3 steps on how to create a buyer persona for your business

Campaigns aimed at a well-segmented audience will always perform better than those without rigorous targeting. When you know the consumption habits and interests, but also the challenges of the audience you are addressing, you can personalize the communication and propose more suitable services and products. To get started with this strategy, it is advisable to start by sketching a buyer persona.

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional character that sums up the most relevant characteristics of your business audience. The goal is to create a realistic persona, as well as various persona profiles to cover all types of audiences. This way, you can create targeted campaigns that nurture your prospects to conversions.  

But how do you that? With a healthy mix of research, surveys, and interviews of your target audience.

    1.Identify the prospects and customers that could draw your person

Your database is very valuable for this step. Select from it the most relevant people in terms of loyalty, purchases, and behaviors towards your business. Analyze what they have in common. If you feel that a cold analysis is not enough, go ahead and contact them directly. You might get new information which can prove itself even more important than you thought.

Organize the information not only according to demographics, but also psychographics. You have to learn 5 main things about them: psychological and educational background, consumer behavior, relevant challenges in terms of your business’ industry, and personal goals that can relate to your products or services.

Gathering the information, you will come to the conclusion that there isn’t a universal buyer persona, but several profiles. And that’s ok. It’s time to create a buyer persona based on each set of main characteristics.

Depending on how narrow your research was and what type of industry you active on, you have to introduce another element into your mix: speculation. Analyze each type of profile you created and extrapolate its possible actions according to its data. Don’t stop here. Give it a name, lend it an identity inspired by your research. And you are almost good to go.

    3.Associate each persona with a buyer’s journey stage

Now it’s time to give the persona even more life. As you crafted it attentively, you need to identify one more thing: where does each persona find itself on the 3 stages of the buyer’s journey? 

Is it awareness, the stage where the persona just figured it might have a problem and started to think of possible solutions? Is it consideration, when the persona already defined its alternatives and is searching for the best one? Or is it a decision, the stage where your persona is ready to make a purchase and your sales team need to act quickly? According to these criteria, personalize the campaign for each buyer persona.

We use buyer personas all the time for our campaigns and we’d like to talk more on the subject. If you feel the need to take on an experienced partner along your way, let’s start a powerful campaign together!