What’s a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a fictional and generalized representation of your ideal customer. You’ll use market research and information about your existing customers to build a persona.
Why do you need a buyer persona?
A buyer persona helps make your marketing efforts stronger and more effective. It’s tough to buy advertising space or write content when you don’t know who you’re talking to or where your ideal customer hangs out.
When you use buyer personas, however, you won’t be creating content for some nameless, faceless person. Instead, you’ll know exactly who you’re talking to, so you’ll be able to communicate more effectively and maximize your return-on-investment (ROI).
What should you include in a buyer persona?
When you’re first building your business, it can be challenging to develop a persona because you’ll have to guess some details and make assumptions. As you learn more about your customers and their motivations, you’ll be able to build a more realistic buyer persona. Market research can also help you build robust personas.
Include as much information as possible, like:
- age
- location
- gender
- income level
- education level
- job title
- relationship status
- interests
- favorite websites
You should also include their reasons for buying your products or services. Think about any questions or concerns they might have when shopping.
After you have all that information, give your persona a name and a face. You’ll feel like you’re talking to a real person when you’re writing your marketing content, which will make your content more personalized and meaningful.
Read also: 9 Reasons Your Small Business Needs Content Marketing
What if you want to avoid a type of customer?
You might realize that there are some types of customers that you want to avoid at all costs. Maybe they’ll waste your time with tons of questions about your product but have no real intention to buy. Or, they’ll end up returning everything. No matter what type of customer you want to avoid, you can build a negative persona for them.
A negative persona isn’t any different from your other buyer personas. It will help you craft marketing messages that discourage specific types of consumers from doing business with you completely.
When you know how to communicate with your ideal customer effectively, you’ll be more likely to attract shoppers who will keep coming back. Learn more about how to boost customer retention.
