What Is a Buyer Persona?

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of a company or organization’s ideal customer or client. It is a customer archetype. Buyer personas are created to help companies better understand who their customers are and what their needs are. Buyer personas allow you to create more precise marketing strategies.

Developing a buyer persona involves the construction of a profile or personification with the aim of synthesizing your end consumer’s traits, and understanding which customer segments you want to target. This is done in order to understand who is most likely to perform an action related to a product or service, and determine how to carry out marketing strategies to impact these people in a positive way.

This archetype can be created from collecting sociodemographic information and carrying out an analysis of customer behaviors, habits, attitudes, demands, and motivations. This information will be essential for reaching your target audience in the best way possible, as it allows you to offer them what they need based on the evaluation you have made.

How do I know who my buyer persona is?

The first thing you should do is some market research on the type of people who typically buy your products and services, taking into account both quantitative and qualitative aspects.

When it comes to this type of analysis, there are what’s known as hard and soft characteristics. Hard characteristics refer to general and more structured data such as age and geographical location. Soft characteristics have to do with tastes, interests, and practices that a person participates in on a daily basis. 

To make the most accurate possible portrait, we recommend asking yourself questions such as:

• What do they do?
• What industry do they belong to?
• What is their educational background?
• Where do they live?
• What daily challenges do they face?
• What solutions do they need?
• What questions or problems arise when they try to find or implement solutions?
• What activities do they like to do in their free time?
• What are their aspirations and motivations?
• What would they change about their jobs in order to be happier?
• What media and books do they usually consume?
• On which social networks are they most active?

The answer will give you more specific information, allowing you to create an increasingly clear profile.

We want to stress that the buyer persona is a representation. You create the profile of an imaginary person with an imaginary name and daily life. 

Unlike a buyer persona, the target audience does not have its own identity — it is a broader concept of basic characteristics such as age, geographic residence, and social class.The target or target audience is abstract and groups users together. The buyer persona seeks to create a real image of a person who we would want to consume and fall in love with our products and services.

Types of Buyer Personas

Purchase decision-maker: This is the person who makes the final purchase decisions — the most common type of persona.

Prescriber: This is a profile with authority that recommends a product. For example, the pharmacist who recommends one product over another, or a salesperson you ask to help you choose a product.

Influencer: Influencers are people who can make or break a third party’s willingness to buy. Famous influencers, who you should keep in mind for collaborations, fall under this category, since they influence the purchasing habits of their audience.

Advantages of Creating a Buyer Persona

• You develop in-depth knowledge of your ideal customer, helping you understand their needs, their problems, their consumption habits, their tastes, activities, and preferred purchasing methods, in order to better connect with them.
• You can improve segmentation and personalized content marketing campaigns, for better results. When you are aware of what language your audience speaks, what channels they consult, and what needs they have, your proposals will be much better-directed.
• You will know which spaces to invest in and which not to. You will not waste time in places where your potential clients are not present, resulting in more effective strategies and lowering the risk of wasting investment.
• It will allow you to optimize your resources. You will learn which actions to focus on and which ones to leave aside through developing an understanding of your customer’s pain points and their possible objections, and personalizing content in a more intelligent way. 

How to Create a Buyer Persona

Here are five steps to create your buyer persona. 

Step 1: Define your needs

At this step, you should be thinking about what kind of information you are going to need/what information you are interested in learning about your buyer.

The questions you ask should range from broader more general areas to personal issues.

Step 2: Collect information about your customers

Once you know what type of information you need, start collecting all the knowledge you can about your customers. 

Consult all the sources in which you might find information about them. Information can be found on platforms such as LinkedIn, or other social networks where your customer usually spends time. You can also read blog articles, attend webinars, or access other public resources, since they will allow you to see what content your persona is looking for.

Step 3: Use what you learned

Once all the information has been collected, it is time to create your buyer’s profile.

Identify potential misgivings that could come between your customer and your proposal, and determine how you could resolve these. In this step, you must have a clear understanding of your strengths and weaknesses in order to develop your strategy.

Step 4: Build your buyer persona

Design a fictitious portrait of your ideal customer in a clear and practical format that will be understandable for your team and the rest of the company. For example: you can create a model person, give them a name, display their data in a clear and orderly way, and describe their likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc.

Think about how that person moves through life on a day-to-day basis, and imagine the route that would lead them to your product. 

This buyer persona will be the model upon which you will base your communication and marketing campaigns. It will help you determine how to address your target audience, and how you will communicate with them. By learning about their tastes, needs, and what they want out of life, you will be able to create content that is relevant to them. You will speak to them in the same way in which they communicate with others, via the media they consume and participate in, and most importantly, you will speak to them about what they need and do not yet have.