Why are ‘customer personas’ so important for marketing your business?
The biggest secret in marketing is making sure you’re using your budget to target the right people. The people who are most likely to buy from you.
The deeper understanding you have of your target market, the easier it is to generate sales opportunities and revenue.
We’ve covered how customer personas help you reach and engage audiences who are more likely to convert.
What are customer personas?
A customer persona (often called buyer personas or marketing personas) is a way for businesses to visualise their ideal customer.
It covers things like demographics, digital preferences, goals, challenges, occupations and even their shopping and communication preferences.
Types of buyer personas:
With customer personas, there isn’t a one size fits all template for businesses to use.
Every business is unique and has something that sets them apart from competitors. As such, your marketing personas should be too.
However, generally speaking, most companies will have 1-5 buyer personas that they use to define their ‘ideal customer’.
Businesses may also have something called a ‘negative buyer persona’. This represents an individual that you don’t want as a customer. An example could be someone who may be interested in your offering but can’t afford to buy.
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How are personas used in marketing?
Defining personas enables you to visualise the ideal customer/s that you’re looking to reach, engage and convert.
It helps you narrow your focus which will generate more return on any marketing investment.
Persona creation can help inform everything from your messaging, brand voice and even the marketing channels you choose.
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Benefits of using buyer personas
- Improved customer targeting by focusing on users who are more likely to convert.
- Negative buyer personas can help you work out who you shouldn’t be targeting.
- Use your customer persona to make informed marketing decisions to keep marketing consistent.
- It can help provide a lot of insight into your target customers like which channels to use.
- It helps ensure that any content you produce is more personalised to your target customers’ needs and wants.
- Improve conversion of leads to sales as they can help you identify what motivates them most.
Should small businesses look at defining personas?
In short? Yes definitely. There are many benefits to defining personas for businesses of all sizes.
If you are working with a limited marketing budget, then using marketing personas helps you make the most of every penny.
It will help you narrow your focus and make sure you drive the best return on investment possible (ROI) by focusing on the people you actually make money from.
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How to create customer personas for your business:
The most important thing to bear in mind when defining personas is to focus on actual statistics collected and not just assumptions.
We’ve covered an easy step-by-step guide to walk you through persona creation.
1. Review industry research, website analytics and customer purchase history to make notes on similarities.
If you’re finding it difficult to extract the information you need when defining personas, consider optimising to collect information in the sales process in the future.
2. Speak with your sales or customer service team and get their feedback on their leads
They’ll likely already be able to provide information on typical leads and which leads are more likely to convert.
3. Note any demographic patterns of your customers (see buyer persona example)
If you notice 2 distinct patterns, then make them 2 different personas.
4. Consider interviewing repeat customers to see what made motivated them to buy from you.
What challenges or problems did your product/service solve?
5. Review any marketing channels you use currently and make a note of typical engagement
For example, do you find that you get the most engagement from your customer persona #1 on social media?
6. Share your defined personas internally and welcome feedback
Don’t be afraid to keep optimising your defined personas until you are confident you’ve gotten them right.
7. Use them!
Let your marketing personas fuel marketing messages, content and even channel decisions.
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Marketing persona example:
Person A – Marketing Managers
Demographics:
- Aged between 26-50
- Worked in marketing for 5+ years
- Male/Female
- UK based
Goals:
- Want to improve marketing ROI
- Keep ahead of competitors
Challenges:
- Making the most of marketing budgets
- Keeping internal marketing staff educated on the latest marketing techniques
Digital usage:
- Often on social media, particularly LinkedIn.
- Combined device usage, slight preference for mobile.
- Prefer email communication.
