As a business owner, it is important to keep your customers at the forefront of your mind and make sure you’re adapting to their needs. But do you really know your customers? Do you have any idea who the ideal customer for your products or services is? Since they are the foundation of how your business approaches sales and product innovation, it can be very harmful if you don’t clearly understand your buyer persona. So today, we will break down what a buyer persona is and what you as a business owner can do to best meet their needs.
First things first, if you’ve never created one before, a lot of you are probably asking, “What is a buyer persona?” It’s a fair question and an important idea to understand, so let’s define this crucial element. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on actual data and some select educated speculation about customer demographics, behaviors, motivations, and goals.
Basically, a buyer persona is the concept of a person who would be the best audience for a product or service offered by you, which you create by 'getting in their head.' The ‘facts’ about them help you determine the best way to communicate your intentions to them. For example, here at Web and Marketing Bureau, our buyer persona is named ‘Business Bob,’ and "he" is a blue-collar, family man in his early 20s to 50s, looking for the best resources to move his construction company forward.
Keeping this in mind when we’re coming up with new ways to improve our services and promote our business, we do so according to the ideal we laid out in our buyer persona. If you don’t have an ideal customer, how will you know what to say to them or what they’re looking for when they come to you? For example, suppose your ideal customer is named Jenna and has a family of six in the Central Plains. In that case, you won’t try to connect with her the same way you would a CEO in New York that wants to form a new business partnership for Internet security.
Knowing whom you’re reaching out to matters for both you and your potential customers. Shaping and adapting your sales and marketing tactics to be directed at a specific customer group and their needs will improve your efforts immensely.
If you don’t have a buyer persona created for your business yet, here are a few things you should consider to get started.
- Consider who would best benefit from your product or service. What do they like? What might their name be? Age? Hometown?
- Do research on the search trends and product questions for this customer model.
- Craft some example outreach methods that this type of customer might respond to.
- Practice how you would pitch your product or service to this person.
If you still feel unsure about how to get started with your buyer persona, not to worry! We have a buyer persona template that you can use to fully draft out your company’s ideal customer available to download.
Even if you have a buyer persona sorted out, try using the steps above to see if anything about your buyer persona has changed and if this will affect your efforts. People’s needs are constantly changing, so make sure your buyer persona guidelines are up to date and that you are making strides forward to best serve your customers. Everything you and your company do is for your customers, so make sure you keep them and their needs in mind when deciding how to go about marketing and product innovation.
Ask yourself, “Are the marketing strategies still relevant to who we're trying to reach?” If you answer “no,” you need to rethink the interests of your ideal customer and shape new marketing strategies to follow along with these new ideas.
Your buyer persona is a key marketing idea to help shape and direct your business’s sales and customer service into a practical and concise strategy for the best possible customer experience.
