What is a Buyer Persona and why do you need one?
What is a Buyer Persona?
A “Buyer Persona” (aka Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)) is a detailed description of your ideal client(s). For B2B marketing, you need a separate Buyer Persona for each customer type/target market. For example, if you sell a product that is used in the construction industry, you may have 3 customer types – Architects, Quantity Surveyors and Building Contractors. Each of these types of ideal customers will probably have different needs, buying processes, decision making teams etc. Therefore, your Buyer Persona will need to describe key factors about each one.
Sample Elements of a B2B Buyer Persona
– Location:
– Key Issues/”Pain Points” that they struggle with (that relates to the product you sell)
– How they try to solve their problem – e.g. ask a colleague, do a Google search?
– Knowledge level: e.g. are they knowledgeable about your product type or only barely aware of it?
– Decision-making process: by committee or are they the sole decision maker?
– What social media platforms, if any, do they use?
– What type of online content do they prefer – videos, detailed blogs, simple infographics, carousels?
– What would an ideal solution to their problem look like?
– If they search online, what sort of search terms/words will they use when they search?
Why do you need a Buyer Persona?
A Buyer Persona will help to guide your marketing actions. For example, if you have listed all the search terms that your ideal buyers will use when searching online, then you can check that these same search terms are being used on your website’s backend. (e.g. in your website’s title tags and description tags). If they are not being used, then you need to ask your web developer to update your website to use these search terms so that your website performs well in search engines.
Also, if your buyers in one target market have very little knowledge about your product type, then you need to focus now on creating easy-to-digest, introductory content types, such as infographics and short videos (as opposed to detailed blogs).
In addition, if you are working with a marketing agency or are outsourcing some sales functions, an agreed buyer persona will ensure that everyone is “on the same page” regarding who you are targeting.
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