You’ve probably heard the term “buyer persona” if you’ve been in the marketing world in the last few years. It’s casually said as if everyone has one and knows what it is. That, however, is not the case. You’ve come to the right place if you came here after a sneaky search for “What Is a Buyer’s Persona?” and want to know what the heck everyone’s talking about. First and foremost, let’s define the term.
What is a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a fictionalized version of a target consumer based on market research. Buyer personas illustrate who your ideal consumers are, how they spend their days, the issues they face, and the decisions they make.
Multiple buyer personas are typical in businesses; for example, if the end-user of your product needs clearance from others before completing a purchase, each person participating in that decision is a separate persona. They’ll evaluate your goods using different criteria, and you’ll require diverse tactics to meet their needs.
Buyer personas are also known as customer or marketing personas (or profiles), but the goal is the same regardless of the word. Buyer personas assist businesses in better understanding and empathizing with their customers, allowing them to acquire and serve them more effectively.
Why is Buyer’s Persona Important?
Buyer personas ensure that all operations related to acquiring and serving clients are matched to the specific needs of the target buyer. That may appear to be a no-brainer, but it isn’t as straightforward as it appears. If you pay close attention to how businesses present themselves, you’ll discover that many of them begin by discussing what they do, rather than what the consumer requires.
As a result, they are in conflict with how people make decisions. People naturally gravitate toward businesses they know and trust when purchasing a product or service. And the best approach to earn someone’s trust is to demonstrate true empathy and concern for them — in this case, your consumers. Gaining trust as a company necessitates a subtle but significant shift in how you present yourself.
Only once you’ve demonstrated that you understand your potential clients by solving their pain or need will they be interested in learning more about what you have to offer. Developing buyer personas and using them to manage your organization can help you stay focused on your consumers’ demands.
How is Buyer’s Persona Used?
The application of a buyer persona in marketing is diverse and can be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure accuracy and efficacy. And with good reason: 93% of businesses that exceeded or met their annual revenue targets split their audience database by buyer profile. The following will improve as a result of developing and implementing this effective strategy:
1. Branding
A well-defined, fully fleshed-out persona will influence internal processes and even improve team collaboration. Copywriters, videographers, digital marketers, directors, social media managers, and the CMO should all know these personas like the back of their hands (and, perhaps, the entire organization).
The knowledge of the personas will help them better comprehend their own roles, as well as streamline the work done as a whole, resulting in outcomes that are consistent and targeted at the same person.
2. Strategy
Creating a persona is a calculated move. It’s done this way so that when decisions need to be made, it’s clear who you’re making them for. This could include judgments such as which social media platforms to concentrate on. For example, you’ll know where to submit content if you know Silicon Steve, one of your characters, is most active on Twitter and Reddit. It can (and should) even help you decide where to place your paid ads and how to gather feedback.
3. Content
Your buyer persona should be at the center of every content marketing strategy. This necessitates determining what types of material people prefer to consume, for how long, where they discover it, what they share, and how frequently. This information will be used to inform material such as the campaigns you run and the blogs you write.
4. Metrics
The information you utilize to construct your buyer persona is critical, and it should guide your company’s destiny. To figure out what kinds of blogs to write, you should look at how long users spend reading your blog. You can look at the open rate of your audience’s emails to see which headlines perform best. In fact, leveraging buyer personas in an email campaign increased the open rate by 2x and the click-through rate by 5x for one business. Almost any customer-facing data may be utilized to identify your core buyer profile and speak to their activity patterns.
The buyer persona information is useful for all types of marketing, but it’s especially useful for inbound marketing because it allows you to completely understand who you’re attempting to attract and how to spot a valuable lead when they emerge. Finally, it demonstrates that you’re solving your clients’ problems and earning their confidence by offering relevant and contextual solutions.
Excellent Examples of Buyer’s Persona
As you can see, the finest buyer personas put themselves in their consumers’ shoes, offices, and homes. Analyzing these issues and settling on practical, viable responses will be another way for your services to solve problems. They will assist you in connecting with your customers and, as a result, allow you to present your company as one that understands the needs of its target market.
Example 1-
This persona has a real name, a stock photo, and all of the usual background information found in a customer or client management system. They talk over things like typology, motivations, and technology proficiency in great depth. They even mention some of the other brands to which she is devoted. All of this data will impact the type of material they create, how they update and sell their goods, and the language they use when communicating with customers.
Example 2-
Another version delves deeper into several facets of this fictional but true-to-life figure. They have taken into account her finances, which demonstrates that they are aware of their own price points, as well as elements that make her life easier. This could inform the brand’s future products and promotions. As you can see, a persona is a collection of specific information that, when put together, provides an insightful and accurate representation of the kind of individuals that use their product and those who they wish to attract.
The Bottomline
Buyer personas are research-based profiles of your target audience that can help you adjust critical areas of your sales and support for improved success. Clarifying the types of people who benefit from your solutions, as well as the problems you help them solve, is crucial to attracting and retaining consumers. 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.
