You as a business owner know your services by heart and understand the problems you’re looking to solve. But, do you have a firm grasp on your audience and their needs? Buyer personas can help you gain a greater understanding of your customers and improve your marketing, sales approach, and even the products you offer.
Buyer personas help you to identify the customer you want to help
What are buyer personas? They are hypothetical snapshots of your customers that you create through data and research. These snapshots are meant to help you paint a more detailed picture of your customers to better target your marketing and services.
After creating buyer personas for your customers, you can use the information to hone your marketing messaging to identify with your customers on a deeper level. You can also make decisions about your sales process to create a better experience for your customer and close more sales.
What should you know about your ideal customer?
Ok, you now know why buyer personas are a powerful tool for business growth. But, how do you know what questions to ask and what information is important for identifying your ideal customer?
Let’s say you’ve identified your target customer as a bride. That’s great, but do you know the specific wants and needs of the different types of brides you see come into your shop? What are their similarities and differences? Can you see similarities between some of them in your customer data or from your pre-selling strategy?
Here are some types of information that will help you create effective buyer personas:
- Demographic information
- Location information
- Likes and dislikes
- Goals
- Roadblocks that your customer experiences trying to achieve their goal
- Possible objections they could have to buying your products
How to Create Buyer Personas
The most accurate way to create your buyer personas is to use information gathered through insights you gather from your past customers. You can also gather information about your local market to determine price point and demographic info.
Ways of Performing Buyer Persona Research:
- Send a survey out to past customers asking about their shopping experience and demographic information. Make the survey anonymous or offer a small giveaway incentive to participate so you have a decent number of responses. This could also be a good opportunity to improve your experience!
- Review your customer data to identify trends such as items purchased, where your customers are from, average price point, and how your customers found you.
- Ask your sales team if they can identify trends in the customers they work with to find commonalities. Your sales team is a great resource for learning more about your customers!
Create your first buyer personas using our free Client Avatar Workbook download!
