Don’t worry, though. We’re not here to point our fingers☝ like your old grannie after you ate a fourth chocolate chip cookie, oh no.
We’re here to help you understand the nitty-gritty details of your prospects (deeper than that fluffy age and demographics business), so you can craft personalized value propositions.
To reinforce this statement, we’ll hit you with a stat here. 90% of businesses who use buyer personas have a clearer understanding of who their customer is and 82% of companies using personas have created an improved value proposition.
Pretty convincing, right?
At the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how to create a buyer persona to start selling like hotcakes. Buyer persona whiz status!
What is a buyer persona?
Flip your textbook to the glossary. It’s time to define a buyer persona.
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your target audience that helps you develop effective marketing strategies.
Sounds simple, eh?
A well-made buyer persona requires lots of market research and can be an extremely extensive process.
Why Buyer Personas Are Crucial for Your Business
Business A writes copy that smacks their visitors right between the eyes and keeps them coming back time and time again.
Business B writes mediocre copy that feels cold and like they’re talking to any Joe, Bob, or Larry that’ll listen.
The difference? Business A has carefully crafted its buyer persona.
Understanding your buyer’s pain points and motivations allows you to address their needs more precisely and ultimately grow your revenue. Not only that, but building trust between you and your customers cultivates lifelong relationships.
Now, let’s talk a bit more about how to do this.
When you deeply understand your ideal customer, you break down their needs into groups, and your message is more personalized and effective.
A buyer persona helps your business understand what it should be doing to help its prospects along the sales funnel stages. You learn how to capture the attention of your audience at the right time with the right message.
Let’s have a look at this basic breakdown to craft your buyer persona.
5 Steps to Creating a Detailed Buyer Persona
Like we mentioned earlier, creating a detailed buyer persona is not a walk in the park and does require you to harness your inner Law in Order detective skills. But with patience, grit, and by following these 5 steps, you’ll be well on your way!
#1 Research your audience
Just like any true detective, you’ll need your handy dandy notepad to dive deep into the details. Research the nuances of your target audience, their favorite shows on Netflix, who they converse with daily, and what their favorite cup of joe from Starbucks is.
To get this juicy research started, check out your Google Analytics, interview clients, conduct surveys, check out Amazon reviews, or if you dare visit the deep dark dungeon of the web—Reddit.
Now, the next step in our investigation is identifying their pain points.
#2 Find out your audience’s pain points
While you interview or survey potential customers, ask what challenges or pains frequently come up in their lives. More often than not, people are open to discuss their challenges and simply talk about themselves if they know you’re not selling them something off the bat.
Here are some typical pain points you might come across:
Financial pain points are a pretty common factor. Think about the rush of opening an email with a big red 50% off sign or opening a FLASH SALE Facebook ad. Who doesn’t like to get the best value for the least amount of money possible?
The financial pain point realm includes too expensive brands, not enough value for money, or unnecessary subscription fees. So, if you can in any way appeal to your target audience’s financial pain points, you’ll be winning.
Support pain points are pretty straightforward. It refers to how supported a customer feels when experiencing a brand.
For instance, J.P. Morgan Chase has extremely superior customer service. Any time a customer explains an issue to their customer support team, they’re always taken care of— no matter what.
By cultivating a brand with prompt responses, thorough explanations of product/service details, and easily accessible content, a customer will feel at ease and supported.
Process & Productivity Pain Point refers to how smooth the experience of working with a business is. When customers can effectively use products/services as they expected before purchasing, they’ll be satisfied with your business. Often if a concept is too complex, leads might stray away, so keep in mind that simplicity is key.
Lastly, losing time because of chaotic processes and systems might agitate customers and result in a lost sale, so reiterating a very clear plan of action is imperative.
When you break down their pain points into these different sections, it becomes easier to formulate informative content. In return, this helps clients make intelligent buying decisions. And you win their trust as they see you as an expert in your industry.
#3 Establish your audience’s motivators
Let’s be honest here: if you haven’t noticed, crafting a buyer persona involves a decent amount of human psychology. So, even more profound than your target audience’s pain points is what motivates them! To obtain this knowledge, let’s have a look at the human psyche.
