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I have noticed over the years that a lot of marketers very easily skip adding a buyer's persona in their campaign plan and the usual reason is - we know our customers, hence don’t have to add it for every plan. Fair enough. But a buyer's persona is not just a good to have feel good factor but an absolute essential while drafting every single aspect of your plan, right from channels of promotion to tone of voice to key campaign offer. Having the right thing to say at the right time and place to the right person is what makes a campaign effective. And if it's not given the importance at the beginning, one can continue digging deep into data and ‘optimize’ campaigns but it won’t solve the problem of fundamentals not being right.
What is Buyer’s Persona?
It describes who your ideal customers are, what are their challenges, what are their motivations, where do they live, what are their goals in life and so on. It’s very common to have multiple buyer’s persona for business and it helps companies understand their clients and empathize with them.
Why is Buyer’s Persona important?
One of the most important objectives of a buyer's persona is to make sure all your marketing activities are tailored to their needs and talks to them in a way that makes it receptive. Now it sounds like a no brainer, but is it?
You will notice that a lot of companies start their communication with what they do and not what the customer wants. This makes it a one-way conversion - not very ideal if you want your customer to engage with you.
See the difference in this sample email sent to teachers for an educational product:
SAMPLE A
Dear Teachers,
ABC brand offers you a free 30 day trial for their classroom management software - XYZ. ABC is a global leader in providing world class education platform and classroom management software to over 100,000 teachers across the globe. Join us today and experience the difference.
SAMPLE B
Dear Teachers,
It's the start of the school session and with all the planning and water tight schedules, we understand how overwhelming things can get. Let us help you make your class more fun, organise assignments easily and improve performance.
ABC is a global leader in providing world class education platform and classroom management software to over 100,000 teachers across the globe. Get the ABC advantage and be the teacher you have always wanted to be - fun and inspiring!
Notice how email Sample B starts by acknowledging the issues teacher's face on a day to day basis and plugs-in its product by saying its there to solve these problems. That’s the sort of difference Buyer’s persona can make if you keep it readily available and refer to it before making any decision.
How to make a Buyer’s Persona?
There are numerous online tools available to help you with it which I will link down below. But before you go to any of those and make life a little more complicated than you want, try answering these simple questions:
Age
Gender
Location
Job / title/ career path
Marital status and children
Which social media platforms are they on?
Where do they get their information from? Online and offline
What are their goals in life?
What are their challenges?
What motivates them?
These set of questions can be a good starting point and then you build on it.
Some readily available free tools to get you started:
Do remember that a buyer’s persona is not a static document. Keep finding out more about your audience and keep building it to stay as relevant as possible.