20+ SAMPLE Buyer Persona

What Is a Buyer Persona?

A buyer persona is a document or record that represents the ideal customer for an organization according to market research and analysis that comes from accurate and available information about existing customers. When an organization plans to create a buyer persona, consider including different factors such as customer demographics, behavioral patterns, goals, motivations, and trends. The more detailed information that the company provides here, the better. Buyer personas provide sufficient information about the structure and insight of the company. By creating a detailed buyer persona, an organization can focus its time, resources, and efforts on guiding product development that allows for a clear alignment and understanding between departments. As a result, the company will be able to attract the most valuable market, clients, leads, and customers into the business. A buyer persona also goes by many names, including customer persona, marketing persona, and audience persona. Since the company cannot get to know all of its consumers personally, it can create a buyer persona to represent its customer base. Since a company caters to different audiences and sectors, the organization will have to create multiple buyer personas for its customers. Keeping the buyer persona in mind keeps the voice and the context to be consistent, starting from product development to the brand voice that the business utilizes in its social media marketing.

According to ITSMA and their article about the importance of developing customer personas, about 82 percent of companies using buyer personas show an improvement in their value proposition, while 90 percent of organizations say that they possess a clearer and better understanding of their customer base.

Essential Elements of a Buyer Persona

Each buyer persona that the organization creates serves as a guide that directs the business towards the most effective and efficient marketing strategies, content, formats, and delivery channels that the target market is utilizing. Without the help of buyer personas, organizations are wasting their time and resources navigating the marketplace. Since personas are tools for crafting and expressing business clarity, the components of the buyer persona are essential. The section below covers the different elements of a buyer persona with explanations and definitions of each section.

Full name or job title: Select the name for the persona wisely. If the organization chooses to name the persona, make sure that the names the business chooses do not assume generalization of terms. A persona with a female name assumes that the document only covers female consumers. On the other hand, using a job title is more appropriate to identify or group users during discussions. When choosing the titles for the persona, make sure that they are specific. Before the organization considers a title, consider the message that it communicates to audiences and the information it delivers.Pictures: The name is only one part of a persona. Without a face to accompany it, teams and departments only have a handful of information. It is advantageous to give the persona a face, reflecting the description that the team uses for the entire document. Whenever possible, use the face of a real customer to make it more relatable to the audience. The individual must be in a location where the product the company presents becomes part of their daily routine.Demographics: The demographics section adds background information and texture to the persona. It lists different information about the buyer, including educational background, lifestyle, preferences, interests, and behavioral characteristics that helps the organization envision a specific consumer group that allows the organization to adjust all its marketing efforts to cater to its needs. In the demographics section, the team must specify the livelihood of the buyer, specific hobbies, education, income, and even their favorite brands. It helps the marketing team to determine the products or services that they need that are within reach of a certain group. Google Analytics is a tool that organizations use to track consumer demographics. Companies can use this information to their advantage.Personality traits: The personality traits section indicates the key personality of the persona that the team creates. There are different ways to build the personality type of a particular persona. The teams can utilize the Myers-Briggs personality types. There are a total of 16 personalities under it that the marketing team can use. Another that the organization can employ is the archetypes. Archetypes are identities that characterize the personality, motivations, and goals of an individual. There are 12 archetype personalities to choose from that helps the team compose a coherent description for their persona. Describe the persona using a few words according to work ethics, motivations, and priorities by using adjectives to define how one personality differs from another.Goals and unmet needs: Many of the persona goals must be end goals, meaning it is what the product or service must achieve for the buyer when they use it. The goals can be tangible or intangible. As such, avoid task-specific goals wherein an individual must complete a task first before they can accomplish a goal. Life goals are too broad and sometimes irrelevant to some products or services. Teams describe experience goals as to how personas want to feel when they use a product or acquire a service. Not all personas require having experience goals, but they are useful. Fears, doubts, and frustrations: This section of the buyer persona when it comes to honing the features of the products or services of the organization. In this section, make sure to ask vital questions about the concerns of buyers, their frustrations, and if there are possible solutions that can answer these.Buying behavior: One of the essential parts of the buyer persona is to understand the past and present buying behavior of consumers. Determine if customers are single purchasers or if they come back to make multiple purchases. The organization must also pay close attention to the favorite and most used brands of consumers. The team can display the logos in this section of the buyer persona. In this way, the organization can determine whether the buyers are already purchasing from competitors. It is also necessary for a business to determine the best media channels to reach out to specific consumers. Nowadays, there are different channels that businesses use to target specific groups of consumers. The company must have a good grasp of the medium that audiences use to familiarize themselves with different products or services. Traditional media include marketing advertisements people see on television, radio, print, and billboards. Online and social media channels include banner advertisements, streaming video and audio advertisements, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other search engines. Referrals are also another medium that the company can use, including recommendations from family and friends, online reviews, influencer feedback, etc. There are also guerilla and public relations efforts that companies use, including launch events, experiential marketing, out-of-home advertising, and many others.Persona quote: This section of the buyer persona is also known as a one-line summary. It consists of one to two sentences that summarize the final expectation of the persona and keeps the team focused on the specific marketing goals the company wishes to achieve.

