I guess you’re here because you’ve heard the term ‘buyer personas’ being thrown around in the marketing world AND you’re also here because you want to know what on earth everyone is talking about. Well, take a breath, you’re in the right place.
First things first, what is the definition of a buyer persona?
A buyer persona is a market-research-based profile that represents your ideal customer, they provide a full insight into what your customers days are like, the challenges they face and how they make decisions. This helps you understand and relate to an audience that you want to market your products or services to.
Okay, but why are they important?
It’s safe to say, buyer personas are one of the most important parts of any marketing strategy. By understanding and analysing trends, behaviours, similarities and patterns amongst your target audience, you will then be able to create an effective marketing and sales strategy built around the data you have on your ideal customer.
Without buyer personas you are most likely finding it hard to know what content to produce, who you’re creating content for, where you should be directing your marketing efforts and where you can improve your company’s presence – essentially, there’s no you, without them.
Creating personalised-orientated marketing campaigns and content, you demonstrate to your target audience that you connect with them on every level – you understand their challenges, pains and problems – encouraging them to further engage with your business.
That sounds great, how do I create buyer personas?
It requires time, patience, strategy and an inquisitive mind to construct what your ‘ideal’ customers are, you need to question your own business to define who would be interested in what you have to offer.
Some general questions you’ll want to consider asking are ones that will help you lay out the profile of your perfect buyer, questions such as;
- What do your customers do?
- What industry are they in?
- How long have they been in that industry?
- What’s their job title?
- Do you know their business agenda?
- What qualifications do they have?
- Where do they live?
- What challenges do they face on a day-to-day basis?
- What would trigger them to look for a solution?
- What questions do they ask their sales team?
Although these type of questions will help you understand their professional lives, it’s also very important to identify them as people to understand their needs and desires, also consider questions like;
- What are their interests?
- What activities do they enjoy?
- How old are they?
- Why do they do the work they do?
- What are their aspirations and motivations?
- What publications do they read?
- Where do they go for news about their industry?
Knowing answers to the above questions will help you communicate your USPs to each persona. You can collect this data by including relevant questions on a subscribe form or you can call up interested prospects without the intent to sell anything. Think of this research as a reflective questionnaire that will enable you the freedom to target and market your product to the right person and ensure you’re doing so from the right angle.
With the Holded CRM platform you can hold detailed insights into your customers, manage your leads with personalised sales funnels, and access any customer information at any time.
