Buyer Personas—Beyond “The Who”

persona_postMeet Jane. Jane is an accountant and has been for the past 10 years. She’s married with two children (12 and 14 years of age). She lives in the suburbs and purchases groceries at upscale retailers such as Central Market, Whole Foods, The Fresh Market, etc. She has a combined household income of $180,000 annually. She has a secretary who screens calls and prefers to receive personalized emails early in the week. Jane is like the dozens of individuals we seek to reach every day. She cares deeply about health, feeding her children healthy choices, choosing fresh and organic options, etc. Jane represents a buyer persona.

As we’ve shared in previous articles, a buyer persona is a basic profile of a target customer or consumer. After the DMA Team’s recent trip to Hubspot’s INBOUND 2014 marketing conference, it became more and more evident to our team just HOW important developing these personas are for marketers. Personas will help produce marketers to visualize ideal contacts and collect insights on their behavior, demographic profile, and psychographic information. These generalized characteristics help with understanding the needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns. Ultimately, they allow us to be smarter when defining a marketing strategy which helps motivate buyers to choose your companies and/or products and services over the competitors. We’ve introduced you to Jane – now let’s talk about how you can create a Jane of your own.

“Marketers who have deep insights into, how and why buyers’ choose their company’s solutions are perfectly tuned into the way buyers think.”

Adele Revella President, Buyer Persona Institute.

The best way to start building buyer personas is by collecting information and building profiles. Collect information through forms on your website using consumer promotions, sweepstakes, contests, events, or your company blog. Here are the types of questions you should be asking to build your buyer personas:

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email
  • Age
  • Family (single, married, children)
  • Occupation
  • What are you biggest challenges when it comes to preparing food? (Not enough time, expensive, don’t know what to make, don’t know how to cook, etc.)
  • Where do you purchase your groceries? (Think of the value this knowledge could to your sales team!)
  • How often do you purchase groceries?
  • How often do you prepare meals at home?
  • What types of fresh fruits and vegetables do you purchase?
  • How often do you purchase [your product]?
  • What motivates you to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables? (Healthy, organic, I just like them, I have a specific recipe, my family likes them, etc.)
  • What types of emails do you typically click on (recipes, free downloads, newsletters, etc)?
  • When do you prefer to receive email?

Upon collecting that information and learning how they think, it’s recommend that companies build between 3-4 personas and these personas become “living” people within in your company. All content, emails, campaigns, and marketing efforts that are created should be created with your personas in mind. For example, consider whether or not your next promotion would appeal to Jane. When is the best time to reach her? Should we take a different approach if we want to help Jane? If Jane is who you want to appeal to – you want to make sure you know who she is and how she buys.

It’s no longer enough to just know who you’re targeting. The most effective marketers should understand how and why customers buy.

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