A buyer persona is an archetypal example of a buyer that you create which represents a group of similar buyers that you wish to attract with your brand. You could just make a list of demographics and psychographics of your intended market and segment them but having a well crafted buyer persona helps bring that market and the segments to life. This helps everyone in your company to more intimately understand the customer experience and make customer centric decisions.
Here's an example of a business and abbreviated buyer personas:
Let's say that you own a B&B and over time you've noticed three groups of buyers that tend to visit. One group is of research scientists who stay for several weeks at a time while working at a nearby university. Another is business people who tend to stay a few nights during the week. A third is couples who come for romantic getaways on the weekend. With each of these you can develop very detailed personas which will guide different pricing, packaging and marketing strategies.
Here are some of the attributes you might build into each of these three personas:
Mark has a Ph.D and is a leading DNA researcher. He is very focused on his work. He leaves the B&B early in the morning, not typically eating breakfast and comes back late at night. He is not interested in exploring the area. All his travel plans and decisions are made by an administrative person at his home university. He will typically stay for 3-4 weeks once a year. He has no social media presence or interest.
Elizabeth is a software salesperson and comes to town once a quarter for 2 or 3 nights. Some nights she is out for business dinners while others she enjoys exploring the town or just relaxing. She makes her own travel reservations and has some leeway in spending. Sometimes she stays in hotels but prefers B&Bs because of the character and personal nature. Keeping daily contact with her family is important. Having wireless internet access is important. She uses Facebook for social interaction with friends and family but doesn't join groups with commercial interest. She has a Twitter account but doesn't monitor it regularly and doesn't Tweet much. She also has a LinkedIn account used for business networking. She prefers getting commercial messaging via email as long as it is relevant to her and not more than once a week.
Rich and Lisa have 2 young children and try to have a romantic getaway for a night or two every month. Lisa tends to do the research balancing price, the ambience of the B&B or hotel, and the local charm and activities. They have a set of regular places that they return to but also try new places once in a while. Lisa is a heavy Facebook user for all things social and commercial. She doesn't use Twitter. They do look for getaway specials which often influence their decision.
You can imagine how even just these three personas would affect the marketing strategy for the B&B owner. They each have different needs and sensitivities to be addressed through services, pricing, marketing strategies and website design. Perhaps s/he might even design the B&B website with three different portals on the home page for these personas.
Do you have buyer personas? Are they intimate, insightful, detailed and alive? Does your whole company embrace them? Make them you best friends and they will serve you well.
