A buyer persona is a research-based characterization that depicts a business’s target customer. It describes a business s ideal customers, how they use the product, what their challenges are, and how they make decisions. Also called audience or customer persona, it serves as a basis for creating content for targeting those customers. A buyer persona is not a real person, but a fictional character used to mirror various market segments using names that match each type of buyer.
Buyer personas are often part of the tech buying process.
Aside from assigning a name, buyer personas also have interests, demographic details, and behavioral traits with goals and buying patterns. This helps businesses craft marketing messages that directly target them and provide a guide from product development to brand voice in all social channels.
Questions that a buyer persona answers
Using a buyer persona for business helps answer a number of questions, including the following:
- What problems do customers need to solve, and how can a business contribute to the solution?
- How do customers prefer to be engaged in the sales process?
- What type of content will most likely get a response from a specific type of customer?
Benefits of buyer personas
Many businesses recognize the importance of using buyer personas for their marketing strategies. The benefits include:
Personas inform sales and marketing strategies
Buyer personas can shed light on who the target customers are and their goals and situations instead of businesses simply making assumptions about them. It helps businesses cope with the ever-changing buying behaviors of today.
Personas offers better performance results
Businesses that have used a buyer persona or have become customer and buyer-focused have consistently led competitors.
They help businesses become more globalized
Globalization is no longer reserved just for large businesses but is also something that small businesses can achieve too. Buyer personas help businesses cope with the competition and serve a wider and broader market.
Personas let businesses focus on what customers need
When businesses focus on what customers need, they can design their products to meet those needs. Buyer personas understand purchasing habits and various motivations that help businesses target customers appropriately.
