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Published August 02nd, 2017 by

What is a Buyer Persona and Why Should You Have One?

buyer persona

Image source: Freepik

From the moment the Internet entered our lives, the way we choose products and services that will be of use for us have changed. We have become overwhelmed with numerous similar products on the web, each one of them promising us that they are the best possible choice there is.

If you are an entrepreneur, your task isn’t easy at all. Your company needs to stand out from the crowd and be ahead of your competitors. Services or products of your company need to attract customers and make them want specifically your company among all the rest. So, your target customers are the ones you need to make effort about. To be one level above the others, you should start creating your ideal buyer persona.

What is actually a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is more than just a simple profile of people interested in what your company offers. It tells you just what you need to know, so you can focus your product or services on the right buyers. It reveals customers’ attitudes, their concerns about a service or a product, and factors that help them decide to choose a company. In short, a buyer persona helps you realize what people are thinking when deciding who to turn to for a specific problem or need they have.

So, let’s make it clear – marketing decisions you make need to be as precise and specific as possible. Product positioning strategy, messaging, and content marketing development – all of these things have to be the result of your insight into what your customers want and think, and how they feel about buying your products or using your services. If you create a relationship with your customers based on your knowledge of their needs and their terms of business, you’ll be given preference over your competitors.

How to create a buyer persona

In general, a buyer persona is created through series of interviews and surveys of your actual and potential customers, as well as the ones who maybe aren’t in your database but match your target audience.

The first step for you would be to collect information from the target audience, through several methods:

  • Use your contact database to discover how your product or service finds its way to your customers.
  • Take into consideration important information on every persona. Then, create forms for your website that ask for this kind of information, so you can get your statistics.
  • Have a chat with your sales team. What have they noticed about different kind of customers while interacting with them? Which ones are most likely to buy something?
  • Organize an interview with your actual and potential customers. Ask them what they like about your product or service in great detail. Sam Cyrus, the CEO of GWM SEO Sydney stated that the interview is the core of forming an accurate persona that gives you the specifics you need. That’s why this method should be elaborated, as it is a complex and very important.  

Organizing the interview

Beside the actual and potential customers, ask your co-workers and other social contacts for a recommendation on specific people to interview. It may be a wide range of people, but you would be surprised how helpful that can turn out to be. There are also third-party networks, such as Craiglist, which allows you to interview strangers through remote user testing.

It isn’t always easy to talk people into giving an interview, so motivate them by giving them for example, a gift card. Also, let them know from the beginning that you are not trying to sell them anything and agree on any time and day of the interview they ask for.

Regarding the number of interviewees, have at least five of them for each persona you’re creating. When you start accurately guessing what their answers will be, you’re probably done with interviewing. There should be about twenty questions on the interviewee’s role at their job, their company, goals, and challenges they face. Of course, their personal background, free time and shopping preferences should also be included. Every of this questions should be followed up with a “Why?”.

Using the collected information

All the information you’ve acquired should be used for making patterns in order to develop a primary persona. There are free templates on the web you can use to organize them in a meaningful way. Here’s how:

  • Ask people for their demographic information through an online survey. Most of them are more comfortable when not disclosing this kind of information to somebody in person or over the phone. If you picked up certain mannerisms while talking to them, be sure your staff is aware of the mannerisms through the template.
  • Disclose your persona’s motivation. Every time you asked “Why?” after each response, it revealed the interviewee’s motivation.
  • Prepare your sales staff for interacting with your persona. Tell them what the persona’s concerns and wishes are. Present them with the possible questions the persona might pose during the conversation.
  • Teach your staff specific mannerisms when talking to a certain persona type. Every member of your staff should use the same language when interacting with the target customers.

Once you’re done creating the right persona and preparing your staff, just make sure you keep track of it, so that you can make changes if necessary. And you could notice progress really soon.

blake-davies

Blake is a marketing consultant, specializing in content marketing and SEO. When he's not on his computer, he likes to read, take long walks and play soccer.

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