Five Easy Steps to Create Buyer Persona for Your Business

Implementing marketing strategies without the consideration of a buyer persona is like shooting in the dark randomly and expecting to hit the bullseye.

That’s why it’s important to create a buyer persona for your business first. It can help you target the right customers, thereby doubling the ROI of your marketing efforts.

“Basing your work on buyer personas prevents you from sitting on your butt in your comfortable office just making stuff up, which is the cause of most ineffective marketing,” says David Meerman Scott, the author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

However, creating a buyer persona for a business is a painstaking task. Sometimes, businessmen, don’t have any clue where to start.

If you also feel the same, this post will help you understand the buyer persona-creation process effortlessly.

Being a content marketer, I often create buyer personas for my clients. I have divided the process into five practical steps.

Without further ado, let’s dive in.

1- Pick a Detailed Buyer Persona Template

Finding a buyer persona template shouldn’t be a difficult task. There are tons of templates on the web, and you can easily pick a template based on your requirements.

Many of these templates have only basic information, such as job title, demographics, goals and challenges, etc; while some templates can accommodate detailed information.

I’d suggest that you should go for a detailed template that not only includes basic information like job title and demographics, but also ropes in personality details, such as hobbies, goals, challenges, blogs they read, and where they hang out for fun, etc.

Remember, there is no one-for-all kind of template.

Many times, I’ve to customize templates to make them perfect for my clients. So you should choose a buyer persona template based on your requirements, and make necessary changes if the template cannot accommodate the needed information.

2- Consider Your Target Audience

After picking a template, the next task is to fill it with accurate information.

Would you fill the template with the random information?

Of course, not!

You should turn to your target audience to find the relevant information for your buyer persona template. As a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer and this ideal customer comes from your target market, you should have a thorough understanding of your target audience. Only then, you can create a detailed buyer persona for your business.

3- Begin with the Obvious

You have an in-depth understanding of your target audience. This means you have basic information about your buyer persona at hand, and you don’t have to go to your prospects to gather this basic information. You should start filling obvious information, such as gender, age, annual income, and occupation into the buyer persona template.

Google Analytics can help you get a useful insight. Go over to the Audience Insight Tab. Here you can find data about demographics, Interests, and Geo. Export relevant data from audience insight tab to your buyer persona template. Facebook audience insights can also be useful in unlocking buyer persona.

Many times, visiting forums and review websites related to your business can be good sources to collect useful information for building a buyer persona.

4- Know the Unknown

You cannot be aware of the goals, challenges, values, fears, hobbies or any other minute detail about your buyer persona unless you go to them. To know the unknown, you will have to reach out to your prospects and customers.

Surveys, interviews, and website forms are the best way to gather useful information for creating buyer persona.

Here are the top three tips for recruiting interview with prospects and customers:

• You should offer some incentive for the participation
• Assure them that it is not a sales call
• Make it easy for interviewees to participate.

5- Learn from Your Competitors

Can keeping tabs on your competitors help you build a buyer persona?

The answer is Yes.

Even if you thoroughly interviewed your prospects and take the help of Google analytics to get the insight of your prospects, there are always a few things that can escape you. If you have a close watch on your competitors, you can learn what they are doing and why they are doing.

After analyzing that your competitors are doing and putting it in perspective of your buyer’s journey, you might extract important information for your buyer persona.

I always study competitors when I create buyer personas for my clients. Believe me, my friend, this helps me a lot to secure useful information.

Conclusion:

Creating buyer persona is imperative to ensure the success of your marketing strategies. However, many marketers consider it a daunting task. But if you consider your target audience, begin with the obvious, dig deeper to find out the unknown, keep a watch on what your competitors are doing and use a template, you can create a buyer persona for your business without much hassle.

What about you?

How do you create buyer persona for your business? Do share it in the comment section. I’d love to hear about it.