What is a Buyer Persona, what is its importance and how to create it?

Regardless of the type of business you have, one of the first actions you must take is to define who you are selling to and you will achieve this by understanding what a Buyer Persona is, how to create it and how to use it in your marketing strategies.

The term “Buyer Persona” is used in the marketing world to refer to the person who buys, but generally, its meaning is not understood. By refining your message to what your customer is really looking for, you can make them see you as a supplier who reads their mind and can satisfy their needs.

Do you know the characteristics of the people who buy what you offer, and are your marketing efforts targeted to those people?

Here we will explain what a Buyer Persona is, its importance and how to create it.

What is a Buyer Persona?

A Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer. To create this representation, real data of existing customers and some assumptions are used. Its purpose is to gain a better understanding of the business objectives and to optimize marketing strategies.

When creating a Buyer Persona, factors such as demographic information, needs, beliefs, values, challenges, preferences, how they communicate, what affects them and where they look for information are analyzed.

Since the Buyer Persona is built from real information from current buyers, you will get to know what your potential customers want, think and do as they analyze the different options offered by the market.

What is the importance of the Buyer Persona?

In case you have doubts and wonder if the Buyer Persona is important, the answer is Yes! The most important benefits of the Buyer Persona are detailed below.

• Better understanding of your customers (real and potential), their needs, behaviors and requirements. This will allow you to better plan your marketing strategies.
• You will be able to make an excellent segmentation of all your customers, audience and contacts, which allows you to create personalized, more specific and precise strategies for each segment.
• Your customer service team will be more assertive and efficient. They will be able to address problems easily because they know the customer’s motivations and what they expect from your brand.
• Development of a coherent brand image, where everyone in your company expresses themselves with a common language with respect to buyers. The way of transmitting your brand image is unified.
• Improves communication and collaboration among team members, both during and after the creation process.
• Increases the likelihood that the right people will see the content developed to meet the needs of the target customer segment.
• By creating the Buyer Persona, you will know what you should do to help your potential customers.
• What kind of content should I create? What kind of material should I share?

What are the types of Buyer Persona?

You already know what a Buyer Persona is, but you have probably wondered how many types of Buyer Persona exist?

We can differentiate 6 types of Buyer Persona and knowing the characteristics of each type allows us to define the language and marketing strategies.

1. Decisive Buyer Persona

They are directors, managers, proactive people who are active and assertive problem solvers. They do not mind problems, they take risks because they want to achieve a goal, they want to win.

2. Collaborative Buyer Persona

They are discreet and diplomatic people who like to solve problems with other people. They are deliberative, discreet, diplomatic and adaptable.

3. Extroverted Buyer Persona

Creative, enthusiastic and extroverted people who like teamwork and for whom social interaction is a very important factor.

4. The skeptical Buyer Persona

They are introspective people who need time to trust people. They do not feel comfortable talking on the phone, preferring email messages.

5. Analytical Buyer Persona

The cautious analytical buyer is interested in statistical data from past experiences and likes to follow established rules. He/she will surely examine all information in detail.

6. Innovative Buyer Persona

This is a creative and informal person, with avant-garde ideas. Generally, he/she prefers new ideas and strategies regardless of customs and rules.

How to create a Buyer Persona in marketing

Now that you know the Buyer Persona concept, you can start increasing your potential customers through your marketing campaigns. You will have to be methodical and thorough with the analysis.

1. Select the right Buyer Persona creation tool for your business.

You can work with an Excel spreadsheet, but there are excellent tools to create Buyer Personas, such as the ones mentioned below in this article.

2. Defining details

You should explain to your collaborators what a Buyer Persona is and make sure they understand the benefits that will be obtained by creating it.

Then, prepare a list or survey with the characteristics, motivations, situations and problems you want to know about your Buyer Persona. Here are some key elements that can help you.

Personal / demographic information

• Age – What is the age range of my Buyer Persona?
• Gender – What is their gender?
• Location – Where were they born, where do they live?
• Interests – What interests them, what are their hobbies?
• Family status – Single, married?
• Language – What is their native language? How many languages do they speak?

Socioeconomic Status

• Education – What level of education have you attained?
• Work – What is your occupation and what is your level of responsibility?
• Income: What is your income range?
• Housing: Do you own or rent your home?

Motivations

• Purchase Motivation: Does my product meet a need? What motivates you to buy?
  Objectives: What do you want to achieve by buying my product?

Pain points

• Concerns: What concerns do you have?
• Challenges: Do you have challenges to meet?

3. Ways to get answers

Interview employees from each department in your company Talk to each of them to find out what they know about their customers. Talk to your sales team, they will give you the most valuable information.

Interview your best customers

Be guided by the details you defined and ask your customers: Why did they decide to buy from me? Why did they choose me as their supplier?

Research information related to your online marketing (actual and potential customers).

• Surveys and polls through Twitter and Instagram.
• Analyze your competitors’ social networks and websites.
• Email surveys to your marketing database.
• Research how users get to your website, which is the most visited page?

New businesses

If your business is new and you do not have a good database, you can rely on platforms such as SimilarWeb. With it, you will be able to analyze your competition and identify trends among other aspects.

Established companies

With free tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook Insights, you can obtain useful and detailed information about your audience.

4. Analiza los datos recopilados

Segmenta a tu audiencia

Tal vez tus clientes reales ya están segmentados pero si no lo están, llegó la hora de hacerlo. Ahora bien, además de segmentar a tus clientes, debes analizar los datos de la audiencia. Es decir, dividirla en grupos de acuerdo con los antecedentes, comportamientos, objetivos e información relevante para tu negocio. Generalmente, 3-5 segmentos son suficientes.

Develop messages for your Buyer Persona

Analyze how your company can help solve your Buyer Persona’s problems. How can we help him/her solve that thing that keeps him/her awake at night? How can we bring more benefit to his/her life?

Develop the language in which you will talk about your products with your Buyer Persona. Share the information with your team so that everyone has the same approach – now you can produce personalized advertising!

Tools to create Buyer Personas

There are many free and paid online tools to create Buyer Personas. Here is our selection.

Persona Generator is an editor that provides preset templates.

Uxpressia Persona Online Tool is an online generator. It is powerful and easy to use.

User Forge is an online Buyer Persona creator with which you can generate and share user stories and maps.

Xtensio User Persona Creator is an application that allows you to enter demographic data, goals, frustrations, biographies, motivations, preferred channels and brands of your Buyer Persona.

Tips and mistakes to avoid

• The more detailed and accurate information you have, the better and more effective your Buyer Persona and marketing strategies will be.
• Data is key in this process, the more data you collect about your audience the easier it will be to find a trend.
• Do not dismiss the negative Buyer Persona, that is, those you do not want as a customer. It will be a valuable way to know the reach of your product or service.
• After creating your Buyer Persona, you should update it frequently because your customers’ preferences may change as well as your company and your target market.

Conclusion

Understanding what a Buyer Persona is is something you will learn easily, but creating it is a long process and requires dedication. However, the ROI you will obtain will be significant. It is a rewarding process because the benefits derived are really satisfying.

And remember, to get an accurate Buyer Persona, you must take the time to research and analyze your customers carefully. You can make assumptions but most of the information should be supported by facts and data.