Are you familiar with Buyer Barry, Dealer Dan, Purchasing Pete, CEO Charlie and Bad Fit Brian? One of the fun parts about creating buyer personas for your business is naming them. However, the real fun (and rewarding) part is when you start to notice how having a well-defined buyer persona can truly change your business.
What is a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a fictional version of your favorite buyers combined. Imagine taking your three favorite clients, putting together all the things you like about them and then giving that person a name. A buyer persona is essentially a guideline to the decision- maker of your ideal client. When defining your own persona, it’s important to ask many questions.
- Who are they?
- What’s their job title?
- Are they on social media?
- Are they workaholics?
- What are their internet watering holes? Industry magazines?
These are just a few questions to ask to help you get to know your ideal client or customer.
Why Do I need a Buyer Persona?
Buyer personas are extremely important for everyone at your company to understand. A solid buyer persona profile allows your marketing team to understand what sort of content will resonate with your company’s best clients. Better content leads to better opportunities –more qualified opportunities to be exact. Few things will make your sales team happier than overwhelming them with sales from qualified leads.
Without a buyer persona, you’re essentially throwing spaghetti at the wall and just praying it sticks. And much like undercooked spaghetti, an underdeveloped buyer persona strategy just doesn’t cut it.
How to Develop Your Buyer Persona
Key members of your team need to be involved: sales, marketing, the CEO, and anyone else who interacts with clients or customers on a daily basis. Involving everyone is key to persona development success. It’s not enough for the sales team to just say they really like “Bill,” from Company XYZ. Everyone has to throw their two cents in and understand why Bill is a great client or customer.
Here’s a look at a solid persona development process:
- Form your persona development team
- Schedule a meeting where everyone is involved and are active participants
- Define a few of your favorite clients
- Discuss why they are your favorite clients. What do you love about them?
- Write it all down (or use a whiteboard!)
- Move on to the buyer’s journey
- Develop a plan
- Stick to the plan
- Generate quality leads
- Close
- Repeat
Buyer Personas Grow and Change with Your Business
Personas evolve over time. It’s unrealistic to think you can sit down and develop a perfect buyer persona in just a few hours. Over time, you’ll learn more about your personas. It’s important to realize and remember that these personas aren’t set in stone. As time goes on, your persona is going to get stronger and stronger. Decisions should be made with your persona in mind. Ask, “Would Executive Ed like this blog post?” “Will Manufacturer Mark see this post on LinkedIn?” Once you figure out who your persona is, then you can focus on their buyer’s journey.
Overwhelmed? Give ProFromGo a call…
ProFromGo has been walking clients through persona development exercises for years. It’s one of the most crucial steps in our onboarding process. If you’re having trouble figuring out who your best buyer is, and how to find more “good-fit leads” for your company, contact ProFromGo. We’re always happy to help!
