Buyer persona - What? Why? How?

Look before you leap - This proverb emphasizes the need to be aware of the consequences and risks before initiating any action. It says you must be aware of what you are doing and you should be clear about the effects.

This applies to anything and everything that we do. Including inbound marketing. We all know that inbound marketing is the process of pulling customers to the business with content marketing, social media marketing, blogs, PPC etc.

Before initiating inbound marketing activities, you must know what the expected behaviour from the buyer is?

Can you predict the buyer’s behaviour without understanding him?

No, You can’t. So, Here comes the picture of a buyer persona!

Read more to know what buyer persona is? Why do we need it? And How do we create it?

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is a generalized and semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer for your business based on market research.

Why do we need a buyer persona?

• It can help us with a better understanding of the target customer/prospect.
• It is easy to segment the customers based on the interests with the help of the buyer persona. So, we can generate highly optimized and personalized content based on the insights from this buyer persona.
• Importantly, we can identify the negative personas. Negative personas are the people who are not a good fit for our business.

Example,

If you target people who visit your website, then these people may be included in the negative buyer persona.

1. a professional who visits only career page,
2. the student engages with your content for knowledge and research purpose.

Because these people are not going to give business to you.

We can exclude negative buyer personas from marketing activities to save time and effort.

How do we create it?

Now, we know what buyer persona is? And why do we need it? Let’s learn to create a buyer persona.

Follow the below steps to create a great buyer persona:

1. Identify the customer/prospect
2. Collect data
3. Segment
4. Create a  persona
5. Engage with buyers
6. Implement and adjust

Identify the customer/prospect

It is obvious that to create a buyer persona, we must know who the buyer is.

Identify the type of person you want to do business with. Then create a buyer persona for them with relevant information. And also Identify the kind of person you don’t want to do business with. Then create a buyer persona for those people with relevant information.

Both types of personas will be useful to optimize your marketing efforts and save time and energy.

Collect data

Data can be collected using the following methods

1. From the database
2. Interviews

2.1.  In-person interviews

2.2. Telephonic interviews

1. CRM system
2. Reports
3. Survey
4. Lead Gen forms etc

The data should include the buyer's demographics, company details, goals, challenges, interests, behavioural aspects, objections etc.

Segment

After collecting the data, analyze it. And identify the trend or pattern.

Finally, segment the buyer personas based on the pattern/trend.

Create persona

Now, all the required data are collected and segmented. Next step is to record all the collected information in a proper template. You can use your own custom template or many freely available templates. The template is from Hubspot.

Your buyer persona should answer all the below questions in detail.

• Who is the buyer?
• What is their need/problem?
• Why they need our services?
• How can we help them to solve their problem/need?

Images: Hubspot

Engage with buyers

Creating the right buyer persona is just a good start. But, it is more important to engage with the buyers who align with your buyer persona.

Different buyers may have different needs. Buyer persona can highlight those details effectively. You can send personalized and optimized content to nurture your prospects based on their persona.

Implement and adjust

Implement your marketing strategies based on the buyer persona. Monitor the performance.

Based on the performance and need;  create, delete, or modify the buyer persona as well as the marketing strategies.

Remember, buyer behaviour is dynamic, so the buyer persona should be adjusted accordingly.

To conclude, buyer persona creation should be the first step in inbound marketing. Identify your buyers and collect data. Based on the collected data segment the personas then create a buyer persona. Engage with prospects with relevant content. Finally, implement and adjust the buyer persona based on buyer behaviour. Continuously, Pull them with your personalized content to your business.

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