A buyer persona is basically your interpretation of the ideal customer based on company insights, customer demographics, behavior patterns, sales data, and nearly anything else you can think of as it relates to your target audience and what you're attempting to achieve.
Before you begin developing these personas, you should first ask yourself these 9 questions:
What is the persona's demographic information?
Knowing the demographics of potential customers will allow you to create campaigns that target specific elements. These elements may include gender, location, marital status, age, career, annual household income, entertainment preferences, etc. When this information is collected and utilized properly, your marketing campaign becomes much more effective.
What does their job entail?
If you're targeting consumers, the emphasis that you place upon a buyer persona's career path will depend heavily on the type of product or service that your company offers. If you sell mostly to other businesses, on the other hand, understanding the level of a potential buyer -- managerial or director level, for instance -- will provide you with the opportunity to craft a focused marketing strategy.
What makes your persona tick?
Realizing the daily routines or rituals of your buyer personas can open you up to a whole new world of understanding. Even the little things, such as the movies they prefer, how they spend their weekends, and the type of vehicle they drive will build a more complete picture of each person.
What kinds of problems do they have?
Every company is in the business of solving problems. This can be a taxing problem such as appeasing hunger or a more relaxed issue like curing boredom. No matter what it is, once you understand the needs of your buyer personas based on these problems, you can design a campaign that will illustrate how your company will help fix them.
What does each buyer persona care about?
Once you've outlined the problems of a particular buyer persona, you'll be able to figure out what he or she cares about most. What you want to do with this part of constructing a persona is to figure out what gets them excited and then tailor your product or service in such a way that will get them enthused about what your company has to offer.
Where does each persona find his or her information?
In order to effectively market your company to your buyer personas, you need to know where they go on a regular basis to gather their information. You need to figure out if they use social media, online magazines, Google searches, etc. By creating a presence in the proper areas, you can expose them to your company.
What type of shopping experience do they expect?
Each buyer persona may expect a different type of shopping experience when they decide to try out your products or services. Some buyer personas may expect a one-on-one sales experience via the phone or in person while others will prefer the ease of becoming an online customer.
What might cause a buyer persona to reject your product or service?
Some potential customers are going to be reluctant to your company, product, or service for a variety of reasons. By understanding what these reasons may be, you can ease their concerns by demonstrating why they are unfounded.
How do you identify each persona?
Once you've discovered beneficial information about a persona, you can use this information to identify him or her when the time arises. You may identify a persona through the problems they're trying to fix, their demographics, how they shop online, or any of the other details that you've discovered.
