Finally, the post you’ve been waiting for so long!

In my blog, I talk a lot about how important it is to create the profile of your ideal customer or buyer persona, yet I had never written a post dedicated exclusively to this important point before.

And it is vital because the success of your marketing strategy depends to a great extent on how well you define your buyer persona.

So, here we are! And I promise you we will see the process in detail.

I’m not going to lie to you, creating the profile of your buyer persona is not easy, especially at the beginning, when you are starting your business and you don’t know who your customers are.

At first, you may not have your niche very well defined, but with time you’ll realise that it’s better to specialise in one type of customer/market to sell more and better.

But let’s take it one step at a time.

What’s the famous buyer persona?

Buyer persona is a term that comes from the marketing world. We translate it as ideal customer. It’s that portrait we create by imagining who our ideal customer is based on data and experience.

In that portrait we will include his personal and professional situation as well as his dreams and aspirations, but above all his fears.

In the end, our mental blocks are what best defines us and if you know how to break those mental blocks of your ideal customer you have much ground gained when it comes to selling.

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What you have to be very clear about is that no matter how good your product or service is, there will be people who will never buy it, because that product or service is simply not designed for them.

A very silly but clear example: if what you are selling is a cushion to help with breastfeeding, it will not interest those who don’t have a baby, unless they want to buy a gift to someone else.

Why is it important to create a buyer persona profile?

Creating your ideal customer profile is the first thing you have to do when you decide to start a business. You must know exactly what kind of person might be interested in your product or service.

And these are the reasons:

– To be able to refine your content in order to attract the attention of your ideal customer

– To be able to improve your product/service according to the needs of your buyer persona

– To attract qualified traffic to your website and cut the clutter

– To write more persuasive sales copy that will entice the ideal customer to buy or hire your services

– To make your marketing investment (social media ads, webinars, e-books) as effective as possible so as not to waste money and time trying to reach everyone.

Do you think these are enough reasons? I certainly do.

Now it’s clear to you why you have to work hard from the start to define your buyer persona as accurately as possible.

Don’t stress out thinking that you have no idea who your ideal customer is, because I’m here to help you get a clear image of that person in your mind.

Remember, your buyer persona can change over time. The longer you run your business the better you will know your potential customers and therefore be in a better position to define your ideal customer.

It’s also possible that you have several buyer personas. If this is your case, the kinds of content you create for each of these profiles will have to be, in most cases, different as well.

How to create your buyer persona profile

Below are the main sources where you can extract relevant information about your ideal customer, that person who is closer to buying from you than others.

These are the main sources to gather the information you need:

– Analysing your website: analyse which are the entry points and the most popular topics and pages. Yes, that’s right, I’m afraid you’ll have to learn how to read Google Analytics. Don’t worry, it’s easier than it seems, trust me. Besides, Google Console sends now an email every month with a summary of the most visited pages which helps a lot.

– Researching on social media: study the profiles and actions of the people who follow you, but especially at the beginning, when nobody knows you, you have to look at the profiles of the competition to find out what people think. Read their comments, questions, complaints, everything. Join Facebook groups where you can have contact with your potential customers but without being a pain in the neck. Don’t be the typical pest that only joins groups to advertise his business and to try to get traffic to his blog. If you do these people will hate you and not take you into account. Listen to what people say, study them and whenever possible help them with tips. That way you will gain people’s trust. Patience is the mother of all virtues… 😊

– Questionnaires: don’t be shy, send questionnaires to your current and potential customers. You’ll be surprised by how many people like to answer surveys… Think about your acquaintances as well, if you have a friend/relative/partner who could be your ideal customer send them the questionnaire too and invite them for a beer afterwards.

– Interviews: many people might be lazy to fill out a questionnaire and prefer to chat. Identify what kind of customers are like that and ask them a few minutes of their time to ask them some questions. Very often listening would be enough. A lot of clients will tell you about their struggles and problems without even having to ask.

– Google trends. This tool allows you to search for information on a given topic, through keywords, to find out what current issues people are interested in and what specific audience they are targeting. Google explains it perfectly in one sentence: “Explore what the world is looking for“.

Focus on what you need to know about your ideal customer by asking yourself questions like these:

• What is her motivation?
• What does she want to achieve and when does she feel she has achieved it?
• What are the obstacles between her and the decision making (to buy your product or hire your services)?
• What is her budget?
• What are her values? People act much more often than we think moved by their values. These can be very different depending on the person, as you can imagine.

Gather all this information that will later serve you to create the sketch or profile of your ideal client.

In order to understand it better, we are going to see below a series of examples of very different buyer personas, so you can get a better idea.

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Examples of buyer persona

Here are a few examples of buyer personas that I just made up.

The first one is more general, it could have been created by an airline, a fashion brand, a restaurant or a bank. The other 2 are more specific to one type of business. With these 3 examples you can get some inspiration to create your own buyer persona profile.

The character includes a first-person fictional statement that shares David’s perspective. Instead of sticking to the lists, you can add a first-person story of your character to bring it to life, as I have done here.

This profile shows how Becky acts very often moved by offers. It also delves into her personality and other psychographic factors as we share a day in her life. If you have trouble imagining your ideal customer, try to imagine what their day is like and create your own story of one day in their lives.

Now let’s look at a B2B buyer persona since it always seems more difficult to put yourself in the shoes of the person you are talking to in a company.

Like the B2C examples, the B2B buyer persona example focuses largely on an individual customer.

The difference is that the B2B profile must include more specific details about where she works, what does she do and how she interacts with the organisation. In the case of B2B, the buyer persona is not always in charge of making purchasing decisions, so this detail must also be included in its description.

This character is an example of a brief description that includes all the essential information for an ideal B2B customer portrait. It explains who Laura is while providing the necessary details about her job and her ability to make decisions in her organisation.

I have also included a summary of the strategy of the company that has created this profile, imagining that it’s a content marketing agency or a freelance copywriter.

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Most frequent mistakes when creating your Buyer Persona

When you sit down to research and then create the profile of your ideal customer pay close attention to these traps that occur all too often.

It can happen to anyone so be aware:

1. People have too much imagination when it comes to creating the buyer persona. Keep your feet on the ground: make sure your profiles are based on data, not wishes or assumptions.

• Your buyer persona will evolve with your business. Think of it as a child who grows and changes. By working with your customers you will begin to see trends and patterns that you hadn’t realised at first. Maybe you didn’t even expect that specific type of customer would be interested in your product or service. And yet, he is. Check your buyer persona profiles often to ensure that your customer acquisition strategies are always up to date.

• Don’t get too distracted: don’t waste too much time creating more details than necessary. Some companies name their characters, make collages to illustrate them and hang those pictures on the walls… If it works for you – fine – do it! But you don’t really need to create a masterpiece worth hanging in the MOMA: to start with your Buyer Persona has to be functional.

Well, we’ve already seen everything that is necessary to create your Buyer Persona profile. Now it’s your turn.

I’d love to know how you’ve been doing, and if you have any questions I’m here to answer them. Leave them on the comments!

Thanks for being there.

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