Knowing who your buyer personas are and what they’re looking for can help you target the right audience, send out the right content, and communicate in the most effective way possible. When you have well-researched and developed buyer persona profiles to reference, your brand can leverage the information to create a more personalized experience for current and potential customers. Buyers are 48% more likely to consider providers that personalize their marketing efforts to address their specific business issues. Not only is knowing your buyer important to customers, but also for your business. In fact, 93% of companies that exceed their lead and revenue goals segment their overall database by buyer personas. 

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is a descriptive, research-based profile that depicts a target customer. Think of buyer personas as who your ideal customers are. It’s normal to have more than one buyer persona for your business, after all, your brand is most likely trying to reach more than one type of person. Buyer personas are used to help your business better understand and empathize with customers and their needs. Ultimately, they lay the foundation for ensuring your marketing and sales messages are in the right place, at the right time, and speaking to the right questions, problems, and needs.

How Do I Get Started Creating a Buyer Persona?

Start by researching your current customers. Take a look at the words they use, the jobs they have, the questions they ask, their demographics, and more - leverage whatever information you’re able to gather. Getting to know current customers may seem like a daunting task but we’ve compiled a list of 7 questions to help you get started creating accurate buyer personas for your business.

This should be the first and most basic question you ask yourself when researching buyer personas. Look at what kind of people make up your main customer base. Try to create a few generalized groups, like:

• Current Customers: This may be two or three different personas on their own; they could be older, younger, different genders, buying as a business vs consumer, etc.
• Low-Hanging Fruit: These are people who you could likely earn as customers with a bit less effort
• Ideal Customers: Who, if given the choice, would all your customers look like or be for your business?

Then, take a look at things like age, gender, education, marital status, location, income, family life, and hobbies they might have. This can help you better understand what the answers to the six following questions might be. 

Now that you have a better understanding of what your customers look like, demographically, now it’s time to go a bit deeper. Do some research on what your buyer’s work and education background look like. Take into account their income, company size, the industry they’re in, and responsibilities they might hold at their job. Information like this can lend insight into common problems, needs, etc.

If you have a better understanding of what your buyer’s work and education background is like as well as who they are, you can generate some ideas about what a typical day-in-the-life might look like for them. Take into consideration who they deal with on a daily basis, where they might go, what they might do, their daily responsibilities, or what decisions they might make throughout their day. 

Thinking about the previous questions and what you know about your buyer thus far, think about what problems, challenges, or pain points they might encounter. Think about these in relation to the products or services your business offers and how they could be a possible solution to the challenges your buyer persona is experiencing. 

When your buyer persona has a problem or question they want to solve, where do they go for information? Try to identify the primary sources they might use to gather information and in their research. This will help you to better understand what they’re thinking and considering when they’re going through the purchase decision process.  

A lot of consumers do their product research via various social media platforms. 54% of social browsers use social media to further research brands and what they offer. Based on what problems they might be experiencing, who they are, and what their day looks like, you can begin to generate ideas about what social platforms they might be most active on. This can help you decide where and when you should focus on putting out content. 

What a customer wants from a business comes down to their values are and what values they expect certain businesses to have. These might be things they find most important and crucial that a business has in order for them to want to do business with you. This could include things like being active on social media, having proven experience and expertise, being an industry expert, or running an authentic and trustworthy business. It’s up to your business to demonstrate the shared values of the buyer persona. 

Why are Buyer Personas Important? 

Buyer personas are to ensure that all your brand’s activities are tailored to your customer’s needs. They can also increase your overall engagement as well. Persona-based content was found to increase customer engagement almost six-fold when targeting cold leads. People are more likely to buy from brands that they know and trust. One of the best ways to create trust is to demonstrate that your business really cares about its customers. When you’re creating personalized content for your buyer personas, customers will feel as if they truly matter to your business. Not only do buyer personas help to increase engagement, but they also help your brand generate more leads. Creating effective buyer personas can help in many different areas of your business: 

• Product Development: If you have a better understanding of what your customers are looking for, you can create better products or service offerings that are better tailored to the needs and wants of your audience. 

• More Effective Marketing Strategies: When it comes to content marketing strategies, it can be helpful to know where, who, and how customers want to receive their content. Creating more effective social media, content, and other promotional strategies will come much easier when you have buyer persona profiles to reference. 

• Better Customer Support: An important aspect of any business is its customer support. When you know the problems and pain points of your customers, you can be more effective in offering support and help when needed. When you have a better understanding of who your buyers are, you can empathize with what problems they have and empathy can go a long way when you’re dealing with an upset customer. 

After going through all the research questions and gaining a better understanding of what a buyer persona is, you should be able to develop some pretty accurate buyer personas that your business can take advantage of. Having a buyer persona means making more targeted marketing efforts and being more effective in lead generation. There are many benefits to having buyer personas for your brand, but you won’t know until you try it, so get researching your buyer personas!