What is a buyer persona and why do I care?

According to Hubspot, Buyer Personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on real data and some select educated speculations about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations and goals. In today’s transitional marketplace it is a must to create buyer personas to know exactly who your customers are and the places they go to, the things they like, etc.

Buyer Personas are not target market segments that you immediately identify and send a direct mail piece. Rather, they are universal in their goals, wishes and dreams. Blue birds stick with blue birds and red birds stick with redbirds. This is a wise old saying from Gay Phelps, a friend’s mom. This is a great analogy for your customers. What color and/or type of bird are they?

Buyer personas are not job titles and roles. Rather they share in common pain points both professionally and personally. They have the same type of general demographics and biographical information, however they are not real people! I repeat, they are not real people, just common behavior patterns that can be identified and classified in an easy fictional way to help identify the real human searching for your product and/or service.

Personas help in every aspect of the inbound methodology, as outlined below:

• Attract: Buyer personas are the visitors you're trying to attract to your website and they're who your content and inbound marketing strategy should attract.
• Convert: Personas are the visitors you're trying to convert into leads. The most effective conversion tools are customized to your personas' needs and interests.
• Close: Since your personas represent your ideal customer, client, donor, student, or otherwise, they're who your emails and other lead nurturing should close into customers.
• Delight: Your personas are the customers, clients, or otherwise who you're trying to delight into promoters. Tailor your customer service experience to your personas' preferred method of communication and create content specifically for them.

Buyer personas are ultimately who we want to read our blogs, search for our keywords, follow on social media, who you are emailing, who identify you as some they share common thoughts and ideals with. In essence, it’s who delight in being in the same.

In today’s transitional marketplace, a business owner struggles with where to best acquire new customers, while keeping their existing ones. By looking at the current base of customer, you are able to identify where you should be marketing and find where the best customers are on the internet. If you know what your customers are trying to achieve, you can go to work helping them overcome their objections and achieve their goals.

Personas help you create the right type of content the will most effectively attract your ideal visitor, convert them into a lead and close them into customers. Buyer Personas are useful for any company in today’s marketplace increase the bottom line.