As a small business owner, you’re always on the lookout for better ways to promote your business. Marketing is definitely a big key to success; however, some forms of marketing can feel forced, impersonal or even annoying. The good news is that there are ways to minimize this reaction in customers and maximize positive responses. One way is through buyer personas.
A buyer persona is a biography or profile that helps you connect with customers in a more personalized way. It’s almost like an “archetype” for the kinds of customers you typically attract. Creating buyer personas related to your customers helps you to market to them more meaningfully and effectively.
The goal of marketing is, of course, to bring in more business. Buyer personas help to identify the distinct market segments you’d like to target in terms of current and potential customers.
How to Create a Buyer Persona
You probably already have a sense about the profile of your usual customers. You know their approximate age, income brackets and education levels. From here, you can delve even more deeply into their interests, wants and needs. What are their attitudes and motivations? How do they talk and express themselves? What current events or trends are hot topics for them?
To get marketing ideas, connect with publications or media that your target audience tends to seek out. Make note of their structure and content. Considering these things can help you develop accurate buyer persona types for each category of customer you connect with. From these insights, you can create highly targeted and well-received marketing campaigns.
One effective way to get this information is by browsing social media accounts favored by your customers. Tune in to their challenges as well as what they value. Gain insights about what influences their decision to buy a product or service. Get a feel for what kind of graphic design and font styles they prefer. All of this information can be built into their buyer persona profile and help you market to them very effectively.
Buyer Persona Examples
Here are some sample buyer personas for a health club:
“Jeremy the Gym Junky”: This guy is a fitness junky who will be at your club at least 5 days a week. He splurges on the premium membership, favors the free weights and is most likely to buy supplements and shake mixes from your pro shop.
“Natalie the Newbie”: She’s the body-conscious newcomer who usually signs up as part of a New Year’s resolution. She’s likely to pay extra for a personal trainer to help her get started.
These profiles can form the basis for a more elaborate buyer persona. From there, your business can craft specific types of promotions to each persona type in a style and language they resonate with.
Why Buyer Personas Are Important for Business
When buyer personas are used effectively, customers feel as though you are speaking directly to them. It’s as if you intuitively know their needs and concerns and are speaking their language. In a sense, you do. The goal of marketing is to increase conversions, including web conversions. Marketing based on a buyer persona has a much higher success rate than generalized marketing. Instead of delivering the same plain-vanilla message to all customers, you address specific types of customers more genuinely and creatively.
Effective marketing boils down to getting the right message in front of the right person at the right time. Implementing buyer personas within your marketing strategy can go a long way in helping you increase conversions, including web conversions.
