90% of businesses do not have buyer personas, and 80% don’t have them in detail. According to Mark W. Schaefer, Over 90% of a company’s sales are accounted for by 3-4 personas.
One of the essential parts of creating a marketing strategy is knowing who your target market is. Unfortunately, many businesses don’t create buyer personas because they simply do not understand the importance or are overwhelmed by data from various sources.
Having a buyer persona is one of the first steps to successful online marketing efforts because it allows you to cut through the clutter and make your business stand out from competitors. Crafting your specific buyer persona will also help you with knowing your audience’s demographics, interests, buying motivations, pain points, amongst others.
In this piece, I’ll answer the questions, “What is a buyer persona?” and “Why create a buyer persona?”
Let’s dive right in!
WHAT IS A BUYER PERSONA – BUYER PERSONA MEANING?
- So, what is a buyer persona?
- Why create a buyer persona?
- Is it just a marketing tool?
- Is it the fundamental basis for a marketing strategy?
- Why is it important to focus on the buyer persona?
These are some of the questions large brands and Small business owners often ask themselves
Don’t worry, I’m not going to get too technical here.
Since it is impossible to please everyone, it’s important you have a clear picture of the people you’ll be pleasing with your products or services. A buyer persona describes the groups of real people who will buy your products or services. It is one of the most critical aspects of an effective marketing strategy.
According to Hubspot, a buyer persona is “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”
With a buyer persona, or in some cases, buyer personas, you can create segments within a large population of consumers. These segments created using buyer personas are the potential customers that you can successfully market your products or services to.
Taking the time to create your buyer personas will help you understand the pains and troubles of your target audience and how your products or services can help them solve these troubles. These, in turn, help you create strategies and solutions that will attract your potential buyers as you seek out new market opportunities.
WHY CREATE A BUYER PERSONA?
There are many reasons why you should create buyer personas for your business. These include,
1. IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Even with the abundance of available information, it is sometimes tough to understand who exactly our customers are. At the core, a business exists because of one simple reason – making money! However, for a business to thrive, it must find its target audience and create products or services that will attract those customers.
By creating your buyer personas, you can identify your target audience, which helps you have a better chance at accurately determining what kind of offers or content to promote. Creating a buyer persona gives you a clearer picture of who you are marketing and selling your products or services to. It helps you focus on the people most likely to be interested in your product or service.
2. A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS
Understanding your customer when designing a product or service is beneficial in many ways. Buyer personas are no different. Creating a buyer persona is one of the best ways to truly understand your target audience. Understanding the needs of your audience is critical because if your target audience fails to understand what you are communicating, you risk losing their interest as well as any opportunity for a conversion.
When you understand the needs of your audience, you can effectively communicate with them and persuade them to buy your products or services. Thus, it gives you a better chance at getting sales, thereby increasing your profit margin.
3. EFFECTIVE CONTENT CREATION
As explained above, creating a buyer persona helps you understand the needs of your target audience. As a result, with the understanding and information you have, you can effectively create content that directly appeals to your target audience.
You can create content that addresses their needs, provides solutions to their problems, and content that appeals to their emotions. In the end, your target audience will find your content valuable, engage with your content and ultimately build a loyal following while regarding you as a thought leader in your industry.
4. IMPROVES YOUR CONVERSATIONS WITH CUSTOMERS
Some of us have friends we have known for years. One of the things that makes it easy for us to remain friends, is that you know so much about each other and can communicate effectively.
When you create buyer personas and understand what your target audience really needs, you can communicate better with prospects and clients. This is because you now know what matters to them and what they urgently need solutions to. When communication is smooth, the sales process becomes easier for you as a small business owner.
5. MAKES YOUR PRODUCTS OR SERVICES RELEVANT
If you do not have a target audience, you would be developing products and offering services for everyone and anyone – like a hit and miss. However, setting out the time and putting effort to create buyer personas help you identify whether your products or services are relevant to the segment of the population you want to market to.
If your product or service is not relevant to the audience you are targeting, it is safe to assume that money won’t be coming in for you anytime soon. People will only purchase products or services that are relevant to their needs, or that can provide solutions to their problems.
CONCLUSION
The importance of creating buyer personas cannot be over-emphasized. Buyer personas will help you identify your target audience, better understand your audience’s needs, create compelling content, and many more.
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