What Are Buyer Personas – Are They Important?
Buyer personas are a common topic amongst Marketers and Business Owners alike; but what exactly are buyer personas; and how does it help your sales and marketing efforts?
In this article, we’ll look at what buyer personas are, why they’re important, and the various steps you need to learn in order to break down your buyer persona.
What Are Buyer Personas – And Why Are They Important?
As per Hubspot’s definition; a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal client, based on market research and real data.
In layman’s terms – it’s an activity in breaking down the following details (but not limited to) about your ideal clients and customers:
- Demographics
- Their goals
- Behaviour patterns
- Their pain points
We’ll be breaking down these sections in more detail shortly, but each of these areas identify your buyer personas who you should market your products and services to.
Buyer personas are important because it allows you to get clarity on who it is that would benefit from your products and services, so that you don’t make the mistake or marketing and reaching out to the wrong people.
Guesswork and hoping people will buy from you isn’t a strategy, so it’s crucial to learn and understand your potential clients, to ensure you effectively market your products and services in a way that also resonates with them.
By understanding buyer personas, you can market, sell and serve in a more effective and efficient manner.
How To Create Buyer Personas
There are various ways to create buyer personas, but listed here are some effective ways to help you get further clarity.
Surveys
If you have existing customers or clients, send them a survey or give them a call to learn more about the various questions you may have.
If you don’t yet have any customers or clients, you can run surveys on social media or by sending out emails to your subscribers.
Finally – you can also create your own survey and then get research by looking at customer reviews of your competitors’ products; what they liked, what they wish it had, and what they didn’t like.
Work On An Avatar Worksheet
An avatar worksheet is a document you fill out to understand when building your buyer personas. There are a number of sections you need to learn about to finalise the document and get clarity.
Try not to make your worksheet too long and detailed, as this can cause analysis paralysis.
Instead, the exercise is to help you learn about potential blind spots you may currently have about your ideal clients and become more effective in positioning yourself in a way to attract them.
Learning Your Buyer Personas By Asking Important Questions
There are a number of key questions to ask when breaking down your buyer personas. Below is a breakdown of what you need to learn, document, and then share with your sales and marketing teams.
Demographics
Your ideal clients demographics are the first step in learning about your buyer personas.
Demographics is the study of people based on their age, race, gender, and much more. Studying demographics will vary upon your industry, however from a sales and marketing view, the following demographics should be sufficient:
- Age
- Gender
- Relationship status
- Any dependants
- Where they live
- Occupation
- Education level
- Industry
- Annual income
Learning these demographics about your ideal clients is an excellent starting point when building the foundation for your buyer personas.
Their Goals And Outcomes
Secondly; once you’ve established and gotten clarity on their demographics, you need to add to your buyer personas by learning about their goals.
What outcomes do they want to achieve, and how do your products and services help them achieve it?
What do they value, and why is it important to them?
When answering these questions, don’t just stay logical and on the surface; instead – dive a bit deeper and learn the emotional reasons behind why they want to achieve their goals and outcomes.
What Are Their Pain Points?
Sales is all about learning about your ideal client’s situation, their pain points – and then prescribing a solution to solve those pain points.
What challenges and pain points do your ideal clients deal with on a daily basis?
When learning about their pain points, think about how it may be affecting them both professionally and personally. Issues and pain points they have at the office, may also be impacting them at home.
Get crystal clear on their issues, fears, and what it’ll mean if their pain points are not solved.
Where Do They Get Their Information And News?
Understanding how your ideal clients digest and receive information is an important, yet frequently overseen part of putting together your buyer personas.
The reason it’s important, is because it allows you to learn where you should be concentrating your marketing efforts to attract your ideal clients.
This will streamline your efforts in the right place and make you more effective in reaching your audience.
Learn and document the following:
- Books they read
- Magazines they read
- Websites they frequent, and why
- Trade shows they visit
- What gurus they follow
- Social media platforms they’re on
What’s Preventing Them From Buying?
Finally, another important area to deep dive and get clarity on when putting together your buyer personas, is learning about what is stopping them from buying, or may potentially stop them from buying.
Getting clear on handling sales objections is crucial if you want to win more consistent sales.
Prior to coming across these objections – what else may hinder them from buying?
If it’s an expensive product or service – so you have an instalment plan in place, or do you make it easy to find finance?
Who are the decision makers; and as part of your sales process, do you include them up front in the sales discussion?
Getting clear on these areas are important when building your buyer personas.
Related article: Sales Objection Handling – A Step By Step Process
Final Thoughts
Buyer personas are an important part of your sales strategy and marketing plans. When you answer the sections outlined above, you’ll have an excellent foundation, transparency and clarity on who your ideal clients are, and how to reach them.
If you want to learn more about increasing your sales consistently, you can register for our 7 day sales challenge here.
Want To Close Sales Easier?
Are you committed to closing sales a lot easier, and consistently?
If so, you should check out our self-paced and affordable online sales training program; The 5% Sales Blueprint.
It’ll give you everything you need to close sales consistently.
To learn more, simply click on the link below for more information.
Our Online Sales Training Program – The 5% Sales Blueprint.
