In marketing, there’s one rule that trumps all others: know your audience. Many marketers fail to truly understand who they are targeting, resulting in campaigns that flop. How can you ensure your marketing hits the bullseye? The answer is developing detailed buyer personas.
What is a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a fictional, generalized representation of your ideal customer. This includes relevant demographics, behaviors, goals, challenges, and concerns. An effective persona should be based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
The Importance of Accurate Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are like guides that lead your marketing strategy. They help you:
- Clearly define your target audience and who will benefit most from your product/service
- Create content that resonates with your audience and addresses their pain points
- Select marketing channels where your personas are most active
- Craft messaging that speaks directly to their goals and interests
- Develop products and services tailored to their needs
- Without buyer personas, you are essentially marketing blindly. You may completely miss the mark with your messaging and content. With well-defined personas, you have a clear picture of who you need to reach. All your marketing activities – your website, ads, emails, etc. – can laser target the right people.
Steps to Create Detailed Buyer Personas
Don’t rely on assumptions alone when building your personas. Follow these steps:
- Conduct audience research – Survey existing customers on demographics, behaviors, challenges, and goals. Analyze customer data and feedback. Observe them first-hand if possible.
- Identify key attributes – Look for trends and commonalities that define different audience groups. Include enough detail to form a clear picture.
- Give the persona a name and image – Adding concrete details makes the persona more lifelike and easier to visualize.
- Write an imaginary bio – Flesh out background details like job titles, education, family, hobbies, etc. Tell their “story.”
- Note marketing implications – Spell out what matters most to the persona and how to craft content and messaging that appeals to them.
- Hubspot has a pretty snazzy persona creator
The More You Know, the Better You’ll Connect
Developing buyer personas takes work, but pays off exponentially. You gain inside intelligence on what makes each audience tick. Your marketing becomes highly targeted and relevant. Over time, continue updating your personas with new data and insights. Strive to make them as realistic as possible. The more you know about who you are marketing to, the more successfully you can deliver messages that resonate. Buyer personas are the key to unlocking marketing that truly connects with your audience.
We are here if you need expert advice or if you would like us to tackle your persona definition. Contact us today to schedule a meeting with one of our Researchers.
