You might think you know your audience, but have you identified what makes them actually buy? This article helps you write buyer personas that will guide your future marketing.
Buyer personas, sometimes called customer avatars, are a way for you to segment your audience into the different types of people who might be buying from you.
They can be businesses (B2B) or end users (B2C), but at the same time, they are all people who have specific pains, problems, fears, wants, needs or desires that your business can help with.
Why you need buyer personas
Having a set of buyer personas for each product or service within your business helps you to identify with those people and keep a focus on what it is they’re looking for. Buyer personas help you to:
Position your marketing or sales content: Position your product/service at the same level as your customer, demonstrating your expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness in the same language of your ideal customer, using the platforms they use.
Build trust: By demonstrating the above, your customers will come to understand and trust that you care about their needs. Speaking to each persona individually lets them know you are thinking about them…
Develop products or services: As you look into who your ideal customer is, you may discover you can expand your range to better suit them. You may also discover a new type of buyer…
Improve customer experience: If you know everything you can about your customers, you will be able to identify what more they need from you in the form of added value, and when best to make light touches along their buyer journey.
How to create a buyer persona
The idea is to understand the people who are buying from you and what their emotional drivers are, so that you can convey the benefit of buying from you with clarity. The following list of questions may help:
• What are their demographics: Age, marital status, education, affluence, post code?
• Do they live in a house, bungalow, flat or canal boat?
• What do they do for fun?
• What do they read, watch and where do they hang out online?
• What are their goals for life/work?
• What keeps them up at night?
• What gets them out of bed in the morning?
It may also help to know that the three main emotional drivers of all buyers are:
1. Money
2. Time
3. Status
Identifying which emotional driver best motivates your buyer to solve their pain, problem, fear, want, need or desire helps you craft a message - be it on your website, advert or social media.
I hope this helps, and remember, if you sell to everyone, you sell to no one, so get specific!
Mike Foster
The Entrepreneurs Mentor