Some motivators are social, some are personal, and even some are straight-up biological. Our basic biological motivators are to be fed, have our thirst quenched, and have a roof over our heads. After that, other motivators include:
- Social approval
- Acceptance
- The need to achieve
- To obtain power
- To avoid risk
In most industries, the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” appeals to a customer’s need to stay relevant. For instance, whenever Apple comes out with the latest iPhone technology, there will always be Apple connoisseurs who flock to grab themselves the shiniest version to flaunt it to society.
By dissecting their deepest motivators in combination with their pain points, you’ve crafted yourself a winning buyer persona.
Oh, you thought we were finished? Nope! Keep reading for the fourth golden nugget.
#4 Identify how your product/service helps them
Now that you’ve identified their pain points and motivators, it’s time to highlight how your business is the best fit for their needs.
In this example, Instagram Expert Elise Darma taps into business owners’ anxiety when sitting down to write Instagram captions. Not only does she show this via her reel, but in the caption, she hits them right in the jugular with the experience she’s had writing captions and how her writing vault has the secret formula to save them time!
As you find unique solutions to each problem, you develop content that addresses each pain point to hit a homeroom with your content marketing plan.
Alright, friend, the final stretch! Step 5— actually creating your buyer persona.
#5 Use your research to create a buyer persona
Now that all the hard stuff is done, it’s time to craft that bad boy! Lay everything out – the information collected during your interviews, all their pain points, and their motivations to piece together your winning buyer persona.
Examples of Buyer Personas
We know what you’re thinking… This information is great, but what does a buyer persona actually look like? Don’t worry. We’re already ahead of you with these 3 real-life examples of buyer personas.
Example 1: Client for Marketing Services
Name: Katarina Bains
Profession: Business owner
Goals: Increase sales and dominate the regional market
Challenges: Lacks skills in marketing and is busy running the business
Age: 31 – 41
Income: 250k+
Education: Bachelor degree in accounting
Location: New York City
The story of Katarina Bains:
- Katarina is married with 2 little ones. After finishing her Accounting degree at the University of Southern California, she started her business. She stays up with the social media trends and often finds herself purchasing her necessities online.
- At first, she was a one-woman show but eventually expanded her team. Because of her accounting background and innovative spirit, she loves taking on new opportunities. You could say she’s a pretty fearless gal.
- Katarina is aware that dedicated marketing is the best way to expand her brand so she keeps her Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin accounts active however rarely posts due to lack of time. She acknowledges that most of her clients are most likely online, but she just can’t stay consistent.
- By now, you might be able to tell that Katarina understands she’s no digital marketing expert and that it would save her a lot of time and headaches to simply hire a digital marketing specialist to help support her business goals.
Example 2: Client for a Financial Advisor
Name: Martin Williams
Profession: Nightclub owner
Goals: Expand his club empire to other cities across the country
Challenges: Losses, raising funds for expansion
Age: 35 – 45
Income: 700k+
Education: Diploma in Music
Location: London
The story of Martin Williams:
- Martin is a married dude with 3 amazing children. His business blossomed out of his savings, and he’s since expanded his nightclubs.
- He supervises his employees while they bring inventory in and adhere to their customers throughout the night. Every once in a while, on special occasions, he even hosts celebrities at his clubs.
- Overall, Martin’s an ambitious guy that wants to expand his presence to new locations. His main dilemma is raising money for the expansion, considering there’s often mismanagement of funds.
- He understands that to move forward, he needs a financial advisor that’ll help him make the right decisions and guide him in the right direction to expand the way he envisions.
Example 3: Client for a Business Mentor
Name: Michelle Turney
Profession: Freelance writer
Goals: Increase her income to 5-figures monthly, land high-paying clients, spend more time with her family.
Challenges: Difficulty in raising money for freelance writing courses, unreliable low-paying clients
Age: 20 – 30
Income: $800 – 1300
Education: Diploma in English
Location: Barcelona
The Story of Michelle Turney:
- Michelle is a single gal who has finished college. Throughout her final trimester, she took up freelance writing.
- She finds herself working for pennies at content mills like Fiverr and Upwork and scours through numerous job boards without any success.
- Her dream is to scale her freelancing business and find high-paying, reliable clients. To make this dream a reality, she’s enlisted in multiple email lists that deliver tips on how to increase your income.
- She gets sidetracked by shiny influencers in the freelancing space who promise to bring her the desired results, but their courses are too expensive for her budget.
- So, Michelle aims to find a successful freelance writer to mentor her and, if they’re willing, to provide an affordable course that she can take. She believes that after taking a course, she will grow her income as well as her network.
