Do you know who your business is targeting? And if so, how much do you know about them?
In last week’s blog post we asked ourselves “how can I generate leads now?” and learned that in order to answer this question, we first need to create our target buyer persona. So now I’m going to help you do just that.
What’s a buyer persona?
Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on data and research — which help you focus your valuable time on the most qualified prospects for your business.
They also help to guide product development to suit the needs of your target customers. This means you’ll be able to target and attract high-value visitors, leads, and customers to your business that are more likely to stick around.
You might have a bit of an idea of who your target market is already! For example, you may know your target buyers are manufacturers. But do you know what their specific needs and interests are?
Having deep understanding of your buyer persona(s) is critical to driving content creation, product development, sales follow-up, and really anything that relates to customer acquisition and retention.
“Okay, I get it — personas are dead important to my business. But … how do I actually make one?”, you say.
The good news is they are quite easy to create. You just need to collate your market research and customer data and then present that information within your business.
The great news is we’ve made it even easier by offering a free template you can use! Download our ‘Who am I targeting?’ template to make this process easier, and before you know it, you’ll have complete, well-planned buyer personas to refer back to it each time you’re writing an email, creating a piece of content, or finding prospects to speak to.
But before we dive into the buyer persona-creation process, let’s first understand the impact of well-developed buyer personas on your business and marketing efforts.
Why exactly are buyer personas so important to your business?
Buyer personas help you understand your customers (and prospective customers) better.
And of course, this will make it easier for you to tailor your content, messaging, product development, and services to meet the specific needs, behaviours, and concerns of your target.
What is the typical background of your ideal buyer? What’s going on in their industry right now? What pain points do they currently have? How do they like to be contacted? Where do they go to for information? What are their blockers?
In order to get a full understanding of what makes your best customers tick, it’s critical to ask these questions and develop detailed personas for your business.
The strongest buyer personas are based on market research as well as insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.).
Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas, or as many as 10 or 20. But if you’re new to personas, start small — you can always develop more personas later if needed.
How can buyer personas be used in sales and marketing?
Simply put, they should actually drive your sales and marketing activities. Developing personas allows you to fundamentally create content and messaging that appeals more to your target audience. It also can help you think about tailoring your messaging to different segments of that audience depending on their specific pain points.
For example, instead of sending the same lead nurturing emails to everyone in your database, you can segment by buyer persona and tailor your messaging to what you know about those different personas.
Likewise, when combined with the lifecycle stage (i.e. how far along someone is in your sales cycle), buyer personas also allow you to map out and create highly-targeted content.
Now, let’s crack on with the good stuff.
How to Create Buyer Personas
Buyer personas can be created through research, surveys, and interviews — all with a mix of customers, prospects, and those outside your contacts database who might align with your target audience.
Here are some practical methods for gathering the information you need to develop personas:
- Look through your contacts database to uncover trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content.
- Use form fields that capture important persona information when creating forms to use on your website. For example, if all of your personas vary based on company size, ask each lead for information about company size on your forms.
- Consider your sales team’s feedback on the leads they’re interacting with most. What generalizations can they make about the different types of customers you serve best?
- Interview customers and prospects to discover what they like about your product or service.
How can you use this information?
Once you’ve gone through the research process, you’ll have a lot of raw data about your potential and current customers. But what do you do with it?
Use our free, downloadable persona template to organize the information you’ve gathered about your persona(s). Then share it with the rest of your company so everyone can develop an in-depth understanding of the person (or people) they’re targeting every day.
Here’s how to work through the steps involved in creating your buyer personas in more detail.
- Fill in your persona’s basic demographic information.
Ask demographic-based questions over the phone, in person, or through anonymous online surveys.
It’s also helpful to include some descriptive buzzwords and mannerisms of your persona to help sales teams identify certain personas when they’re talking to prospects.
- Share what you’ve learned about their motivations
What keeps your persona up at night? Who do they want to be? How can you help them? Use the information you gathered in interviews to answer these questions.
- Help your sales team prepare for conversations with your persona.
Include some real quotes from your interviews that demonstrate what your personas are concerned about, who they are, and what they want. Then create a list of the objections they might raise, as well, so your sales team is prepared to address those during their conversations with prospects.
- Craft messaging for your persona.
Outline how to talk about your products and services with your persona, so everyone in your company speaks the same language when they’re having conversations with leads and customers.
This includes the specific vernacular you could use in your communications, as well as a unique selling proposition that conveys your value to your target persona.
