Essay Example on As a business owner or marketer it is vital to understand your target Customers

Gone are the days of fishnet marketing where you market your products and services the same way across your entire customer base Today the key to creating a successful marketing campaign starts with identifying your key audiences by defining buyer personas This article will provide you with an understanding of buyer personas why they are vital to the success of any marketing campaign and the initial steps you can take to start creating your own buyer personas What Is A Buyer Persona A buyer persona is a comprehensive description marketers use to represent individuals demographics psychographics needs wants desires and irritants In essence buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal audience These personas help you segment your customer base into small subsets allowing you to market your products and services more effectively Why Are Buyer Personas Important Creating buyer personas can have a positive effect on your overall marketing strategy by allowing you to connect to your customers on a higher level Without buyer personas you are taking a one size fits all approach to marketing which could prove to be detrimental to your marketing efforts 

Buyer personas help you segment your customers into smaller subsets which allows you to put your products and services in front of the consumers who are most likely to purchase them Not only will buyer personas help you increase your sales and create better targeted marketing campaigns they will also help you connect to your customers at a higher level by offering them content that is specific to their individual needs wants and desires Five Steps To Creating Buyer Personas The thought of creating buyer personas may seem like a daunting task at first glance but once in place they have the potential to save you a ton of time and money Keep in mind there is no set number of personas you must have in order to be successful These steps will provide you with a blueprint to follow to help you get started in creating your own buyer personas

1 Research Before you start creating your personas you need to conduct research on your customer base This research will help you create accurate personas and even uncover details about your customers that you did not previously know You can go about researching your members in a variety of ways One of the best ways to conduct research for your personas is to conduct interviews with some of your best customers This can come in the form of face to face interviews or even email generated surveys Make sure to go beyond demographics so you can learn your customers pain points hopes desires and wants You can also utilize tools such as Google Analytics or a CRM to analyze the behaviors of your best customers 2 Look For Commonalities Once you have conducted your research look for commonalities in your customers It's important during this step to focus on the most important details that would determine how you communicate with your customers For example if you find that many of your customers have a similar life goal you will want to include this in your persona Some examples of information you should include in this step include Demographic data such as age sex gender occupation family composition income education etc Interests Fears Challenges Communication preferences Behaviors such as how they use your products and services their interest in your products and services what types of content they read and watch where they get their information from etc 3 Create Individual Personas 

After you have done your research and you have identified commonalities it s time to create your personas Use the details about your customers that you generated in step two and organize the details into separate personas In this step you will identify your customers who have the same demographics interests fears challenges communication preferences and behaviors and put them into their own category For instance if you are a financial institution you may have certain customers who want to purchase a home and others who want to save more with a CD Since these two types of customers have different goals they should have separate personas 4 Name Your Personas After you have separated your customers qualities into personas it's time to give a name to your personas Naming your personas is important It helps you to remember that the people you are communicating with are actual people Not just eyes behind an advertisement or piece of content Giving your personas names will help you write better content and connect with your customers on a higher level Some savvy marketers even assign pictures to their personas to bring them more to life 5 Implementation After you have created your buyer personas and assigned them names it's time to implement them into your marketing strategy Use your personas to help you create content and specific marketing campaigns