How To Compose a Buyer Persona Aligned with Company Goals

Defining a buyer persona is challenging at first glance. However, if the process is in sections that consist of manageable steps, individuals can move through them simply and conveniently to develop comprehensive and thoughtful personas that improve how the company markets and sells its products and services. Taking the entire process one step at a time guarantees that the business covers all areas without it being overwhelming. The section below consists of a guide to help teams create buyer personas at their convenience.

  • 1. Research About the Buyer Personas

    All reliable buyer personas rely on thorough research methods. Even if the organization says that they have a good idea of who their customers are, the business must take a look at the current clients and the consumers they wish to work with in the future. Begin the research by identifying existing clients. Make sure to ask relevant questions, including who contacted who, who made the final decision, their job position, and the status of their home life. Asking these questions helps the organization to start writing the buyer persona. Other tactics that the company can try include talking to customer-facing or customer service employees and clients. After gathering additional information about the customers, think about the products or services the company intends to sell or market in the future. To narrow down the choices, take a look at competitor markets. The company can also learn more about ideal buyer personas that the organization has not reached yet by researching how competitors reach success. Reflect on where the company sees itself in the future. The company looks at competitors to see how they are bringing the market in and check how buyers respond to the marketing. Another thing that the organization can do is to check analytics. This is the most concrete data that the organization has on its ideal buyers is through the analytics from the company website, social media accounts, and pay-per-click advertisements.

  • 2. Segment the Buyer Personas

    The research portion of the buyer persona is the most time-consuming portion of its creation. The next step involves organizing the information that the company has from its research. Begin by looking at similarities in the goals and challenges from the gathered information. These similarities will help teams to group customers together into more distinct sets of personas. After reviewing and organizing the research, determine how many personas the company needs to create. Start creating buyer personas with the market segments the company utilizes the most. The organization can always adjust and add personas when necessary. It is also helpful to segment buyers according to their industries and job titles to make the document more specific.

  • 3. Develop a Name and Story for the Persona

    After researching and deciding the different groups for a particular persona, you can start creating one. Start with painting a full picture of the persona and pulling out the different segments. Give the persona a name to help market and sell products or services personally. Doing this provides context to the group of individuals and their goals and motivations. A better understanding of these factors helps the organization interact with the market. In developing buyer personas, the more information you have, the better.

  • 4. Focus on the Roles, Goals, and Challenges

    After composing and organizing information for the buyer persona, identify the roles, goals, and challenges of each group as they are the most relevant elements that the sales and marketing teams will use going forward. Make sure that the content the marketing team incorporates in the persona involves relevant information about their job description and job title. Understanding the goals of the buyer persona becomes the key to giving the consumers personalized, unique, and helpful products and services. The persona must also identify the pain points that the group experiences, and how the organization can address them. The more challenges that the company can identify, the more opportunities the organization can develop to address these problems.

  • 5. Use the Buyer Persona To Create Tailored Marketing and Sales Strategies

    After the organization familiarizes itself with the contents of the buyer personas, develop sales and marketing strategies to tailor the group that is an excellent fit with the business. The document helps the organization to have an insight into the most qualified ways that prospects function, using the information to the advantage of the business. Work thoroughly to create a persona that makes audiences want to read them, putting its goals and challenges as the highlights.

FAQs

Why do you need a buyer persona?

Organizations need a buyer persona for an adequate understanding of the needs and wants of the customers. It enables the organization to tailor its sales and marketing strategies according to the preferences of customers, targeting specific groups of people.

How many buyer personas must an organization have?

There are no specific amounts of buyer personas that an organization must create. However, they should have diverse sets of personas ranging from three to eight.

How do you write a target persona?

When writing a target persona, make sure to have thorough research of the target audience. There must also be proper segments for each persona, identify the goals and pain points of the group, and then create the document.

The buyer persona allows organizations to have a more targeted approach when it comes to selling or marketing their products and services. Companies must take the time and effort to construct a comprehensive buyer persona to ensure that the products or services they sell to their consumers provide answers to their challenges or help them achieve their goals. When planning to create the buyer persona, the marketing and sales teams must take the time to produce coherent and detailed information about a particular consumer. Start developing a buyer persona for the organization by reading the article above and downloading from the selection of 20+ SAMPLE Buyer Persona in PDF from Sample.net.