“Who’s your buyer persona?” If you’re a business owner, you’ve probably already heard that question a hundred times over.
When you started your business, you likely took into account your target market and what ideal customers behave. Now that you know your target market and have most likely collected some data from your customers, it’s time to create one or two buyer personas.
Keep reading to learn about buyer personas, why you need one, and how to create one.
So, What Exactly is a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona, often referred to as a customer persona, is defined by Hubspot as, “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.” Your buyer persona(s) should be as detailed as possible. So much so that your hypothetical customer has hypothetical thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The more detailed you are in creating a persona, the better your marketing efforts will perform.
Why Do I Need a Buyer Persona?
The persona you create will help your marketing efforts go a long way. The reason why they’re so important is that your marketing team can tailor everything they do to your ideal customer. You might think, “how is this different from identifying my target market?” However, a persona allows a marketer to step into the shoes of your ideal buyer and think, “If I were [insert customer persona here], would I visit this website, click on this ad, read this blog, and ultimately buy this product or service?” As SocialMediaToday puts it, “Buyer personas help businesses understand and empathize with their customers so they can do a better job of acquiring and serving them.”
Creating a Buyer Persona
Depending on your business, you may need more than one persona to work with. For example, a clothing company that sells both men’s and women’s clothing will have at least two personas to work with, one male and one female.
To create a persona, you want to start with the data you’ve collected on your consumers. When looking through your data, pick out things like:
- Gender
- Age
- Location
- Economic status
- Relationship status
- Career and education level
These are all demographic-based questions that you can start with to understand who is your ideal customer. Then you’ll want to consider more behavioral questions like:
- Hobbies and interests
- Stage of life
- Pain points and needs
- What motivates them?
- What goals do they have?
And the last thing you should do is give your persona a name. The more life-like you make your customer persona, the better.
Here’s an example of a customer persona for a company that specializes in gaming computers; the buyer’s name is Techy Thomas:
- A male
- He is 28 years old
- He lives in Seattle, Washington
- He’s a software engineer with a bachelor’s degree
- Married with no children
- Upper-middle-class
- Enjoys video games, science fiction, and food (he would consider himself a “foodie”)
- Plays video games as a way to relax after work, but primarily plays on the weekends
- Prefers gaming on the computer over a game console
Obviously, we could have gone into more detail, but you get the gist, right?
Use REVITY For All Your Marketing Needs
At REVITY, we’ll start with helping you identify your buyer persona and assist you in reaching any of your marketing and brand goals. With teams specializing in social media, paid advertising, content, search engine optimization, and website design, REVITY does it all. Whether your a local Utah company or halfway across the world, we can help you develop and maintain the brand that you envision for your company. Contact us today for a free quote!
