How to Develop a Buyer Persona

Whether you are a B2B or B2C business, your success depends on the people who are purchasing your product or service. Your clients are just as diverse as their perspectives, needs and wants. This is why it is important to know who these clients are so you know how to best reach them. Before you can decide how to market your product or service, you need to develop a buyer persona – a model or prototype of your ideal buyers. To do this you must ask yourself a few key questions and do some research to find the answers:

Who? Who are your ideal prospects based on demographics? Where do they live? What is their income? Their age? Relationship status? Do they share hobbies or interests, motivations or attitudes?

Where? Where are your clients geographically? Where are they digitally? Where and how do they search for information? What social media channels are they using, if any? Where and how do they shop?

What? What do your potential clients want or need? What are their greatest challenges in obtaining it? What objections or other barriers might they bring up during the sales process?

How? How does your product or service satisfy your prospects’ wants or needs? How can you best communicate to your prospects the benefits of your product or service? How will you best utilize marketing content and methods to engage potential clients?

Personas can involve a great deal of time and research, but they help ensure that your marketing strategies will be effective and make the greatest impact on sales. One survey of marketers revealed a strong relationship between buyer persona research and campaigns with 85% of the respondents using buyer personas for content marketing messaging.  The more research you do, the better you will be able to reach potential clients in a way that will resonate with them.

To reach your prospective clients is the beginning of a mutually beneficial relationship.