Buyer personas assist you in better understanding your customers (and potential customers). This makes it easier for you to adjust your content, marketing, product development, and services to your target audience’s individual wants, behaviors and worries. If you know your target customers are caretakers, for example, do you know what their precise requirements and interests are? What is your ideal buyer’s typical background? It is vital to create detailed personas for your organization in order to fully get what makes your top clients tick.
The most effective buyer personas are based on market research as well as feedback from your current customers. You might have as few as one or two personalities, or as many as ten or twenty, depending on your industry. However, if you’re new to personas, start modest; you may always add more later if necessary.
What about the “Negatives”?
A negative — or “exclusionary” — persona is a representation of who you don’t want as a customer, whereas a buyer persona is a representation of who you don’t want as a customer.
Professionals who are too advanced for your product or service, students who are just interested in your content for research/knowledge, or potential clients who are simply too expensive to acquire are examples of this. It’s because they have a low average sale price, are prone to churning, or are unlikely to buy from you again. This brings us to the question – how do we create a buyer persona?
Ways to Create Your Buyer Persona
Buyer personas can be constructed through a combination of research, surveys, and interviews with customers, prospects, and people who aren’t in your contacts database but potentially fit your target demographic. Here are some suggestions for acquiring the data you’ll need to create personas:
- Examine your contacts database for patterns in how specific leads or customers discover and consume your material.
- When designing forms for your website, provide form fields that capture vital persona information. If all of your personas differ in terms of firm size, for example, ask each lead for this information on your forms
- Take into account what your sales team has to say about the leads they’re connecting with the most. What generalizations can they make about the various types of clients you best serve?
- Customers and prospects should be interviewed to learn what they like about your product or service
Now, how can you apply everything you’ve learned thus far to develop your personas?? You’ll have a lot of meaty, raw data on your potential and current clients once you’ve completed the research process. But what are you going to do with it? How can you condense everything so that everyone can understand all you’ve gathered?
The next stage is to use your research to find trends and commonalities in the responses to your interview questions, then create at least one primary persona and share it with the rest of the firm. Maction can help you with your research. Just book a call with us to get started.
1. Basic Demographic Information
Use the phone, meet in person, or online surveys to ask demographic questions. Some people are more at ease giving such intimate details. It’s also a good idea to include any descriptive keywords and mannerisms from your persona that you may have picked up on throughout your talks to aid others on your team identify specific personalities when speaking with prospects. For one of your personas, here’s an example of how you might fill out Section 1 (demographics) of your template:
2. Persona’s Motivation
This is where you’ll summarise the information you gained from the “why” questions you asked during the interviews. What keeps your character up at night? What kind of person do they want to be? Most crucial, bring everything together by explaining how your organization can assist people.
3. Prepare for Conversations
Include some authentic statements from your interviews that highlight your personas’ concerns, identities, and desires. Then make a list of potential objections so your sales team is prepared to answer them during their meetings with prospects.
4. Draft the Perfect Pitch
With your character, tell others how to communicate about your products/services. This comprises a more general elevator pitch that positions your solution in a way that resonates with your persona. This will ensure that everyone in your firm is speaking the same language when engaging with prospects and customers.
Finally, give your persona a name (for example, Finance Manager Margie, IT Ian, or Landscaper Larry) so that everyone refers to them in the same way internally, allowing for cross-team consistency
An Example of Buyers Persona
Here’s an example from James Donovan, a UX designer. It develops a buyer persona for a fictional consumer named Karla Kruger, containing information on her work, age, and demographics, as well as her pain points and objectives. She’s 41 years old and expecting a child, and we know everything there is to know about her beauty routine and product preferences. This sample is unique in that it includes her media intake as well as her favorite businesses. Get particular when it comes to bringing a consumer character to life.
We can also examine where “Karla” falls on the brand loyalty, social influence, and price sensitivity spectrums. If you need to know these kinds of data about your customer, look for them during your research and put them in your persona template.
Conclusion
Every time you make a decision regarding your social media content or overall marketing plan, keep your customer personas in mind. If you treat these personas well, you’ll develop a bond with the real customers they represent, which will result in increased sales and brand loyalty. The biggest plus with market research is staying on top of trends and of course – the market! If your vision is to beat your competition, market research should be at the top of your list and Maction can help you with that. Book a call with us today to explore what a market research partner can do for you!
