Whether the world of marketing is something new to you, or you’ve been in the game for some time now, chances are you have heard of buyer personas. In case you’re not overly familiar with the concept, here’s a quick explainer: 

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional depiction of your business’ ideal customer. They are based on market research and real data about your existing customers. When creating buyer personas, it’s important to identify how your customers research and buy. When it comes to buyer personas, the more detailed you are, the more useful they will be.

OK, but why are buyer persona’s so crucial? How can they make or break your marketing strategy? Essentially, buyer personas provide in depth insight that will make sure your marketing efforts are aligned with what buyers are actually looking for. Buyer personas, help you decide where to focus your marketing effort. Why is this important? It’s important because it means your marketing will attract the people likely to buy from you with no precious time wasted on either end! 

A Deeper Look into Buyer Personas 

In basic terms, a buyer persona is a detailed description of the different types of people who buy, or should buy from you. By using this information and data and segmenting your buyers into different personas, you can begin to attract more buyers just like them through personalising your marketing messages.

Let’s look at a quick example. Say you run an online clothing store. The customers you have will all have their different reasons for choosing your store, based on their different needs. For example, some might appreciate the style of the clothes you sell, while others like the functionally and others might love your regular discounts. Here you can see we already have three different buyer personas: Stylish Sarah, Functional Fiona and Discount Daisy.  

Having different customer segments and knowing why these customers are attracted to your business are key to helping you more effectively target these groups with marketing messages that are important to them. If Discount Daisy is coming to your store for your great deals, it’s unlikely she’ll enjoy an email from you about the latest seasonal trends. However, if you targeted Discount Daisy with an email about your exclusive sale, chances are she’ll be on your website within seconds. 

The Success of Your Marketing Strategy Depends on Your Buyer Personas 

It doesn’t matter what industry you work in, or how big or small your business is, buyer personas work for every organisation. They helping you understand your customers better, which in turn helps you sell your product or service in a more effective way. If you can understand who your customers are, what they value and what their pain points are, you can better understand them and how your product or service adds value to their life. Here are just a few reasons buyer personas will help your business: 

• Identify the needs and wants of your buyers 
• Understand buying decisions
• Gain insight into their behaviours
• Publish targeted and relevant content
• Create segmented lists

How Your Business Will Benefit from Buyer Personas 

Do you ever wonder why your customers come to you and not your competition? How they found out about your business? Why they were attracted to you? The information they were looking for when carrying out research and making buying decisions? All of this information is key to a successful marketing strategy, helping you specifically target your marketing campaigns and offers to the right people. Here are three ways buyer personas are key to your marketing strategy. 

Understand your customer’s needs

Say for example you’re looking to buy the perfect gift for your partner. Of course, you know their needs and wants, the things they love or hate in life. Buyer personas are essentially the same thing. They help you better understand the needs of your customers – the things they want and would love. Also, understanding the needs of your customers can help you tailor your marketing strategy towards them, making sure your marketing messages and offers provide the information your buyers are looking for.

Know where they hang out online 

As you start to understand your buyer personas, you will also get a better insight into where they spend their time online. This means you’ll be able to determine where they go online to get their information and the social media networks they use the most to keep in touch with their friends and wider network. Knowing this information will help you target your content and promote it via a channel where your target buyer will see it. 

Create quality leads 

Buyer personas help you identify what interests your customers, what kind of content they’re searching for, and where you can find them online. But what does this mean and how does it help? Basically, it means you can now better cater your lead gen offers to what your buyers are looking for. Use words they use (not industry jargon) and provide the information they are looking for online. This insight in to buyer personas is an incredible opportunity to really stand out from the competition with relevant offers to generate quality leads.