If you are a fan of wildlife, by now the algorithm on your favourite social platform should have shown you this video that is now one of the most viral hunting footage on the internet. Basically it shows a lioness that can’t seem to find a perfect moment for attack, and a lion that instantly leaps in for the kill. One of the popular takeaways is not to wait for the right moment but just leap in. The other, not so popular takeaway is the power of focus. Focus is one of the primary hunting lessons that lion cubs must learn before they reach adulthood, failure of which could mean death for the pride. It doesn’t matter how many prey there are, if you can’t focus on one, you starve. The same is true for business.
As a business owner, you will have a tendency to be drawn to ALL potential customers of your business and as a result, it is important to understand your customer avatar in order to create effective marketing strategies. A customer avatar or customer/buyer persona, is a detailed description of a customer type, which helps you to identify and target your ideal customers. In this article, I will discuss what buyer personas are, why you need them, how to create them, and strategies for utilising them.
What are Buyer Personas?
A buyer persona, also known as a customer avatar, is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on real data and research. It is created by gathering data from your existing customers, conducting surveys, and interviews. A buyer persona typically includes demographic information such as age, gender, and location, as well as psychographic information, such as interests, values, and goals. The purpose of a buyer persona is to give you an understanding of your ideal customer and to help you create laser-focused marketing strategies. By understanding your customers’ needs, pain points, and goals, you can create content, products, and services that are tailored to their needs.
Why You Need Buyer Personas
As a business owner, you will want to reach out and sell your products to every possible customer. But this is not an ideal strategy because it will spread your resources thin and confuse your customers too. While big-budget corporations can get away with this, they only do so by creating several different brands with entire departments targeted at each and every one of those buyer avatars. As a micro-SME startup, you will neither have the budget nor the resources to go after everyone and attempting to do so will certainly starve your business or keep it in a zero-growth state of bare survival.
Creating buyer personas helps to ensure that you are targeting the right select group of people with the right message. It also helps you to understand how your customer thinks, feels, and behaves, so that you can create marketing and operational strategies that are tailored to their very specific needs.
By understanding your customer avatar, you can also create more effective content and products. For example, if you know that your target audience is working professionals, you can create content that speaks to their needs, such as productivity tips and advice. You can also create products that are tailored to their needs, such as professional development courses.
How to Research and Create Your Buyer Personas
The first step in creating buyer personas is to research your existing customers. You can do this by gathering data from customer surveys and interviews, as well as analysing customer purchase histories and demographics. How often do they buy, at what times, to fulfils what specific requirements etc A customer journey map in short. After looking at enough customers, you will start noticing similarities and differences.
Once you have gathered the data, it is important to organise it in a way that is easy to understand. You can use customer relationship management (CRM) software to store and organise your data. Or you can simply use pen and paper to create different user groups and define their various characteristics. You can also create a customer persona template to help you visualise the data.
The next step is to create a narrative for each customer persona. This should include information about the customer’s goals, needs, pain points, and values. You should also include demographic information such as age, gender, and location. Below is a sample clustering table with possible descriptions of different customers for a cleaning service.
What Information to Include in Buyer Personas
When creating buyer personas, it is important to include as much information as possible. This will help you to have a better understanding of your customer and create more effective marketing strategies.
The information should include:
- Demographic information such as age, gender, location, and occupation
- Psychographic information such as interests, values, and goals
- Customer purchase histories
- Customer feedback
- Social media presence
- Website data
