You may have heard the term “Buyer Persona” before; But do you really know what a Buyer Persona is and why is it important to your strategy?
A Buyer Persona is a fictional character that is constructed from the ethnography of a population (age, sex, customs, beliefs, among many others), with similar psychological profiles, qualities and behaviors. It should be noted that, for the same product or service, a company can create different Buyer Personas profiles.
In short, what is Buyer Persona?
The Buyer Persona is an archetype of the ideal customer of a service or product.
It takes into account real data about the behavior and demographics of your customers, hobbies, behavior patterns and motivations. The more detailed the profile, the better.
The main objective is to create a profile of your ideal client as if it were a real person, with information based on market research and real data about your existing clients.
Why is a Buyer Persona important to your strategy?
The Buyer Persona is an essential starting point for creating any digital marketing strategy, as they will help you better understand your current and potential customers. Likewise, they will facilitate the creation and planning of relevant content, how you should communicate with them, how you have to develop your products and what type of services you should offer according to the needs, behaviors and concerns of each group.
The better you define your Buyer Persona, the more information you will have. This allows you to adapt and personalize your marketing messages to make them more effective. So, you can create the right message for the right customers, tailor your ads effectively, and empathize with your customers.
With a detailed Buyer Persona, you have a defined target customer.
What are negative Buyer Personas?
The Negative Buyer Persona is that profile or customer that, due to their characteristics, ways of acting or due to their purchasing process, you want to avoid. It’s the customer profile you do not want to address.
This can include professionals who are very advanced for your product or service, students who consume your information for the sole purpose of obtaining an apprenticeship or those potential customers with an acquisition cost way too high.
Now comes the big question, is it important to know your negative Buyer Persona? The answer is yes.
It will help you understand better who your potential client is, it will help you identify those profiles that are not your potential clients, and also, it will help you focus your budget, time and resources on the people who are really worth it.
If you are clear about the customers you want to attract and the ones you don’t, you can better specify your marketing messages.
What is the difference between Buyer Persona and target audience?
For you to understand better, we will show you an example.
Target: Men and women, ages 23 to 30, single, engineering graduates, with average monthly income of $2,500, who plan to increase their professional training and like to travel.
Buyer Persona: Steve is a 24 years old, recently graduated and autonomous engineer. He plans to develop professionally by doing a master’s degree abroad because he loves to travel, he is single and he always wanted to do an exchange. He is looking for an agency to help him find universities in Europe that accept foreign students.
Did you notice the difference?
The target audience is a comprehensive part of the society to which you sell your products or services. The Buyer Persona, as said before, is the representation of your ideal client, in a more humanized and personalized way.
Why should you create a Buyer Persona?
The creation of Buyer Personas is a fundamental step within a Digital Marketing strategy. You create Buyer Personas to send the right message to the right people and thus generate greater chances of success.
If you don’t have a well-defined Buyer Persona, in some cases your strategy may get lost and you end up speaking in Spanish with someone who only understands English.
What should you take into account when creating your Buyer Persona?
We will share 2 important aspects to take into account when creating your Buyer Persona:
- The Buyer persona is dynamic: Don’t think that the job is already completed at any point. Generally, you will be completing and nurturing the description over time.
- Details matter: Taking into account your ideal clients and understanding their pain point, precisely with a profile, will help you build very effective Buyer Personas.
How do I create a Buyer Persona?
If you want them to work and be useful, Buyer Personas need to be based on real information. You can start with your real customers, the people that actually buy from you.
You can do it in 5 simple steps:
1. Do thorough audience research:
Learn everything you can about your current customers. Include demographics, buying behavior, interests, and all the information you can get. If you can, try to get the same information about your competitor’s customers.
2. Identify customer pain points:
What do they need to solve? Do they expect something in particular from a product like yours? Are they willing to do something special to be successful? You can monitor what people are saying about your product, your competitors and their customer experience.
3. Identify customer goals:
Try to find what are their goals, aspirations or the things they want to achieve. This can be personal or professional, depending on your products or services. What motivates them? What are they up for?
4. Know the benefits you offer
A benefit is how your product or service makes your customer’s life better or easier. It’s not the same as your product’s features, or what your product does. Think how you can help to solve their pain points.
5. Organize your information:
After you have completed your research, you need to fill in your profile. Give your Buyer Persona a fictional name, job title, age, home and other demographics. Remember you want it to be like a real person, but without being too specific. Keep in mind that a list of characteristics is not enough, you need to have a realistic description.
At the end, a Buyer Persona should answer these questions and have this information:
- About the Job
What is your job title?
How is the result of the work you do measured?
What talent and knowledge do you need to do your job?
What tools do you use?
- About your Company
What industry do you work in?
What is the size of your company? Ask about their goals
What are your responsibilities?
How do you define the success of your work?
- About your Challenges
What are your main challenges?
- About where you seek and consume Information
Where do you go for information to learn about your work and what’s going on in your industry?
What blogs, magazines or websites do you read?
What social networks, groups or communities do you belong to?
- About your Personal Profile
Request demographic information: age, marital status, children…
What education have you received?
Explain your professional career.
- About how you buy
How do you prefer to communicate with suppliers: email, phone, in person?
Do you use the internet to search for providers? If the answer is yes: how is your search process?
Conclusion
Buyer Personas can help you not only with your marketing strategy, but with your customer service and your product development. They help you understand your customers and truly understand how your product or service can really make their lives easier.
The goal of having Buyer Personas is to be able to humanize and personalize your communications and the way you reach out to your leads and customers. This is a powerful tool for your entire company, and is definitely a must-have.
Having a clear image of the types of people who benefit from your expertise, products or services, is critical to succeed when attracting and retaining customers.
If you’d like some help when creating your Buyer Personas, don’t hesitate to contact us!
We’ll be more than happy to help.