Inbound Marketing: How to Develop Your Buyer Personas

For successful inbound marketing, it’s important to develop buyer personas. Why? Well, first ask yourself if you are aware of who your ideal prospects are and how you can reach them. Do you know their challenges, needs, and goals? You shouldn’t just have an idea of your target audience, you should also be aware of their personality traits.  What affects them when they’re making purchasing decisions? These are important things to consider because developing buyer personas will greatly enhance your ability to market your audience.

So what exactly is a buyer persona?

It is a representation of your ideal customer that’s based on real data and educational speculation about customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. They are semi-fictional characters that are meant to represent your dream customer. These characters should display the following:

• Common behavior patterns
• Shared pain points (both professional and personal)
• Universal goals, wishes, and dreams
• General demographic and biographic information

Buyer personas are not:

• A target market
• A professional role
• A specific real person or people group
• Affected by changes in technology
• Just fluff

What goes into a buyer persona?

You will need to develop detailed descriptions about each buyer persona and include a profile checklist, including:

• Name
• Job title or role—What is their position and seniority?
• Company/Organization
• Goals—What are they trying to achieve?
• Challenges—What stands in the way of their goals?
• Watering holes/hang-out spots
• Personal background
• Shopping preferences
• Demographic information

Once you’ve created a profile for your buyer persona, you can identify their needs. The profile(s) are the perfect outline. Now you can ask yourself—what problems are they trying to solve? What information are they looking for? What current trends are influencing their success?

How do you create a buyer persona?

First, you have to do a little digging. You can begin with some research of your existing customer base to identify the most common buyers of your product or service. It’s important to note that you probably have several types of buyers, and that’s okay, but you need to create a new buyer persona for each of them. You can find this information through:

• Interviews with current customers
• Research and surveys
• Form fields on your landing page
• Talking with your sales team

Integrating your Personas

Once you’ve built your personas, you can use this information to tailor your content. You know who your customers are and what they need, and now you can enrich your marketing strategies to best reach that audience. Focus on that research that told you where they shop, what influences their purchasing decisions, where they hang out, what their preferences are, and what challenges them. Maybe you need to increase your online presence through social media. Are your customers on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or LinkedIn? Wherever they are, be seen there. Perhaps they’re searching the web for how-to’s and tips. Make sure you’re blogging to meet those needs or providing that information on your website.

After you’ve completed this process, you should have a better understanding of who you’re trying to reach and how to better reach them.

If you have any questions about buyer personas or inbound marketing, Paveya is ready to help. Call us at 855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.