Buyer Persona 101
A buyer persona is much more than a description of a buyer. Any marketing expert can tell you that simple profiles result in too many personas to narrow your focus.
When you have detailed insight into what your buyers think about doing business with you, you can leverage into a powerful asset. When you know what people expect, you can play off that to align your marketing strategy accordingly. To build a comprehensive buyer persona ask the following questions.
Why do certain buyers invest in your product or service? Which buyers are satisfied with the status quo?
It’s important to understand the circumstances in which buyers are willing to give you’re their time, money, or assets to resolve an issue. For example, you could make the assumption that marketing executive’s think it’s a pain to generate marketing metrics and planning campaign automation. This is too basic. A buyer persona could tell you which market executives are most likely, or least likely, to respond to your solution and why.
What kind of results does the buyer persona expect to receive from purchasing a certain solution?
Success will depend on the benefits that you can offer your buyers. This needs to be very specific. Outcomes could include impressing clients, more exposure, or increasing ability in any way.
What kinds of reservation and/or concerns can cause your buyer to reject your solution as the best option?
You can ask this question to gain insight to help you understand negative perceptions of your brand or product. This often comes from negative experiences online, bad press or rumors. Once you answer this question figuring out how to counteract this negative publicity will be much easier. Examples of solutions to this problem can include adoption of new processes or the implementation of a marketing campaign with a new angle.
What is the buyer’s journey?
You can find out who or what is influencing your buyer’s opinions. This can be a valuable tool to help decide which buyers have the most impact to encourage other to use your product. Most buyer’s decisions have less to do with economics than you think. This question will help you prioritize marketing efforts for maximum efficiency.
What aspects of the competitions service, product, or solution does your buyer perceive as most important?
Answering this question can let you know what features or capabilities your buyer is influenced by. You can use the insight to focus your advertisement on what makes buyers choose your product. For example you can showcase that something is “easy to use” or “full of options” depending on what your target buyer is looking for.
Building a buyer persona isn’t just about finding out your customers habits to make more sales.
A buyer persona can tell you a lot about the behavior of your prospective customers as well as the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Get a glimpse of what your customers are thinking and doing gaining insight into how your buyers think. You can a buyer persona to build better products, refine your marketing strategies and connect with customers.
