What is a Buyer Persona?
We hear people talk about buyer personas all the time, but exactly is one? A buyer persona is a detailed description of your ideal customer. Most businesses will have multiple buyer personas to segment their different customer groups. A buyer persona often includes information around what challenges your ideal customer faces, how your product can help, what channels they prefer to receive information through, what type of messaging and language they prefer, demographics and more.
Overview of How to Create a Buyer Persona
When you begin creating your buyer personas, don’t just list out what you think your ideal customer is and all their associated characteristics. Do some research. See what channels they are on. Listen to what they are saying their pain points are and see how your business can help. Create a list of questions that would be helpful in creating your persona. Here are a few examples:
- What’s their age, gender, and average income level?
- What’s important to them?
- What drives their decision making?
- What are their communication preferences?
- What are their goals? What challenges affect achieving these goals?
- How can my business help them overcome these challenges?
This list is definitely not complete. You can add many more questions that you feel will help you best understand your target customer. Already created your buyer personas? Keep reading to see how they can help improve your marketing efforts.
So, I’ve made them. Now what?
Once you make your buyer personas, you may think you’re done. Not quite. Just knowing more about your ideal customer is not helpful. You must take your better understanding of your ideal customers and use it! Use your personas to change how you are currently creating and distributing your content and messaging. Let your personas help you in deciding what content to make and where to share it.
Be where your audience is
When you did research to create your buyer personas, you learned how they prefer to receive information and their communication preferences. Align your marketing strategy to use these channels. Don’t waste time on channels your audience is not on. After all, the goal isn’t to be active on every available social media platform and to use every possible form of communication. It’s to reach your customers and connect with them so they can learn more about your business.
Use the language of your target audience
Use your target audience’s language and jargon. The best way to connect with someone is to speak the way they do. Once in a foreign language class focused on business, my professor told us the most important language in the world is the language of your customer.
Create content your buyer personas want
Read through the content you already have and ask yourself – Would my customer want to read this? Is this helpful for them? If not, you may want to edit it to better fit your ideal customer.
When you are planning your content calendar and your next list of blog topics, think about your buyer personas. Listen to what your customers are saying and create content that aligns with what they are looking for.
Create content with specific buyer personas in mind
You don’t have to make every piece of content cover all of your buyer personas. That could be a big challenge! You can create content specific to one of your buyer personas. You can home in on a specific challenge your customer may face or tidbit of information that customer segment usually asks for and create content tailored to them. Do this for each of your buyer personas and watch your ideal customers start engaging with your brand more.
Consider where and what messaging is best for each buyer persona throughout their buyer journey
So, now you’re creating content for your ideal customer and you know where to post and share it. What else can you do? When you are creating content, take into consideration what phase of the buyer journey your potential customer is in and create content for that phase. This may lead you to create an e-book instead of a blog post, or you may find at this point in the journey a simple email works best. Follow how your buyer persona’s preferences shift as they move through their buyer journey and find ways to connect with them each step of the way.
Always keep developing you buyer personas
Your buyer personas are never truly complete. Consumer habits and preferences are constantly changing. Continue to listen to your target audience and come back to your buyer personas often to see what needs to be adjusted or changed so you’re always meeting your ideal customer where they are, with the content they need.
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