Buyer Personas
What are buyer personas?
Buyer Personas are imagined and generalized representations of customers that you want to attract. These personas are created to better understand your customers (or potential customers). With these personas, the information gathered from research, surveys and interviews about customer needs, behaviors, and concerns can be developed and content can be tailored to their interests.
Why do we need Buyer Personas?
Buyer personas create a focal point for marketing strategies. An example strategy when sending out a email to all of your customers, would be to create email content tailored to their persona types. This method can help nurture your customer base and maintain a positive relationship with those clients.
Data Used to Create a Buyer Persona:
Research
Gather data on your contacts to discover trends about certain customers, and how they find and absorb content. Use and develop data gathered from your sales team on the customers they interact with the most.
Surveys
Use forms and surveys online and in person to gather customer data to develop personas. Some example questions: company size, social media usage, etc.
Interviews
Interview your customers either in person or on the phone to learn about what and why they like your product or service.
Persona Questions:
These questions and more are an important part to inbound marketing. To learn more about what information to research when creating a buyer persona or get a free persona template, check out
Lindsay Kolowich's blog post at Hubspot,
"20 Questions to Ask When Creating Buyer Personas"Who?
Personal Background: Job? Career Paths? Family: single, married, children? Education?
Job Background: Job title or role?
Demographic: Male or Female? Age? Income? Location?
Identifiers: Demeanor? Communication preferences?
What?
Goals: Primary goal? Secondary goals?
Challenges: Primary Challenges? Secondary Challenges?
What is a typical day on the job like?
- Skills: What skills are required to do your job?
Knowledge and tools that you use at your job?
What does it mean to be successful in your job role?
What are your favorite publications or blogs to read?
What social media networks do you associate yourself with?
What can we do: to help achieve goals and overcome challenges?
Quotes & Story
Quotes: encapsulate the attitude and thoughts toward the product or service. Problems they may be encountering and what solutions they need to solve those problems. Why they would/would not buy those products or services?
Story: Include behavior, and feelings. Life history. Their goals, how others see them in their job role, how they see themselves. Dreams and ambitions, what they want in their job role, what problems they are experiencing. Where they go online to learn new information about their industry. Personality type, strengths and weaknesses.
Other Questions
How do you prefer to interact with vendors? Online, in person? How much time is spent with the vendor?
Do you use the internet to research vendors or products? If yes, what areas do you search? Reviews, blogs, friends and family?
Describe a recent purchase. Why did you purchase that product or service? What was the process like when considering the purchase? How did you decide on your purchase or service?
To learn more about personas and create your own, visit
Hubspot's Blog to get your own
persona template.
