Jo Shaer — March 5, 2019 — March 5, 2019
Inbound Marketers are always banging on about the importance of a company’s Buyer Persona and yet, if you ask most business owners who they want to appeal to, they will almost always say EVERYONE!
The problem is that by trying to appeal to EVERYONE, you invariably end up pleasing NO ONE. Being specific makes marketing much easier because you can target the pain points and behaviours of your ideal customer – the person who is most likely to want your product or service.
So, what is a buyer persona?
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According to Hubspot, it is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
It is the person who is most likely to want/need your product or service and includes demographics, behaviour patterns, motivations and goals.
But Tony Zambito gives us the original definition from 2002
Buyer personas are research-based archetypal (modeled) representations of who buyers are, what they are trying to accomplish, what goals drive their behavior, how they think, how they buy, and why they make buying decisions. (Today, I now include where they buy as well as when buyers decide to buy.)
Get it right and your detailed buyer persona will help you identify who to focus on and how to develop your Offers to appeal absolutely to attract the most valuable visitors, leads and customers.
However, as Buyer Persona Institute reminds us, a buyer persona is not merely a description of your buyer and profiling all your buyers will result in too many personas.
You have to think about what causes certain buyers to invest in solutions like yours and what is different about buyers who are satisfied with their life as it is. It’s about buyer behaviour.
You have to address the pain points and also the tipping point. So, the problems that would cause someone to need your product but also the change driver that will make them go out and actively research for a solution to that problem.
A version of this post originally appeared here.
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