No business is ever going to make any money with no customers to buy their products! All the business decisions that you make – what products you sell, pricing strategy, business location, and even the employees you hire – are made to bring more and more customers on board. A businessman takes every decision to optimize the likelihood of customers buying more products.
Many businesses take the help of customer personas to take the right choices to grow and advertise business and products. The customer or buyer persona is fictional but represents a business’s customers and their interests. It is based on the customers’ demographics and behavior.
Customer persona and user persona are similar but are different in one aspect. While buyers are the ones who purchase the product or make the purchasing/spending decision, users are the ones who use the product in reality. However, for many businesses, buyers and users can be the same. Nevertheless, for businesses whose buyers and users are different, it is crucial to understand the differentiation between the two.
What is a Customer Persona?
A business can only get success if it has a deep understanding of its target customers. The businessman’s ability to put himself in the shoes of his customers and understand their pain points and requirements/expectations from the products will drive success his way. Being able to behave like customers is a major requirement to come up with the best product and marketing tactics.
This is why it is imperative to build a business that solves the pain points of its customers with its products. It is easier to design a product, develop it, and come up with a marketing campaign around it without knowing what exactly your customers want. Designing a product and marketing campaign as per the needs of your customers night be difficult but it increases the chances of success.
But, what if your products are not solving the problems of your customers? What if your marketing strategies are not competent enough to attract your customers? In product development and marketing, user research can be helpful. With user research, you can get details about the target customer base. These details are called personas, and help the business understand customers’ problems, goals, and motivations.
There are two types of personas – buyer personas and user personas. The required persona depends on the type of business. Let’s take a look at them:
Buyer Persona
The buyer persona is related to the ideal target customer. The buyer makes the final purchasing decision – whether to buy from you or a competitor. But this person can be different from the one that uses the product in reality. A buyer persona helps make decisions regarding marketing and sales campaigns. It is crucial while creating a new marketing campaign.
User Persona
A user persona is critical for businesses that are developing their products/services. It helps reassure that the product or service the company is building is the replica of what the customers require.
Buyer and user persona terms are sometimes used interchangeably. But if a business sells to one and the product is used by another, these two become two different terms.
Components of Customer Persona
The following makes up for a good customer persona:
Name
A name is obvious. It helps in making the persona real and individually identifiable. When the persona has a name, it can be related to a real person. It is easier to talk about it in product development discussions and marketing activities.
Persona & Professional Background
Personal and professional information is important. Personal information tells about the persona’s educational background, hobbies, and likes and dislikes. This information influences the persona’s brand choice. The professional information tells what the persona does for a living and this career. This very much impacts the purchasing power of the persona as well.
Demographics
Demographics is an imperative component to get more insight into the persona. This includes age, gender, education, family status, and so on. Once the data is collected, you can divide the persona into age ranges, male/female percentage, etc. Notably, since the persona is a fictional character, you need to be specific about age, gender, and other details.
Goals
What are the goals of the personas you are capturing? Many times, the goals of the personas are beyond what your company has on offer or what it can solve. For example, you may be selling a detergent powder while the customer’s requirement can be a washing machine. So, it is also important to know what your persona needs or wants in order to make them your customers.
Persona’s Pain Points
Knowing the pain points of the persona is very important in order to make him your customer. what are his concerns? Is he concerned about chemical ingredients in his beauty product? The solution to their pain point can be your natural and organic homemade beauty products.
Buying Behavior
Are most of your customers repeat customers? Or did they make a one-time purchase? Where does their brand loyalty exist? Have your products solved their pain points and helped them meet their goals? Knowing answers to these questions will help you understand your persona better.
Environmental Factors
Environmental factors, such as physical, social, and technological are often overlooked. But they are critical in defining persona. For instance, you plan to target your customers via an online application form. How would most of your targeting personas respond to the application form? Would they use a mobile phone or laptop? Are their surroundings quiet or noisy? All these factors will affect their response to the application form.
Getting answers to all these questions will help create a full picture of the persona. It will also help you understand how they will interact with your application form.
Importance of Customer Persona
Customer persona helps in ensuring that all the customer acquiring activities and marketing strategies are tailored as per the buyer’s needs. When you present yourself, start by talking about what your customers need and what are their pain points. Then come to what your product has on offer and how it can help resolve the pain points of the customers.
When buying a product or service, it is natural for buyers to choose the brands they know and trust more. And best way to build this trust is buying showing genuine concerns for the pain points of your buyers. The way you present yourself plays a significant role in gaining trust from the customers as a brand. Creating buyer personas, in this aspect, is required to continually guide the business and help center all the marketing activities around the customers and their needs.
The Final Say
Buyer or customer persona is a research-based profile that represents all the personas (customers) you wish to target. With its help, you can adapt to key aspects of your marketing and sales for success. Understanding the types of people who can benefit from your product and the best way to solve their challenges, is critical to direct your efforts towards attracting and retaining customers.
