If you’ve been anywhere close to the world of digital marketing in the last couple of years, you’ve probably heard of the term “buyer persona”. It’s become common parlance and it bandied about as if it’s as common term as ‘ice cream’ or ‘coffee’ are. However, not all people – be they in digital marketing, small business owners or freelancers – know exactly what it means.
What is a buyer persona?
The term ‘buyer persona’ refers to a complete representation of a user group’s demographics, psychographics, needs as well as irritants. Personas are used in digital marketing in order to answer questions regarding your customers. They guide your digital marketing efforts in the correct direction by providing clear as well as consistent frames of reference for everyone on your digital marketing team.
What are demographics
‘Demographics’ refers to the characteristics of entire human populations as well as population segments. Demographics are most commonly used to identify consumer markets. The most common demographic characteristics that small business owners and digital marketers need to be concerned with are:
- Age
- Gender
- Race
- Marital status
- Number of children (if any)
- Occupation
- Annual income
- Education level
- Living status (homeowner or renter)
What are psychographics?
In digital marketing, ‘psychographics’ refers to information such as your buyer’s habits, hobbies, spending habits and values. It is only possible to efficiently reach your target audience when you comprehend both their demographics as well as their psychographics. The combination of both sets of data starts to form your buyer persona – a detailed picture of the people you work with now and would like to work with in the future.
Why are buyer personas important?
Buyer personas assist with ensuring that all actions involved in obtaining as well as serving your customers are tailored to the targeted purchaser’s needs. This may seem quite simple; however this process is a tad bit more complicated.
If you truly pay attention to the manner in which organisations present themselves, you’ll begin to notice that many of these entities begin by speaking about what they do not according to what the customer needs. This puts these businesses at odds with the way people make decisions.
When making a choice about a product or service to buy, individuals naturally gravitate towards companies that they know as well as trust. The best way to build trust among potential customers and clients is to show genuine understanding as well as concern for them. Obtaining trust as a company requires a subtle, but significant, shift in the way in which you present yourself. First of all, you need to show your potential customers that you get them and understand their needs by addressing their pain points. Only then, will they be open to exploring what you have to offer.
Creating buyer personas, and continually using them to guide your business, can help keep you centred on the needs of your customers. You may think that you don’t require buyer personas as you already know everything that there is to know about your customers. While you may think this, you actually don’t. You are not your customer and this assumption can cost you. According to research, digital marketers who rely on their intuition underperform compared to their colleagues who create and use buyer personas.
Creating buyer personas necessitate that you interview your customers and purposefully study their needs, behaviours as well as expectations. Once you get insight into your customers, it is possible for you to better engage them with a more effective user experience. All of your customer touchpoints – including design, messages, content, offers and calls to action – will be optimised specifically for the customers you target.
