Developing Your Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a character you develop to represent the kind of customer you want to attract to your business. When it comes to focusing your marketing strategy to create effective content, a buyer persona is far more useful than relying solely on abstract data and demographic information. This blog will take you through the steps to creating a buyer persona that gets your marketing team on the same page and increases sales. (Want to learn more about buyer personas? Take a look at this blog.)
Before you can develop a buyer persona, you have to understand your own values and dispositions and how they translate into your business’s values. It’s important that you don’t chase after a particular kind of customer because you believe they have more money to spend. Your buyer persona will exist in the center of a Venn diagram with “what I love to do and what I stand for” in one circle and “what the market demands” in the other.
How do you know what the market demands? This is where you draw on data, surveys, market research, and any other resources available to you. When creating a buyer persona, consider these aspects.
Demographics. This is a simple enough place to start, but it’s important not to stop after working out a demographic profile of your buyer persona. It’s a big part of the story, but not the whole story.
- Do your products appeal primarily to men or women?
- Which age group are they most likely to fall into?
- Are they rural, suburban, or urban?
- What is their income level?
Values. Regardless of our age or income, we all have different values that we hold dear. Determine what those values are for your buyer persona.
- What do your customers stand for?
- Are they interested in ethical consumption, or do they just want the best value for money?
- Are they looking for a status symbol and a sense of exclusivity?
- Do they want to signal membership in a particular group through the things they buy?
Pain points. This is all about discovering what needs you are filling for your customers. It’s where our imaginary entrepreneurs from the top of the article went wrong. They were so focused on themselves and their product that they never stopped to consider one of the most important questions any consumer will ask: “How will this improve my life?”
- What keeps them up at night?
- What gets them out of bed in the morning?
- What’s missing from their lives?
- What makes them feel frustrated or helpless?
Everyday life. Now the buyer persona will begin to feel more like a fully fleshed-out human being. Imagine not only how they relate to you and your product, but how they live their lives.
- Where do they work?
- How do they get there?
- What do they do when they get home?
- Do they have hobbies or other interests?
Which social media platforms do they use? What kind of content do they engage with? What makes them happy, sad, or angry?
Make it Real
Now that you’ve identified the type of person you want to attract to your business, move from “type” to “character.” Characters are not just “types” to moviegoers and readers—they truly feel like real people. If they’re truly well-written, we will laugh and cry, fail and succeed right along with them. Try to achieve the same thing with your buyer persona: it’s not just an abstract bundle of traits you are trying to reach, but an actual person.
Achieve this sense of reality by not only answering the above questions but by giving your buyer persona a name. Search for a stock photo to put a face to a name. When you are developing marketing materials, you will sense the difference between “women aged 18-24” vs. “Emily Martinez, a 22-year-old college student from Schaumberg, Illinois, trying to balance accounting classes at the local community college with a part-time job at Starbucks. She doesn’t have a lot of free time, so it is important that she can quickly make decisions based on information she trusts when buying new products.”
Whenever you write a blog or send out a promotional email or post a picture on social media, ask yourself, “Will Emily like this?” Does this speak to her and what she is looking for? Does this help solve her problems and bring joy to her life?
Sample Buyer Persona 1
Name: Digital Nomad Sally
Description: A content creator who travels the world
Work: Content creation, blog writing, social media marketing
Goals: Discovering the world and living their life on their own terms by earning income working remotely.
Challenges: Finding a good internet connection and time to work during travels.
Demographics
Age: 25-40
Income: $50,000-250,000
Education: Bachelor’s degree
Location: Traveling the world
Story: They usually work during downtime while traveling, whether from the train, hostels, or cafes. They like to be independent with flexible working hours to best suit their lifestyle.
Sample Buyer Persona 2
Name: Kae Beilhartz
Description: Sales Renewals
Work: Renewals account rep
Goals: Make sure companies pay/renew services on time
Challenges: Companies sometimes claim to not know due dates or deadlines to make payments. Even though they are sent three emails three months before the due date and given 2 phone calls before, but closer to the do date. They also do not understand why there are late fee charges.
Demographics
Age: 35-40
Income: $44,000-50,000
Education: Bachelor’s degree
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Story: Kae Beilhartz reads Facebook or Instagram posts. She also enjoys music and dancing, but her favorite hobby is cooking.
A Personal Touch for a Competitive Edge
A buyer persona is all about taking vague and depersonalized information and crafting it into something strategically useful. A buyer persona gives you a relatable, realistic figure to focus your marketing efforts on. In an age of increased competition and market segmentation, where personalization becomes more important than ever, a well-designed buyer persona can give you a competitive edge.
