There are countless factors that marketers need to take into account when establishing a clear strategy. The most important thing for any business or marketer to consider is their customers. To properly serve their customers, businesses and marketers often create buyer personas. The creation of buyer persons helps create a targeted marketing strategy with customers in mind. For more information on buyer personas, read the post below.

What are Buyer Personas?

Buyer personas are hypothetical personas that marketing strategists use to understand business’s customers. When we create buyer personas for businesses, it’s important to consider every possible characteristic. These personas create a full picture of the different types of potential customers for your business to ensure that your marketing strategy reaches all of these people and meets their needs.

Why Do We Need Buyer Personas?

Buyer personas help businesses understand their customers. When you can clearly understand each type of customer you want to attract, you are better equipped to meet each individual’s needs. Buyer personas help you create targeted marketing strategies to ensure maximum success. Not only can you learn more about your customers through the creation of buyer personas, but you can target your products and your marketing to make sure you’re attracting the exact people you’re looking for.

How Do We Create Buyer Personas?

Establish Their Personal Characteristics

The first thing you consider is your persona’s personal demographics such as marital status, income, gender, and age. Where do they live? What sort of educational background do they have? What does a typical day look like for them? Does your persona typically spend more time at work or at home? Consider your persona’s interests, daily habits, and personal attributes to get an accurate picture.

Determine Their Career Path and Employment

How did your persona end up where they are now? It’s important to consider the path they took to their position to understand them better. Did they take a fairly traditional route or did they switch over from another industry? Did they major in something related to their industry or something completely different from their current role? Understanding a persona’s career path is essential to understanding their position and interests.

You should then identify what industry your persona works in. Then consider their company. How big is this company? How many employees does it have? Does their company have global influence or a more targeted scope? Understanding your persona’s company is important to properly understanding their role within it.

How long has your persona had their job? Do they manage others or work on their own? What level of seniority does your persona have? When considering B2B companies, seniority is particularly important in considering their expertise. A persona with high seniority will be well versed in the industry and will need less education about certain concepts and terms. Understanding the persona’s role will help you properly address their needs.

Understand Their Challenges and Goals

Understanding your persona’s biggest challenges will help you explain how your product or service can help. It’s important to consider your persona’s problems in order to offer them proper solutions. Your persona’s goals are important too. What does it mean to be successful in their industry or profession? How can your product or service help? Explaining how your product or service can help your persona achieve their goals will help properly target your content.

Learn How They Discover Information

Does your persona learn about information online, in person, or through newspapers or magazines? Who do they trust for valuable information: people they know or industry experts? Once you identify their most used channels, consider what specific publications and blogs they read. What associations and social networks do they participate in? Understanding the process your persona goes through to learn information will help you target your content to ensure that it’s part of their process. 

Consider How They Interact With Vendors

How does your persona research products and vendors? What do they want to get out of their sales process? Are they looking for simplicity and efficiency or a vendor that explains the little details to them? Do they favor a more formal interaction or a friendly face? Lay out a recent purchase your persona may have made, from the research stage, through the purchase, all the way to their evaluation. Understanding the persona’s purchasing process and what they like and don’t like will help ensure that your selling process matches up.

ImageWorks, LLC | CT Content Marketing Strategy

Buyer personas can be used to ensure any content you create is focused around the goals, pain points and interests of your target audience. A company with inbound marketing expertise can be especially helpful with developing marketing personas because they are usually already familiar with personas relevant to your industry.

We specialize in both responsive web design and ct inbound marketing, so you can merge your design and marketing goals together to create an appealing website that effectively draws in website traffic, converts leads into customers, and makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for and communicate with your company.