Get to Know Your Customer

To better understand your buyer persona, extensive research is involved. The semi-fictional aspect comes into play when creating your brand’s buyer persona(s). On top of all of the in-depth research that is conducted to understand your audience and customer better, it is important to generate a list of characteristics that make up your ideal customer.

Your list of characteristics may include:

• Age
• Location (Where they live)
• Industry of work
• Single/Married
• Family – How many kids?
• Pets
• Hobbies

Although not every person within this customer group will match the characteristics exactly, it will represent the group as a collection of data points.

Common Mistakes in Making a Buyer Persona

Sometimes, businesses do make a few mistakes that prevent them from making a successful buyer persona.

Basing your buyer persona(s) on one person

Although it may be easy to base everything off of one person, you should not base your buyer persona(s) off of a single customer. Not every one of your customers is the same, so you must make sure to expand upon that individual customer and build a composite of core customers that will bring in elements from multiple real profiles.

Basing your buyer persona on stereotypes 

This is one that we rarely realize we are doing. To avoid this mistake, don’t make assumptions about the buyer persona’s interests and needs based on their demographics. This is when research, again, comes into play!

Being Inconsistent 

Consistency is key. Your buyer persona is a real customer, so if they are a small-town farmer, they probably don’t have a Porsche sitting on their driveway. Put yourself in the mind of the customer and stay consistent with your approach.

Being Generic

Every detail has to make sense, from the age to their interests and hobbies. A buyer persona should not fit a wide range of different customers. Instead, it has to be very specific, so your business can target a core group of customers.

Although these mistakes are common, it is easy to prevent them from occurring. Make sure to thoroughly research your buyer persona from the demographic questions you used to build a clear understanding of who the buyer persona is. Also, it is crucial to take your time when determining your buyer persona, which will help avoid making these common mistakes. It will not only improve your efficiency, but also accelerate your marketing, sales, and product development efforts as well.

What Problem is Your Business Helping to Solve?

With sales and marketing evolving from “features and benefits” pitches to more innovative business solutions, all businesses now focus on what they can do to solve the customers’ problems rather than pushing for a sale. Your buyer persona(s) will always have specific ‘pain points that they want to be resolved. The questions you need to ask are: What are those pain points? How will our business solve them and drive the user experience? 

Note: Being able to think and behave like consumers is critical to being able to effectively communicate with them.

Sometimes, your business will solve the pain point with the product(s) and service(s) you offer, or it may spark an idea in how you can change or create a new offering to solve the problem better. You have to be able to see your customer through their eyes to understand what they need.

Customers today want to have a positive, memorable, and overall incredible experience when purchasing a product or service from your brand. They want to feel they are valuable to a company, rather than being a number out of thousands. With businesses being located in different avenues, whether that is online or brick-and-mortar, the main focus is always on the customer and enhancing their experience.

How Communication Changes Knowing Your Buyer Personas 

Have you ever heard the famous quote, “Communication is key?” 

Ask questions. This is the most important piece of the puzzle to effectively find out what the problem is and how to solve it. Being able to fully understand your buyer persona(s) is important to your marketing and sales teams because those profiles help you communicate with your customers in the best way possible. 

Marketing and communications teams thrive off of different data because it allows them to paint a picture of what they are envisioning and targeting for their perfect buyer persona(s). In a society that is thriving off of continuous, innovative technology, there are multiple ways to communicate with customers globally. For example, professionals incorporate different behaviors into their work, especially when it comes to different forms of media.

When you are able to figure out who you are trying to communicate with, then being able to speak to them becomes natural. The communication will become more directed towards them and what they are needing, rather than what you have to offer through a basic sales pitch. 

It’s Time to Drive!

Are you ready to drive the customers’ experience? Time to buckle up and start on an incredible journey that will pay off in the long run. If you need help defining your buyer persona(s), check out The Rulebook where we help create buyer persona(s) specific to your brand!