What is a buyer persona?
A buyer persona is a highly detailed profile (or collection of profiles) of a brand’s target customer developed using a combination of market research and existing customer data. It goes beyond simple demographics and dives deep into the psychology and day-to-day life of the target customer.
If you wish to learn more about this concept, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What is the difference between a buyer persona and demographics?
As we have seen in the previous section, the main difference between a buyer persona and demographics is the level of detail and insight.
Demographics consist of things such as the customers:
- Age
- Location
- Gender
- Income
- Marital status
- Employment
If you take this information and combine it with actual customer data to develop a customer profile with a rich backstory that allows you to better understand who your customers are and what they want, you get a buyer persona.
As you can see, while demographics only give you data to interpret, a buyer persona allows you (and everyone else on your team) to really get to know your target customers. It gives you insight into things such as:
- What are your target customer’s biggest pain points are
- What they enjoy doing
- Where they hang out
- Who do they hang out with
- What are their hopes and dreams are
Question #2: Why do I need a buyer persona?
You need a buyer persona (or a collection of buyer personas) because the more intimately you know your target customers, the easier it would be for you to craft messaging and offer products and services that they will support. Let us take a look at each one in more detail.
First, in order to craft effective marketing and advertising campaigns, you need to know who exactly you are talking to and what they are looking for—which is exactly what buyer personas allow you to do.
Instead of being stuck with generic messaging such as:
- Sign up for world-class guitar lessons today!
- Experience our fastest gaming PC yet!
- Discover a better flying experience!
You will be able to craft something more tailored, such as:
- Play your first song after the first session! (Pain point: learning guitar takes too long)
- Outmanoeuvre the competition at every turn! (Pain point: poor gaming experience due to slow PC)
- Go ahead. Stretch your legs. (Pain point: cramped economy seats on airplanes)
In the first set of examples, the copy is essentially talking to everyone. Unfortunately, when you try to talk to everyone, you end up not reaching anyone. The goal is to make your target customers feel as if you are talking directly to them—which is what the second set of examples does.
By simply incorporating the target customer’s main pain point in the copy, you will be able to aim your message at the exact people you want to hear it. When they encounter it, they will immediately know that you are talking to them.
Question #3: What does it look like?
A buyer persona typically looks like a detailed ‘about me’ write-up, as in the following example:
Kelsey is a 22-year-old professional gamer who regularly competes in local and international e-sports tournaments. She specializes in multiplayer online battle arena games, such as DOTA 2 and League of Legends, but also enjoys more casual games such as Plants vs. Zombies and Minecraft.
Her biggest frustration is the lack of non-RGB gaming rigs that are powerful enough to handle the resource-intensive games she plays competitively. She hates how all top-spec gaming machines all look the same and do not match her aesthetic, which is more Apple-like (i.e., clean, sleek, upscale, and minimalist).
Her ideal setup would be something like an iMac but with smaller bezels and the power of the top-spec Asus gaming rigs.