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What you should know about Buyer Personas

Posted by Jennifer Lauro

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May 26, 2015

What are buyer personas?

buyer_persona_picBuyer personas are essentially a detailed mock-up of what makes a target audience buying behavior. Every business has a target audience of people they are trying to reach out to and pull in. Buyer personas are how businesses know whom to target, and how to go about it. In other words they are the representations of the “right” customers for a business.  There is no correct amount to the number of buyer personas needed for your business. However, each business should have enough buyer personas to cover their target market.

Why buyer personas are important

 The way people buy has been changing and progressing drastically since the Internet age began. People no longer like to be sold, but rather scope out the best product on their own.  Today’s self-educated buyers are, on average, 60% of the way to a buying decision before they talk to a sales person. This statistic means that buyers already have the knowledge about the products they are interested in, and have for the most part made up their minds on whether to buy or not. Marketers need to get to know their target audiences on a one on one basis and speak their language. Knowing and utilizing the full background of a customer, what’s important to them, and understanding the challenges they face, can help marketers predict potential buying decisions. The whole point of creating these personas is to understand the buying decision-making process/behavior behind a purchase; therefore they need to be tailored to the correct possible buyers. With the data of these profiles, businesses can create relevant content with the buyer in mind, and have a greater chance of generating revenue.  

 How to create buyer personas

Creating buyer personas involves a substantial amount of qualitative research, because they are 100% research based. There is a lot of analyzing buying patterns that display who bought what, and why they bought that product or service. Also getting an understanding of who your buyer is, what they trying to achieve, and what goals do they have that is driving their purchase decisions. This data helps marketers understand how their customers think. To start, a business should do interviews of their already existing customers, former customers, employees, and be aware for similarities that create trends. Then with those trends create profile and specific examples to create a buyer persona. Next, use the buyer personas research and create a marketing strategy with the knowledge of what your customer wants to hear and see.

List of Topics to Cover 

Background: Where did they get educated, Relationship status, children, career, etc.

Demographics: Age, gender, Annual income, where do they live, what type of home?

Identifiers: What are they like? Hyper? Calm?

Goals: What do they want to accomplish, is it a business goal, a personal one?

Challenges: What gets in the way of them accomplishing his or her goals

Fears: What are they afraid of, and how will that affect their buying decisions?

How we help: How can your business benefit this person?

Possible Objections: What are the common reasons for them to not want to buy your product and or service?

Hobbies/Interests: What is this person interested in? What do they do on the daily?

 Buyer personas are the profiles of your target audience that gives you a clear idea of how to map out your marketing strategies. They allot you with all of the knowledge about your target audience(s), and most importantly what they want to accomplish. Using buyer personas research helps create successful marketing strategies and content. Understanding your business’s Buyer persona(s) are a necessity in this modern technology ambitious world.

Inbound Marketing Philadelphia, PA

Topics: Inbound Marketing

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