As a marketer, one of the most important questions to be able to answer is, who is your buyer persona? If you don’t have a clear-cut response on who your target audience is, how can you possibly market to them correctly?
According to Hubspot, a buyer persona is defined as, “semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on data and research. They help you focus your time on qualified prospects, guide product development to suit the needs of your target customers, and align all work across your organization (from marketing to sales to service).”
Check out our three tips on how to best identify your business or brand’s buyer persona.
Look At Your Existing Clients
Does your existing database have anything in common? Perhaps all of your customers fall into a certain demographic. Review, compare, and contrast all of your current buyers and see what similarities exist. Most likely, those similarities will take you one step closer to honing in on your buyer persona.
Survey Your Social Communities
One of the best ways to identify your buyer persona is by asking your current online communities. Many of the people in your social media circles may already be your customers, but some may be there looking for more information before they “buy”. Ask your followers questions, post polls, try to gather as much intel on your community as possible and from there, analyze the responses and see if any make sense to add as a component to your buyer persona.
Make An Educated Guess
Sometimes no matter how much research you do, you still have to make an educated guess. After the above, it’s important to really think about who you want your buyer to be. What solution does your product offer? What pain point does your product solve? Consider age, gender, education, income level, geographic location, etc.
Identifying your brand’s buyer persona is incredibly insightful and an important first step of your marketing plan. Want to learn more? Check out Hilary’s book, Branding in a Digital World, where she includes a whole chapter about buyer personas.