“Buyer persona” has become a recent buzz term, but it can be confusing figuring out what exactly a buyer persona is and how to create one. Not only do personas help internalize the ideal customer, they are snap shots of current consumers, which is imperative for developing content, product development, completing the buyer’s journey and any follow-up of a purchase or service. Buyer personas can easily be built with data a company already has, and once they are built, companies can begin to engage with their customers in the most optimal way.
According to HubSpot, a buyer persona is a “semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer.” That means it is a general summary of buyers based on data and research that most customers fall into in some way. Buyer personas are built on demographics like age, gender, annual income and preferred social media platforms. By building a buyer persona, a company gets a clear image of who they are catering to and how to interact with them going forward.
It’s important for companies to know their buyer personas because they provide an insight to what customers are thinking, saying and what content they’re visiting. It’s also an insight to the buyer’s journey and what impacts a buyer’s purchasing decision. When a company knows their buyers and how to help them, they can communicate to the best of their ability and build trust with their buyers, trust that competitors may not be able to gain. Building a buyer persona not only helps a company communicate with their buyers, it gives them a leg up over competition.
There are buyer persona generators all over the web, and while they can ask insightful questions, the best way to create buyer personas is to look inward at company analytics and reports. Contact databases are a great place to find trends among current customers. Tools like Google Analytics are useful for looking at demographics like age, gender and location. Social media platforms are also a beneficial resource. They show who is engaging, what platforms are most successful and how customers like to engage (comments, likes, reposts). There are a lot of helpful tools already within a company that can be utilized to build descriptive and accurate buyer personas.
Buyer personas are imperative for companies to have, but it is also important to know why they need buyer personas and how to build them. Buyer personas shed insight on who customers are and how best to reach them. Through reach, trust can be built and, along with a positive reputation, trust is one of the most important things for a company to have with buyers. Knowing how to generate a buyer persona in-house is the best move because it gives the most detailed description possible without excluding large demographics of buyers. With these tools, anyone can build their own buyer persona and improve customer experience. Get in touch with our team if you are interested in learning more about building buyer personas.
