10 Questions To Consider When Developing Buyer Personas
Anyone that has worked with me knows I enjoy a good persona development session. And yes, buyer personas are really important for your marketing strategy!
Buyer personas play a pivotal role in marketing by providing a clear and detailed understanding of the target audience. They serve as fictional representations of ideal customers, allowing marketers to tailor their strategies and messages to specific needs, preferences, and behaviors. By crafting accurate buyer personas, businesses can effectively personalize their marketing efforts, leading to higher engagement, increased conversions, and stronger brand loyalty. Essentially, buyer personas act as a guiding light, helping businesses focus their resources on attracting and retaining the right customers.
There are plenty of resources out there to help you build effective buyer personas. For those just getting started, HubSpot offers a free tool that can be a helpful starting point.
I wanted to provide a few additional resources to make the process even easier. In another blog post I provided my quick guide to developing buyer personas. Here, I’m going to list 10 key questions that I think are incredibly helpful to ask when you go through the process on your own.
1. Who is your ideal customer?
Start by defining the basic demographics of your target audience, such as age, gender, location, occupation, and income level. The more real data you have to support your ideas, the better. If you use a CRM or have a sales team you can use information about your current or previous customers to find patterns and trends that will ultimately help you tailor your targeting later.
2. What are your persona’s goals and objectives?
Understand what motivates your ideal customers. What are their primary goals, both personally and professionally? Think both immediate and long-term. Are there ways that you or your company can help them achieve these goals? Does your product or service make the persona’s life easier so they can pursue even bigger goals?
These answers can be a good source of inspiration when it comes to crafting messaging that motivates and inspires your audience to consider your company.
3. What pain points does your persona experience?
Identify the problems or challenges that your ideal customers face. What obstacles do they encounter in their daily lives or in achieving their goals? Think about the pain points your product or service directly aims to alleviate. Additionally, consider any pain points that come up in the buying process–this can be highly beneficial when it comes to nurturing leads and eliminating friction that could cause potential buyers to abandon their journey or choose a different company to satisfy their needs.
4. Where does your persona get their information?
Determine the sources your audience relies on for information. Do they prefer social media, blogs, industry publications, or word-of-mouth recommendations? This will be instrumental in planning your content strategy and determining where your brand should be present. If there are specific websites, publications, or other channels that your audience frequents you might even uncover some advertising opportunities.
5. What are your persona’s preferred communication channels?
Find out how your ideal customers prefer to communicate. Are they active on social media? Do they prefer email, phone calls, or in-person meetings? Once again, this information can help guide your approach to marketing (and even sales) so it is important to have it documented.
6. What influences your persona’s purchasing decisions?
Understand the factors that influence your audience’s buying decisions. Is it price, quality, brand reputation, peer recommendations, or something else?
Another thing to consider here is who actually makes the buying decision. In some cases there may be more than one key player involved. For example, in higher education marketing we often need to consider both the student who will be attending an institution and the parent or guardian who may be fully or partially funding the student’s education. Or, for B2B businesses, the end user of a product or service might not be the person who has the authority to make a purchase.
7. What objections might they have?
Anticipate potential objections your ideal customers might have to your product or service. What barriers could prevent them from making a purchase? This is another powerful source of effective marketing and sales messaging. By understanding what your persona’s objections are, you can find ways to address them.
8. What are their interests and hobbies?
Explore the personal interests and hobbies of your target audience. What do they do in their free time? What are their passions and interests outside of work? The answers to these questions may or may not be directly related to your offering, but they are still valuable in helping you build a holistic understanding of your persona. It might even spark creative ideas of ways you can connect and engage with your audience!
9. What is their preferred buying journey?
Map out the typical buying journey of your ideal customers. How do they become aware of your product or service? What steps do they take before making a purchase? Your historical data and anecdotal evidence from salespeople can be very helpful here.
10. How can you best serve their needs?
Finally, consider how your product or service can address the needs, pain points, and goals of your ideal customers. What unique value proposition can you offer? Your value proposition should be documented separately, but your persona is critical to formulating an effective one. If you need a refresher, here’s Semrush’s guide to writing value propositions.
By carefully considering these questions, you can create detailed and accurate buyer personas that guide your marketing efforts and help you connect with your target audience on a deeper level. Remember, the more you understand your audience, the more effectively you can tailor your marketing messages and offerings to meet their needs and preferences.
I hope you end up enjoying the buyer persona development process as much as I do. If not and you’d like help creating personas for your brand, contact me to see how I can help!
Written by Kelsey Miller
Kelsey is a digital marketing professional with experience in a range of industries and a special interest in the higher education space.
