Building your persona from scratch can be complicated and time consuming. But it doesn’t have to be. Rather than spending hours constructing you own, make it easy with a persona template that’s simple to use. In no time you will have your roadmap to a better marketing strategy.
Don't know where to start with our buyer persona? Here's what you should include:
A buyer persona is a profile you build of what your ideal customer might look like. The profile is populated with information on their likes, dislikes, age, the languages they speak, and the websites or social platforms they frequent.
It isn’t necessarily one person, but rather an ideal, semi-fictional avatar of who you should be targeting with your marketing strategy and communication efforts. Your persona should be a combination of market research and insights with customer or industry data along with your own business goals.
Audience analysis like this is a powerful tool on its own and has the potential to be a game-changer for your business.
Let’s talk for a moment about what should be going into your buyer persona template, and where you can gather that information.
The basics: demographics
First of all, you’ll want demographic information like age and gender, along with location, industry and the languages they speak. This information may seem basic, but aside from helping you target the right people in general, you’ll be able to make sure that you’re advertising to people in their language.
Their location will also decide the budget, as ad spend will differ from region to region, so it’s important to understand how much you'll have to spend and benchmark your ad costs in that region.
Their interests and affinities
Your audiences are at the heart of successful marketing. To be able to bring them value, you need to understand them better, know their interests, what content they consume and where. In turn, this will help you create content they want to see. Does your persona spend time keeping up with family on Facebook? Maybe reading about politics and current affairs? Or do they spend their time browsing memes on 9GAG?
Now, in the age of social media, a well-defined buyer persona is even more important. People engage with topics and people that interest them. Focusing your message on individuals not only guarantees that you’ll be reaching people interested in your product, but also adds authenticity to your work.
Which influencer they follow
If your persona is highly active on social media, explore which influencers they follow and trust. It can save you a lot of trouble later on if you decide you want to boost your sales with influencer marketing and already have an idea of who you would like to cooperate with for campaigns.
Overall, this information will prove invaluable to you in determining where you should focus your efforts in contacting potential clients and customers.
When they are online
Your data should also include when they are most actively posting, and engaging with content online. This will help you choose the best time to post to catch their attention during those peak engagement times.
Not sure where to get all this data? Try connecting your digital data in one place for a clearer picture.
Content they love
There is a world of content your personas could be browsing, but can you pick out their favorite posts across social? Visualize their newsfeed, what they would like, comment on, and share. Your goal here is to be part of that newsfeed, so you’ll not only need engaging content, but engaging content that matches the preferences for each of your audience personas.
If you don’t quite know how to go about building their newsfeed, a good place to start would be looking at the affinities and interests you added to your persona template.
Their goals and frustrations
Now that your buyer persona is starting to take shape, let’s get to know them a little! What are their goals that your business is positioned to help them achieve? By extension, what obstacles frustrate their efforts to achieve this goal? This is a good time to think about their motivations and give them a bit more personality.
Put yourself in their shoes and fill in the bio section on the template, and add a quote. This should be a reflection of your persona, in their tone of voice. Consider what circumstances have led them to consider your brand, their buyer’s journey, and which stage of the journey they are in now. Last, but certainly not least, give your buyer persona a name!
Where to get your data
Collecting all the data you need to build well-defined buyer personas can be a difficult and time-consuming task. But in the age of digital it doesn’t have to be. And that’s great news, because the benefits of a buyer persona are even more important on social media and digital. The trick is to collect your audience data in one place and to use this comprehensive view to segment that audience into personas you can reach out to.
Check out our comprehensive guide to personalized marketing on social media for everything you need to know about taking your social media strategy to the next level.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on socialbakers.com. Any statistics or statements included in this article were current at the time of original publication.
