When it comes to marketing, the adage the more you know, the more you grow holds an immense amount of merit—especially when it comes to your ideal customers. Understanding who you’re trying to target can not only help you tailor your marketing efforts, but also increase your sales. And one surefire way to develop a clear understanding is by creating a buyer persona.

What is a buyer persona?

According to HubSpot, a buyer persona is defined as a “semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”

Ideally, a detailed buyer persona contains customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more thorough you are, the more effective your persona will be.

How can it help your marketing efforts?  

Consider this scenario. When you’re shopping for the holidays, who is it more challenging to find something for: your best friend or your distant cousin Ernie? More than likely, the latter. Simply because you know more about your best friend and have a general understanding of what they want. This same theory can be applied to your customers. It’s harder to sell your products and/or services to a potential customer whom you know little about. This is where a buyer persona can come into play.

Developing buyer personas will help you better understand your prospective customers. Which in turn will make it easier for you to tailor your content and messaging. Creating personalized content that resonates with your target audience can lead to more success with your marketing efforts.

How to create a buyer persona.

It’s best to start with your current customers. In fact, they can provide you with a wealth of knowledge. Consider looking through your database to uncover certain trends between different customers.

Next, take the forms that you use to capture information. Certain fields can help you collect vital persona data. This can include: gender, location, job title, buying motivation, and buying concerns.

Lastly, talk to your salespeople! They are the frontline to your prospects. See who they’re interacting with the most and what generalizations they can gather from who they speak with on a daily basis.

Keep this in mind.

When creating your persona, you must ensure that it reflects your actual customer and not just your ideal one. Sure, you can create a persona about a potential customer who desperately needs your products or services, but if this ideal person with these exact pain points doesn’t exist, then your targeting and efforts will be nowhere near as effective as you would hope.

What to include when defining your persona?

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Excluding location
• Interests
• Education level
• Job title
• Income level
• Pain points
• Buying motivation
• Buying concerns
• Online habits
• Media consumption habits

The takeaway

 At the end of the day, creating a buyer persona is one of the best methods to understand your ideal customers.