Identifying customer personas, and cataloguing the insights associated with them, is essential for targeting marketing and sales efforts in the most efficient and productive way possible. It prepares the business to most appropriately appeal to its prospective customers.
Here are the six essentials to successfully developing buyer personas for any business.
1.The audience basics.
It’s important to begin with basic audience demographics — age, gender, job title, and geographic information, as well as a clear understanding of the problem the audience is looking to solve.
2. How they buy.
What single factor influences potential customers the most as they decide whether to buy? Online research? Word-of-mouth from colleagues or friends? And how long will they take to make a decision? Or, is the audience prone to impulse decisions?
3. Why they buy.
What tips the audience into making a decision? Do they buy based upon price, or are they less price sensitive? What is the deciding factor for them? Is it utility? Is it design?
4. Their values.
Is the audience environmentally conscious? Do they place importance on social responsibility? When a company understands the prospective customers’ values, it can better align its offering with what the audience is trying to accomplish.
5. Differentiators.
It’s essential to understand the differences between prospects who take action and those who don’t. Making this distinction will prevent a business from spending too much time and energy chasing down potential customers or clients who were probably never serious in the first place.
6. Their personalities.
Finally, a business must evaluate the psychographics of the target audience. This has to do with the audience’s likes, attitudes, and opinions. Information like this will help create an understanding of the personality types and decision-making styles included in the audience.
Keep in mind that customer personas might change as a business evolves. It’s important to stay in touch with the needs of the audience over time.
If you’d like to learn more about customer personas, their development, and how they can help you better target communications to be more relevant to your customers and prospects, let us know.