How to Build Effective Buyer Personas – And Why You Should
Creating content without an audience is just plain hard. What are their likes and interests? What tone do they respond to? Where do they go to consume content? Without this information, you’re shooting your message into a dark void. And that’s where buyer personas come into play.
Let’s look at what these buyer personas are, what they do, why they’re important, and how to create your own!
What are buyer personas?
Buyer personas are representations of your ideal customers based on the research you’ve done. These personas are a skillful blend of hard data and pure imagination – with names, details, and backstories that help your entire team connect with their audience.
For instance, you know from the analytics on your site that your customers are between 30 and 45, have a family, and visit your site an average of 10 times before making a purchase. With that information you create a buyer persona of a mother named Cecilia, who owns her own home
Yeah, it probably will feel a little silly at first, naming your buyer persona and giving them a whole life story. But creating a narrative is a powerful motivator that helps your team visualize and empathize with your audience.
And you can do this as many times as you need to for the data you have – perhaps in analyzing the data, you see five distinct groups of customers emerge. Then create five personas, one for each group. After all, you can’t expect all of your customers to fit into one neat little bucket.
Why You NEED Buyer Personas
Yes, need.
Buyer personas are an essential tool that helps your entire organization, from product development to marketing and sales.
After all, the better you understand your customers, the better you will be able to create products, messaging, and content that connects with them.
And the more you understand your customers, the more you can create a brand where they feel seen and heard. Over time, this could lead to closing more sales, shortening the buying cycle, and sparking a deep loyalty to your brand.
So now you see why this is so important – how the heck do you do it?
So glad you asked…
How to Build the Best Buyer Personas That You Will Actually Use
1. Do Your Research
Buyer personas are more than just a “gut feeling” – you need cold, hard facts to drive the creation of these personas.
With that in mind, dive into your brand’s customer data. Pull from your website metrics, social media analytics, and sales information to get hard facts and numbers about your audience. This could be age, sex, location, what parts of your site people visit most, what posts on social media they engage with on a regular basis. Ask yourself what story these numbers tell.
On top of that, you also want to capture the human element. Find out what your current and past customers have to say. Send out surveys or ask your customers questions in person. Your sales team might even have some anecdotal evidence to share from their conversations with customers.
Through all of this digging, you’re looking for patterns and trends that can influence your future behavior.
2. Brainstorm with Your Team
Crafting buyer personas is not a one-person job. The more input you have across all levels of your company, the more detailed and complex your personas will be. And that’s the ultimate goal.
Hold a brainstorming session with some kind of whiteboard, real or virtual, where you can write down everyone’s ideas. You already have the facts and data. Now it’s time to dig deep into emotions, motivations, pain points, hurdles, etc.
3. Assign a Name and Picture
This might feel a little funny at first, but trust me. It really helps.
You may have a detailed persona, but without a name and picture it will feel hollow and disjointed.
When you assign a name and, yes, a stock photo to your persona, the more tangible your audience becomes. This makes it easier to have conversations about your customers. You might have a session to discuss a campaign to reach Molly or what content would most resonate with your Muhammed persona.
So as silly as this may feel, don’t skip this step in your persona creation.
Now It’s Time to Create Your Own Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are an important tool to keep in your brand’s kit – they are a great way to motivate your entire team and strengthen your overall strategy. Not only that, but these personas allow you to reach and resonate with your audience.
I hope these pointers help and motivate you to create your very own buyer personas – I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
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