Both marketers and Ingmar Bergman circa 1966 are all about personas.

A marketing persona is someone who we provide content, services, and products to. Customer persona, buyer persona, and audience persona are all different ways of referring to this same group of people. They are the heart of every marketing operation, and any marketing strategy is built around existing and potential customers.

The goal of putting the audience first is clear, but HOW to do it can be messy. The terms used to describe it are ambiguous, there are different ways to do it, and what’s most important is not always obvious. To help you figure out how to put the audience first, I invite you to follow me on a step-by-step tour around customer personas.

What is a customer persona (and what about other terms)?

Marketing, customer, buyer, and audience personas are all the same thing. The term you use is just a matter of perspective.

Different people in marketing, sales, and PR might prefer different terms to describe their ideal customer, but there is no difference in the definition of these terms.

Both the buyer persona and the lead in a movie are fictional characters. They each embody a number of characteristics or traits that make up a trope. Just as a lead actor represents the best version of a character, a customer persona is supposed to represent the best version of a prospective buyer. This guide helps marketers identify other buyers that match the criteria.

A rough sketch of a buyer persona template looks something like this:

How much detail you have on your perfect buyer will determine how accurate your rough sketch of them becomes. This sketch will then guide your marketing and business decisions. To move from theory to practice, let’s look at some examples.

Why are customer personas important?

When researching a target audience, it’s important to create customer personas. This will help you see the people in your audience as individuals, rather than a homogenous entity. By studying your target market in depth, you can create key buyer personas that represent each customer segment. This way, you can make sure you cover all of your bases!

Most businesses have multiple customer profiles to worry about. Unless your business is so specific that there’s only one buyer profile to think of, understanding your customer segments in all their variety is crucial to making sense of what your target audience is all about.

The fictional buyer persona is used to represent the people behind your target audience. By having thoroughly developed buyer personas, you can help build a more humanized marketing workflow.

The purpose of shifting the focus from company needs to customer needs when framing messages and developing marketing campaigns and, ultimately, products and services is to serve the customer.

As most businesses have more than one buyer persona in their audience, it’s not realistic to think that each persona’s needs and wants will be given equal priority all the time when making marketing decisions. However, making sure that at least one of your buyer personas is well taken care of is a good place to start.

Different Types of Buyer Personas

As you start to create your buyer personas, you may wonder what the different types are. After all, it would be easy to adjust one to fit your business.

There is no set list of universally-recognized buyer personas, and there is no standard for the number of personas you need. Each business is unique, and for that reason, their buyer personas should be unique to them.

Most companies will have similar categories for their buyer personas, but the number of personas required will depend on the company’s target audience.

Now that you understand what a buyer persona is, are you ready to start creating your own?

How to Create Buyer Personas

To create your buyer personas in more detail, follow these steps:

1. Fill in your persona’s basic demographic information.

Try asking demographic questions over the phone, in person, or through online surveys to get more information. Some people may be more comfortable disclosing personal information in this way.

Make sure to include some helpful descriptive information and keywords about your persona, as well as any notable mannerisms, that you noticed during your conversations. This will help people on your team to more easily identify certain personas when talking to prospects.

2. Share what you’ve learned about your persona’s motivations.

In other words, what you’ll be doing here is taking the information you learned from the interviews and figuring out what your persona’s main goals and struggles are. What are the things that keep them up at night? Who do they want to become? And most importantly, how can your company help them with all of that?

3. Help your sales team prepare for conversations with your persona.

Some of your personas might be worried about the cost of your product. They might say, “I don’t know if I can afford this.” or “I’m not sure if this is worth the price.” Be prepared to address these concerns by explaining the value of your product and how it can save them money in the long run. Other personas might be worried about the commitment required to use your product. They might say, “I’m not sure I have the time for this.” or “I don’t know if I’m ready to make this kind of commitment.” Be prepared to address these concerns by explaining how easy and quick your product is to use and how it doesn’t require a long-term commitment.

4. Craft messaging for your persona.

Give your persona a voice by teaching others how to speak about your products and services the way they would. This includes using the specific language and terminology they would use, as well as a more general overview of your solution that resonates with your persona on a deeper level.

It is important for people in the same company to be able to communicate with each other to get customers and sales.

It is important to assign a name to your persona so that there is consistency in how that persona is referred to internally by different teams.

How to Find Interviewees for Researching Buyer Personas

To find out who your buyer persona is, you need to speak with some people. This is one of the most critical steps in establishing your buyer persona.

To get to know your target audience, you will need to interview them to find out what motivates them. There are a few sources you should tap into:

1. Use your current customers.

Your existing customers are the best place to start your interviews because they have already bought your product and interacted with your company. At least some of them probably match your target customer profile.

It’s not enough to only talk to people who are already enthusiastic about your product. You can learn just as much, if not more, from customers who are unhappy with your product. Pay attention to the patterns they exhibit, as this will give you a better understanding of your personas.

You might find that some of your less happy customers have bigger teams and need greater collaboration functionality from your product. Or, you may find they find your product too technical and difficult to use. In both cases, you learn something about your product and what your customers’ challenges are.

An additional advantage of interviewing current customers is that you likely won’t need to offer them an incentive (e.g. gift card) to do so. Customers generally appreciate being heard — interviewing them affords them an opportunity to tell you about their world, their difficulties, and their thoughts regarding your product.

The involvement of customers in interviews provides them with a greater sense of loyalty to the company. Reaching out to customers and making it clear that their feedback is important to your team will result in more meaningful feedback.

2. Use your prospects.

You should interview people who have not purchased your product and don’t know much about your brand in order to get an idea of how to improve your product and marketing. Your current prospects and leads are a great option here because you already have their contact information.

Analyze the data you have to find people who would make good target personas.

3. Use your referrals.

To find people who fit into your target personas, you will probably have to rely on referrals. This is especially true if you are entering new markets or do not have any leads or customers yet.

To find people to interview, try reaching out to your network of contacts, including coworkers, existing customers, and social media contacts. This may not yield a large number of people, but the quality of the interviews is likely to be high.

If you want to find someone to connect with on LinkedIn, try searching for people who fit into your target personas. See if any of the results have any connections in common with you, and then reach out to your common connections for introductions.

4. Use third-party networks.

There are a few ways to recruit interviewees who are not familiar with your company. You can post ads on Craigslist for people interested in any type of job, or use UserTesting.com to run remote user testing with some follow-up questions.

Although you will have less control over the sessions conducted through UserTesting.com, it is an excellent resource for recruiting users for testing purposes quickly.

What are examples of customer persona?

Here are two examples of customer personas, one for B2B (Business to Business) and one for B2C(Business to Consumer) brands, to make the concept super-clear.

Freelance Steve

If you are writing a social media post for all the Steves – you now have specific points to address.

SEO Sandy

An example of a social media post that would be of interest to Sandy might give  a quick update on all the things happening in her industry, so she can spend more time with her family and less time catching up on industry news.

If you give your audience content that is valuable to them, they will trust you more and be more loyal to your brand.

Create Your Buyer Personas

Creating buyer personas allows you to understand your target customers on a deeper level, which in turn allows everyone on your team to know how best to target, support, and work with your customers. Doing this will help improve reach, boost conversions, and increase loyalty.

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