Oh, and make sure you give your persona a name like ‘Finance Manager Margie’, ‘IT Ian’, or ‘Landscaper Larry’ so everyone in your business internally refers to your persona(s) the same way.
NOTE: You don’t have to choose alliteration for this name, but who am I to spoil the fun?
How to Find Interviewees for Researching Buyer Personas
Creating your buyer persona(s) means seeking out people to speak with to help you figure out who they are. Because if you just take a stab at your ideal personas based on who you think they are, it’s not going to be a wholly accurate reflection.
The best practice is to conduct some interviews to get to know what makes your target audience tick. Here are some tips to finding interviewees for this part:
- Use your current customers.
Your existing customer base is the perfect place to start with your interviews because they’ve already purchased from you. At the very least, some of them are likely to exemplify your target persona(s).
However, no matter how much of an ego-boost you need, try not to just talk to people who love your product and want to spend an hour gushing about how great you are. Customers who are unhappy with your product or service are also worth speaking to, as they’ll help you understand their pain points better so you can improve.
Another benefit to interviewing current customers is that you might not need to offer them an incentive to do so…
No seriously, it’s okay… put the gift cards down — customers often like being heard! And interviewing them gives them a chance to tell you about their world, their challenges, and what they think of your product.
Customers also like to have an impact on the products they use. So, as you involve them in interviews like this, you may find they become even more loyal to your company.
When doing these interviews with customers, be sure to go back to the very start of the relationship to understand what drove the initial project, how did they shortlist your company and the main reasons for selecting a supplier.
Be clear that your goal is to get their feedback, and that their feedback is going to help you help them better in the future.
- Use your prospects.
Interview people who haven’t yet purchased your product and even those who don’t know much about your brand, as well.
You can slip your questions into the conversation when you call them, or you can add them to your forms on your website. As long as you have their answers recorded somewhere, you can use them to figure out more about your buyer personas.
- Use a lead-generation partner
If you need help getting this done, Shortlist’s trusted lead-gen experts can represent you in finding, interviewing, qualifying and setting appointments with people, so you can spend your valuable time and effort on converting.
We’ll uncover things like:
- What’s happening in your target persona’s industry right now
- How the pandemic and Brexit is affecting them
- What their specific challenges are
- Which businesses within that industry are still buying
- And how best to help them.
Book a free 1-hour lead-generation review right here.
20 Questions to Ask in Persona Interviews
These questions are the fundamental ones that our partner HubSpot suggests to ask during a persona interview, but we’ve also added a few extras that we know are immensely helpful, especially right now during the pandemic.
- Role Questions
- What is your job role? Your title?
- How is your job measured?
- What does a typical day look like?
- What skills are required to do your job?
- What knowledge and tools do you use in your job?
- Who do you report to? Who reports to you?
- Company Questions
- In which industry or industries does your company work?
- What is the size of your company (revenue, employees)?
- Goal Questions
- What are you responsible for?
- What does it mean to be successful in your role?
- Challenges Questions
- What are your biggest challenges?
- How has COVID-19 affected your business?
- How has BREXIT affected your business?
- Watering Hole Questions
- How do you learn about new information for your job?
- What publications or blogs do you read?
- What associations and social networks do you participate in?
- Personal Background Questions
- Describe your personal demographics (if possible, ask their age, whether they’re married, and if they have children).
- Describe your educational background. What level of education did you complete, which schools did you attend, and what did you study?
- Describe your career path. How did you end up where you are today?
- Shopping Preference Questions
- How do you prefer to interact with vendors (e.g. email, phone, in person)?
- Do you use the internet to research vendors or products? If yes, how do you search for information?
- Describe a recent purchase. Why did you consider a purchase, what was the evaluation process, and how did you decide to purchase that product or service?
- The “Why?” Question
You’ll always learn more by simply asking, “why?”.
“Why?” should be the follow-up question to pretty much every question in the above list because the truth is, people aren’t always great at reflecting on what drives them at their core.
For example, learning that your target persona has a certain business process in place is great, but to help you truly understand their goals, behaviours, and drivers, you need to know why they chose this specific process.
Start with a simple question like “What is your biggest challenge?”. Then, spend time delving deeper into that question to learn more about that person.
Create Your Buyer Personas
What are you waiting for? Start improving reach, boosting conversions, and increasing loyalty tomorrow by creating your buyer personas today.
