“You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.”
To connect with your potential customer base, it’s a smart move to step into their shoes to understand who they are and what they want. But how do you understand the perspective and needs of someone you haven’t even met… yet?
One way of getting to know your ideal customer is to create buyer personas, using the latest research and social media analytics.
What Is A Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a detailed description of a fictional person who represents your ideal customer. This profile is based on extensive research about your current and desired customers – including details of who they are and what they want. Data comes from a combination of market research, social media analytics, competitor analysis, and existing customer profiles. A buyer persona also may be referred to as a customer persona, marketing persona, patient persona, or customer avatar.
Buyer personas help businesses create effective marketing strategies. By understanding the customer’s emotional and behavioral triggers, you can identify and prioritize what changes you may need to make to your products or services… as well as to the methods you use to market them. Knowing where potential customers spend their time allows you to direct your marketing efforts and target your messaging to the right channels. It can also help you fine-tune your ad targeting.
What Are The Key Components Of A Buyer Persona?
The elements of buyer personas typically include demographics, interests, behavioral patterns, and any other information that helps you understand your target customer. Thorough buyer personas will include their motivations (goals), frustrations (pain points), and factors that influence their buying decisions.
What Is An Example Of A Customer Persona?
A buyer persona can be simple or incredibly complex – based on your marketing needs, available data, and how much depth you require. An example of a basic customer persona for a hypothetical lawn care service located in Medford, N.Y. might look like this:
Name: BILL
Demographic Info:
Gender: Male
Age: 42
Family Status: Married, 2 Children
Education: B.A., Duke University
Income: $255K/year
Location: Long Island, NY
Bio: Bill is an energy trader, with two young children and a puppy. He is a busy professional whose wife is an attorney. His hobbies include playing chess, reading military history, and collecting watches.
Motivations: Bill enjoys having friends over for poolside barbecues on the weekends, and he wants his yard to look its best.
Frustrations: Bill works long hours and doesn’t have time to do much work in the yard or around the house. He would like to spend more time with his children.
Influences: Bill wants his friends and neighbors to admire his home and yard. He doesn’t watch much television but spends downtime between calls on Facebook or Instagram. When making purchasing decisions, he researches companies thoroughly.
What Is Market Segmentation?
A related method of understanding your customers is market segmentation. This process sections your target market into smaller groups with similar traits – like age, location, income, needs, and interests. These segments are then used to optimize your sales and marketing efforts. Market segmentation allows you to create different strategies for different types of customers, and to personalize your messaging.
While buyer personas highlight the experiences, goals, and motivations of a specific type of individual customer… market segmentation involves categorical classifications of groups of people. Buyer personas can cut across different segments, so segmenting your market is often the first step toward creating effective customer personas.
Efferent Media Helps You Find Your Ideal Customers
Efferent Media uses the latest analytics to create customer personas so you can identify, engage with, and build with your ideal client base. Contact the experts at Efferent Media today to discuss how we can help you make the most effective decisions about your marketing, online presence, and social media.