How to Create Buyer Personas That Win New Business

Business owners need to know and understand their ideal customer. Without a clear picture of who our marketing campaigns are targeting, companies will ultimately fail to meet their needs, solve their problems, and earn their business. Most business experts touch on a similar strategy for companies trying to improve their marketing and client outreach: create buyer personas. Buyer personas allow businesses to flesh out the detailed characteristics of their ideal customers, all of which help to determine the scope and direction of their marketing.  So, how do you create buyer personas and how do they help you identify your ideal customer? Read on!    

What is a Buyer Persona?

A buyer persona is a compilation of all the characteristics that combine to form your ideal customer. Most companies, particularly those who focus on consumer sales, create buyer personas befitting the various kinds of customers they want to target with their marketing. That means they often need to create several different personas to speak specifically to those distinct customer types. By putting these personas at the heart of their marketing strategy, companies can create specific targeting for their campaigns to reach particular demographics who satisfy the persona’s criteria. More important than the personas themselves, which are ultimately easy to create, is learning how to put them together. The process involves reaching out to current customers and asking the right questions to understand better their motivations for deciding to buy your product or service.   

How to Create Buyer Personas

New businesses with a product or service can begin creating a buyer persona by listing critical characteristics of their ideal customer. For example, a new local website designer might start by noting specific attributes such as “is a business owner,” or “lives within 30 miles,” or “has X marketing budget.” As a first step, listing all the characteristics you associate with your ideal customer begins the process of creating a persona. It is also crucial in this step to consider your competitors, their strengths, and what segment of the market they will win over to help you focus your attention on the customers your product or service will best serve. However, what you think is your ideal customer may not be the most accurate representation of who will actually buy your products or services. The most critical part of creating a buyer persona is to interview current customers about specific factors that led to their decision to choose your company. This information is vital because it helps businesses hone in on the gap between their idea of the perfect customer and the reality of the market. To acquire the most information, ask only open-ended questions, such as:

1. How did you find our company?
2. What problem were you trying to solve?
3. What factors did you consider when deciding on a vendor?
4. How well-suited to your needs is the product/service?

These are but a few open-ended questions that will help determine the characteristics of your buyer persona. There are, of course, many more questions that can be asked to obtain more detailed information, but you will need to decide on those yourself based on the individual attributes of your company.    

Buyer Persona Example

Big John’s Performance Fitness is a local boutique gym and training studio. The owner, John, built his gym with the core mission to help fitness-minded people improve their sports performance and rehabilitate from injury. John believes his ideal clients fit into three buyer personas. They are:

1. High school performance athletes.
   1. Men and women.
   2. Ages 16-18.
   3. Above average fitness level. 
   4. Participate in a sport.
2. Mid-level performance athletes.
   1. Men and women.
   2. Ages 20-45.
   3. Experience in weight training or Crossfit.
   4. Participate in a sport recreationally.
3. High-performance and professional athletes.
   1. Men and women.
   2. Ages 18-35.
   3. Interest in competing in power sports, such as bodybuilding, powerlifting, and strongman.
   4. Ample experience in gyms. 

Now that John has written down what he considers to be his ideal customers, his next step is to speak to some of his current clients on topics related to his assumptions. He selects three — one for each persona — who are willing to chat about why they chose his gym. He asks them the series of questions we positioned in the previous section. Here are the answers he received: Tara H., a high school track athlete, said, “I got smoked by a girl from our rival school, and when we chatted afterword, she said she trained with you. She gave me your number to set up a consultation. (Answer to question 1) I need to increase my explosiveness at the starting box, which is my biggest weakness. (Answer to question 2) So, I thought you could help me since you helped the girl who beat me. (Answer to question 3) Since working with you, I’ve improved a lot, and I’m so happy to have qualified for nationals.” (Answer to question 3) Sara Q., a mid-20’s woman who enjoys Crossfit, said, “I saw a banner for your gym at the Beer Run fundraiser. (Answer to question 1) I was getting frustrated at my current gym, there was just no energy, and I wasn’t improving. (Answer to question 2) What drew me in was the unique layout of the gym, and the energy passing through it. Everyone is so upbeat! (Answer to question 3) The switch motivated me to work harder, and I’ve improved more here than anywhere else.” (Answer to question 4) David V., a strongman competitor, said, “There aren’t many gyms in town with the equipment I need. When I googled for powerlifting gyms in town, yours was the only one that showed up. (Answer to questions 1 and 2) I just needed a place to get my workouts done. (Answer to question 3) To be honest, there’s just not enough here, so I bought my own yoke and weight rack to use at home.” (answer to question 4)     The answers to the questions reveal a few factors that differ from what John had initially written down in his personas. Therefore, he needs to make a few changes. These are as follows:

1. High school performance athletes.
   1. Men and women.
   2. Ages 16-18.
   3. Competes in local sporting events.
   4. Has specific performance/placement goals.
   5. Participates in a community of peers for the sport.
2. Mid-level performance athletes.
   1. Men and women.
   2. Ages 20-45.
   3. Current member of a big-box gym, but unhappy.
   4. Participate in a sport recreationally.
   5. Attends local charity runs and sporting events.
   6. Desires an upbeat environment.
3. High-performance and professional athletes.
   1. Too small of a market with too specific of needs. 

  As you will notice, John found out that his primary ideal customer, the high school athlete, revealed that she had found him through a track event and that his services are ideal for her needs. The information he gathered will help him target his marketing to a precise market segment. Now he is in a position to leverage what he knows about his perfect customer to grow his business. Similarly, his second interview revealed his customer was a frustrated gym-goer who needed a more energetic and social environment. Her response will help John craft messaging to target similar customers. Lastly, John realized that the high-performance athletes he thought he wanted to focus on do not necessarily find his studio and services fitting, so he eliminated that persona from his marketing plan.  

The Takeaway

Buyer personas are the first step in creating any marketing plan. They allow business owners to flesh out the essential characteristics of their ideal client, and to tailor their marketing to reach those specific types of customers. Personas can include demographic information as well as more detailed information about customer needs and wants, as well as where and how they are most likely to connect with your business (like with a custom phone number). By taking the time to research and create buyer personas, you take a step closer to engaging your ideal buyer -- and winning a new customer! [search-tag]