What is a Buyer Persona anyway?

What is a buyer persona anyway?  That is a common question I get asked by all kinds of business owners, entrepreneurs, professionals at companies with global success, and at the end of the day none of them understand what a buyer persona is or why they need one to help make their marketing efforts more successful.  I use a great deal of data analytics and platforms like Oracle to dig deeper into customer groups for my clients everyday.  However, I always start by uncovering the top 3 buyer personas.

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Here are my top three insights into a buyer persona.

1. A buyer persona is a closer more personalized look at your ideal customer.  No this is not the same as a target audience.  And yes, we were all taught in business school that you must we figure out your target audience in order to successfully market your products or services.  I am suggesting that instead of looking at the broad group of people lets narrow things down to a type of person.  

2. Practice creating a buyer persona by writing about yourself.  Now for this to be effective, it should be a quick answer if you have not completed this exercise in less than 20 minutes then you might want to take some more time and dig deeper into your business definition.  Take out a notebook or pad and jot down these questions and your own answers.
Ask yourself these questions:

• What motivates you in life?
• How would your best friend describe your personality?
• Where are your favorite things to do in your spare time?
• How do you prefer to communicate?
• If there was just one thing that could make your life easier what would it be?
• Where do you go to find the latest information about news and current events?

3. Now that you have a quick practice run understanding how to write about a persona take a few minutes and define one buyer persona that is a perfect match for your company.  If you are having a difficult time answering the same questions above about your ideal customer as a singular person, it may be a chance to revisit the definition of your business, product or service.  Your business should be the answer to your buyer persona's needs. They should go together like peanut butter and jelly!

The reason that you need to create buyer personas is so that you will have a better idea of how to communicate how your product or services solve specific problems for one persona type.   I hope this exercise helps make the reasons for starting all marketing activity with buyer persona's clearer.  Below I am offering a FREE worksheet on developing your ideal buyer person! If you have any questions or comments, please drop them in the comment section below.  

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