can downloadable guides or links to resources such as training tips. You can also send pet care tips and frequently asked questions. Brice is a health nut. Therefore, creating a series of articles dedicated to the health benefits of having a pet is wise. In addition, you can also help him decide what type of dog he should adopt. To do this, you can send an online quiz. In addition, you can organise an event where people like Brice can meet and discuss their queries.
Sarah Student Persona
Iron Springs Designs clearly define its coffee shop customer. You can get a glimpse into Sarah’s life, needs and background. In addition, you also know her dreams and what would make her life easier. It’s a perfect example of a well-defined buyer persona. As you can see from the “make her life easier” section, she appreciates discounts delivered to her via social media. It’s a valuable way to connect with her and convert her (and people like her) into loyal customers. In the “what influences her” section, we can see she is influenced by her friends and colleagues. In addition, she is also influenced by magazines and blog articles. Therefore, it’s wise to send her links to articles that focus on the health benefits of drinking coffee. Also, send articles that encourage her to try new types of coffee.
Tips and Best Practices
Here are a few tips and best practices to keep in mind when creating buyer personas.
- Have clear goals. Before you start, sit down and create a list of goals you wish to achieve. This is important because everything depends on your goals.
- Determine which research methods you will use. It’s wise to decide which methods you’ll use to conduct research early on. For instance, you can conduct surveys or interviews to collect data. Interviews allow you to understand “why” users do something. On the other hand, surveys help you understand how to scale your interview findings.
- Include all your departments and teams. The more people you have, the better your buyer personas will be. Brainstorming is an excellent way to come up with new ideas. Use it to develop better personas and improve your strategies. Therefore, include teams from all the departments. For instance, the customer support team will help you understand what your users complain about. Address that issue to increase sales.
- Hire experts. It’s best to hire an expert if you’re starting out. Creating buyer personas is time-consuming. Everything from product development to your ROI depends on the accuracy of your buyer personas. Therefore, it’s important that they’re created with care. It may seem like an expense but it’s an investment.
In Conclusion
A buyer persona is a research-based profile. It represents your target audience and helps you adapt better strategies for success.
Clarify the types of people who benefit from your solutions. This will help you attract and retain more customers.
Buyer personas are like the foundation of your business. You need the right kind of data to help you design the best product. In addition, you need to know what your customers like and dislike.
This information helps you market the product to them better.
Create a buyer persona to help you give your user a tailored experience.
Therefore, pay attention to users’ needs and wants. This will help create more trust and brand loyalty. Show your customers you care. Improve your strategies by interacting with your customers.
Are you now ready to take advantage of your buyer personas? Drive more sales through marketing campaigns and generate more revenue.
Have you ever created a buyer persona? If yes, how did it help you? Tell us in the comments section below!