The Importance Of Buyer Persona For Targeting the Right People For Business Growth
Most business leaders agree that effective marketing is not just connecting with your audience but also knowing when and how to deliver messages that will move them emotionally. To do that, you need to understand your audiences.
No one buys a car without doing research, likewise, it would be foolish to develop a plan to communicate with your audience without doing research too. Knowing who your audience is and understanding what triggers them to buy your products is key to helping you build a content strategy that leads to desirable outcomes.
You need a strategy that reflects an understanding of your audiences’ concerns, content ideas that address their problems, and a channel strategy to communicate where, when, and how they want to consume your content.
To understand core customers, many companies create buyer (or customer) personas. Buyer personas help you to gain an understanding of your prospective buyers, making it easier to target your content, messaging, products and services to your ideal customer.
What is a Buyer Persona?
Buyer personas are fictional, broad characters who help you to define what your ideal and clients look like. They will typically include not just demographic information (age, location, income) but extend to psychographic information (interests, concerns, likes, dislikes, barriers to purchase) too.them
The most effective and efficient way to build buyer personas is to interview existing customers or prospective customers who have engaged with your products and services.
Encourage your past clients to share their story, of why they chose your product, and what worked and what didn’t work. Ask questions about their discovery process- how they found you, and what what their decision-making process to purchase your products.
Additional Questions To Be Asked
Priority: What is the most obvious reason that your prospective audience might use your product?
Success: What change or successful outcome will your audience expect by purchasing your product or service?
Barriers What is preventing your audience from considering your products or services?
Decision process: What are the specific features and benefits of your product, or service that your audience will consider as they compare competitors’ solutions?
Should I Have More Than One Buyer Persona?
Likely yes. Most companies have several types of potential customers. The more detailed and segmented the personas the better you will tailor your messaging. Audiences will only engage with content in which they see themselves, their problems, and potential solutions reflected back to them.
Conclusion
Buyer personas are no longer a “nice-to-have” as companies fight to connect with their audiences in a crowded and noisy marketplace.
Use them. Regularly update them to ensure they remain relavent as both buyer preferecnes and the marketplace change. Do this and you’ll find deeper engagement with your messaging, higher conversions, and deeper customer satisfaction.
