How to Create Your Ideal Buyer Persona

You know you need to create buyer personas for your business, but how do you get started? Buyer personas give you a picture of what your current and ideal customer looks like.  They allow companies to better understand their customer and craft messaging that appeals directly to them, which increases the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Start by Researching

Arguably the most important step in the process of creating buyer personas is to conduct thorough research.  Research will allow you to analyze data trends and ask important questions that will help create a clear picture of your customers.

The most common forms of research are:

1. Surveys
   You can send surveys out through email, post them on your social media page, or use a third party to help you target a specific group.
2. Feedback
   Talk to your own employees, especially those on the front lines, like the sales team.  They will be able to give you insight into who your current customers are, as well as what challenges they commonly face.
3. Interviews
   Interviews will allow you to ask “why.”  Whether in person or over the phone, talking with current customers, and people you feel would be ideal customers, allows you to ask detailed, open-ended questions and receive clarity on your perfect customer.

There’s no right or wrong number of people to contact, just keep going until you’re able to notice trends and data patterns amongst the research.  Make sure you reach out to both people you know and people you don’t know. You want to understand your current customer base, but buyer personas are also meant to establish your ideal customer, which can’t happen until you reach further than your own contact list.

Fill out a Template

A buyer persona template will leave room for you to fill in your current or ideal customer’s demographics, motivations, conversations, and ideal messaging.

Your template should start with the demographic profile of your buyer persona. It’s all about who they are. What’s their background? How do they prefer to communicate?

Next, you should delve into the motivations behind your persona. What drives them? What are some goals and challenges they face and how can you help them achieve those goals and overcome those challenges?

Your buyer persona should also reflect what conversations you or your sales team might have with that customer. Include actual quotes from your research and list possible objections they might make to your product or service.

Finally, put together the basis behind your messaging to that persona. How are you going to win them over? Come up with an elevator pitch that is crafted specifically to them.

The last step is to put a name and a face to your buyer persona.  Draw from their demographics and conversations to come up with a title that fits.  Some examples of names are Sales Leader Sam or Fitness Fred.  Whatever you decide, your buyer persona will now be a robust and clear representation of who your current and ideal customer is. Once you have your buyer personas finished, you can start evolving your messaging to speak directly to them, increasing the effectiveness of your marketing!

Begin crafting your ideal buyer persona today with this free buyer persona template. Download the free template now!