Just like a fisherman probably banks more fish when he knows the species for which he is fishing, so a business probably generates more revenue when it truly understands the buyers it is trying to attract. One of the best ways to identify “the big catch,” or an ideal buyer, is through creating buyer personas.
Buyer personas can be defined as representations of prototypical customers based on real information about demographics and behavior, as well as insight about what makes them tick. Information used to create buyer personas is gathered through research, surveys and interviews of customers. Based on this information, organizations can create business strategies that meet buyer’s goals and encourage customer engagement. Equally important, a company’s CEO should be better able to communicate how their organization can help their buyers meet their goals after analyzing buyer personas. Here are four steps to creating buyer personas.
1. Identify your buyers.
Take an inventory of your customers and identify the basic information about them. Who are they? What is their business? Where are they located? This information is critical for establishing the foundation of a buyer persona.
2. Identify your buyers’ goals.
Once you know the basic profile information of your buyers, find out what they want and need to accomplish within the next 30 days, six months, 12 months or five years. Perhaps your buyer wants to expand a produce category in two months or partner with someone on a food safety program in two years. Understand their goals from a big picture view, as well as a short-term window by having a face-to-face conversation, phone call or digital meeting with several of your customers.
3. Identify your buyers’ challenges.
Many people in sales likely already know that understanding a customer’s obstacles puts them one step ahead in terms of closing a deal. Some people like to identify pain points and then adapt their selling strategy, products and services to alleviate those pains. What is keeping your customer from meeting their goals? Recognize these hurdles and show how you can leap over them.
4. Identify your buyer’s habits.
Just like the people of different cultures practice different customs, your buyers exercise different practices depending on the nature of their work and other characteristics. Understand your buyers’ behaviors and how they spend their time. Which processes are well-executed and truly benefit their business? Do any behaviors exist that could be eliminated to create overall improvements?
As you set out to better understand your customers, keep in mind that developing buyer personas is not so much a quantitative process. Creating buyer personas is a qualitative process that requires observation and critical thinking like a research project that reveals the unspoken and not-so-obvious idiosyncrasies of your (potential) customers. A buyer persona is not like a customer profile that lists age, income and other descriptors; rather, it reveals motivations and true qualities. Here is a resource that we’ve found helpful in our buyer-persona-creating endeavors.
Have you created a buyer persona for your company? What steps did you take to create it?