Buyer Persona – Key to Success
Is your advertisement/communication for everyone? If yes, you are wasting your resources.
Strategize your marketing efforts to attract the right audience.
Marketing lays great emphasis on Buyer persona … to reach out to the right audience. Know more about Buyer persona.
Introduction to Ideal Customer
When an organization starts a business, they have an imaginary buyer in their mind based upon the product/service they offer.
Let’s say you are introducing a new product – perfume for males.
This can be purchased by anyone from 16 yrs onwards.
But who is your core target group?
Having a wide age band is not useful.
Hence, business needs to have a better understanding of the ideal Buyer
Generic communication has minimal traction as it is for everyone
For defining your ideal buyer, you need to look beyond demographic & transactional information
A buyer persona is a detailed description of someone who represents your target audience.
This is also called Marketing Persona or Customer persona.
Why do you need a Buyer persona in the first place?
The answer lies in the marketing funnel.
Paid ads, content, blogs, etc helps in drawing attention.
The customer will be interested only if the information is relevant and it helps to elevate his pain points.
Relevant content creates a connection with the buyer and engages him.
For this, we need to know about his needs, concerns, buying behavior, etc.
Hence, by defining a Buyer persona we can optimize our content – blogs, keywords, etc.
This will enable us to get better results.
By doing this, your customer engagement will increase and also the trust factor.
Defining the Buyer Persona
Hubspot gives an elaborate definition of Buyer Persona
“Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers, based on real data about customer demographics and online behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns”
Key points are:
- The persona should be as close to the real customer
- Data is gathered through Interaction with a customer
- We need to capture their demographics, behavior, opinion, perception, motivators, concerns, etc
The cumulation of these is a buyer persona.
Information gathering for Buyer Persona
1. Demographic Information:
- Gender, Age, Marital status, Family size, durable ownership, annual income, etc
- This information in understanding the life stage and family
2. Occupation:
- Working / Not working
- If working – Job title, seniority level, sector & type of organization working for, etc
3. A typical day in buyers’ life:
- Daily schedule. Office & non-office hours, how do they spend time during the day, communication for personal & non-personal work, social media behavior, etc
- Buyers’ daily schedule and factors that affect their buying behavior and decision process.
4. Pain Points of a buyer:
- What are the pain points in their daily life?
- How can you solve their problem?
5. Goals:
- What are their aspirations? What do they value? These can professional, family related, personal, etc
- Help your customer to achieve their goals
6. Source of Information:
- Family, friends, online, social media, etc
- Which media help them in their decision-making?
7. Experiences buyers seek:
-
- Are we aligned with the customers’ buying process?
- Are we engaging them at the right time? Appropriate way?
- Make the buying experience is as close to what they expect
8. Addressing Objections:
- The common questions that come to buyers’ minds.
- These can be addressed on websites, FAQs, blogs, etc.
- Do plug this upfront to remove lingering thoughts
All this information helps to build the persona of your buyer.
The standard template for Buyer persona
It is a snapshot of the information collected.
It starts with a Persona Name, photograph & 2 line description
Identifiers are the key characteristics of your buyer.
Here is an example of an identifier :
- Male, 35 yrs, Married with 1 kid
- Mid managerial cadre in marketing profile
- Tied up with official work & little time for his family
- Desires to do an advanced course in marketing analytics but cannot spare time
- Shops online
- Prefers to buy popular brands
- Active on LinkedIn and Instagram
- Like Hollywood movies
Key elements of Buyer Persona Template
- Buyer Persona Name
- Photo of an Actual Buyer with 2 liner description
- Key Identifiers
- Profile Description
- Demographics & Occupation
- Pain Points
- Goals
- Media Consumption behavior
- Buying Behaviour
- Brands Preference
- Interests
This acts as a reference for all the concerned departments – Marketing, Communication, sales, etc.
The framework helps in devising strategies aligned to your persona
Buyer Persona … defines the Marketing strategy
Based on your product, you may have different personas.
The priorities of different personas will be different
Working professionals are likely to purchase premium brands
A housewife or a mid-level executive is likely to seek value for money products.
Some may prefer online while some may like to evaluate a physical product.
Relevant social media platforms for your persona and most influential one.
Hence, the buyer behavior will define the marketing strategy.
Points to keep in Mind
- Connect with the customer through primary research. This will provide invaluable insights
- Target buyer profile may change based on changes in the economy, change in competition strategy, health hazard, etc
- Limit buyer persona/s – Focus on one or max 2 personas. Optimize your resources on these personas
- Useful for B2C & B2B organizations. Some adaptation will be required for the B2B context
Do create your Buyer Persona.
Connect with us for your market research requirement.
