Running and marketing a company are two very different, yet closely related tasks. Marketing raises many questions, such as: where can you find new customers; what kind of people they really are; and how can you let them know that your company is the right choice for them?  This is where the so-called buyer personas come into play. 

This concept may not be new to you, but if you’ve heard of the term but don’t know exactly what it means, then that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about below! If you are interested in how you can define your buyer personas, join us in today’s blog post!

 What are buyer personas and how do they help in marketing?

A buyer persona is a representation of your average customer. It’s essentially a profile of a fictitious person who has a good chance of buying something from your business. Simply put, when it comes to your marketing strategy, a buyer persona is the profile of a fictitious person who has a good chance of buying something from your brand. The buyer persona represents your ideal customers. It includes who they are, what their habits are, what their needs are, what problems they face, and how they make their purchasing decisions.

A company can have several buyer personas at the same time who represent, for example, different age groups, genders, or other demographic groups. These customers evaluate a company’s offer based on different aspects and make their decision.

Why are buyer personas so important?

Buyer personas allow you to focus on your ideal customers in your marketing instead of trying to satisfy everyone at once, which let’s be fair,  is an impossible task. This may sound obvious in itself, but it is not necessarily as simple as you might first think. 

When most companies introduce themselves, the first thing they do is talk about what they do, not what the customer needs. However, this goes against the mindset of decision-making buyers. When a customer wants to choose a product or service, they will naturally be attracted to companies they know and trust.

If you want to gain this trust, how you present yourself as a company matters a lot. First, show your potential customers that you actually know and understand their wants and needs – this is the only way to get them to consider your brand as an option when they make their decision. The creation and continuous use of customer personas help you focus on the needs of your ideal customers so that you can stay on the right track.

 How are buyer personas used?

To create buyer personas, you first need to ask yourself detailed questions about your ideal customers, and this task alone can shed light on things you hadn’t even thought about before. You should also ask your colleagues these questions and then compare the answers you receive. This helps to shed light on different points of view, which can be useful on the one hand and also helps to synchronize them.

One of the main benefits of buyer personas is that they help gain insight into customers, and the other is that they help align the work of different departments. This means that marketing, sales, product development, and customer service will have the same idea of your ideal customers.

Each department can utilize this knowledge in different ways:

• Product development can use buyer personas when creating the product schedule. If they know your ideal customers, they will know what changes may be necessary and what new functions should be implemented as soon as possible.
• The marketing team can develop more effective strategies thanks to buyer personas. In marketing, it has always been important to know the people to whom the messages are addressed, and buyer personas offer exactly that. They help you decide what the message should be about, how it should be worded, where it should be distributed, in what formats, and so on.
• Salespeople can use buyer personas to build more positive relationships with customers. If they know the needs, fears, and preferences of potential customers, they will know how to talk about them and how to convince them.
• It is clearly important for customer service to be aware of the characteristics of the customers since they will be in contact with them most often.

 Is it worth dealing with buyer personas for a smaller company?

Based on all we have mentioned above, it is safe to say that buyer personas can be really useful for larger companies since they often have to meet several customer profiles. But what if someone is responsible for a company with a few people or works as an individual entrepreneur? Is it worth dealing with customer personas even then?

Yes! You also have customers that you want to satisfy in every way, so it’s good to know exactly what these customers are like. For example, let’s say you work as a designer and you also have a blog where you share design tips and other interesting content about your field. You’re certainly looking for clients who have design needs, but who exactly are they? Companies? Individuals? Entrepreneurs? The more questions you answer, the more accurate your buyer platform will be and the more targeted your blog content will be.

 How do I create a buyer persona?

Creating buyer personas will require internal and external research, and remember that some companies need to create multiple buyer personas to represent different customers. However, all this does not have to happen at the same time. First, collect what you already know about your customers and expand these fictitious profiles as you get to know them better.

 Find answers to the following questions:

• Who are my customers really? – gender, age, family status, place of residence, income, etc.
• What position can they hold? – workplace, career, community status, etc.
• What values do they think based on? – what they value, what is important to them in a product like yours, etc.
• What are their fears? – what concerns they may have about your product, what they base their decisions on, etc.
• What are their goals? – what their personal or work goals might be, which of these goals is more important to them, what obstacles hinder them from achieving their goals, etc.
• Where are they active? – what channels they prefer to use, how they communicate, how much time they spend on the Internet, what content they prefer, etc.

Once you have answered these questions (of course you can be more detailed than that), you are ready to create your first buyer persona. Such a persona can look different, but the point is to create a clear, transparent document (or even an infographic) about your ideal customer, which you can then share with your colleagues in digital or printed form.

Final Thoughts

Remember that this buyer persona can change and expand at any time, as you can find out new things about the specific customer type, and people’s buying habits tend to change as well. So try to check your personas again and again and update them with the most accurate information.