Buyer Personas
Creating buyer personas is an attempt to profile a particular segment or subset of prospects. It is an attempt to describe a sample member of a segment in intricate detail to allow marketers, copywriters and designers to better understand their audience.
An example of a persona description is the following…
Meet Paul. He’s the owner and CEO of a mid-sized IT company. Paul is outgoing, married with 2 children. His wife works, so there is never enough time in the day to get everything they want done. Joe drives a mini-van to work because it is practical although he’s been thinking about splurging on a convertible. However, his annual contracts were down and he’s saving for retirement and preparing to send his kids to college in a few years.
Based on that colorful description copywriters, marketers and designers can speak to him in a way that is meaningful to Paul while highlighting benefits that would matter the most to him. Let’s talk about how to create baskets or segments so that you can create accurate buyer personas.
3 Ways to Segment
- Demographics (Age, Gender and Income)
- Firmographics (Industry Type, Business Size and Company Structure)
- Psychographics (Interests, Attitudes, Aspirations, Personality, Lifestyles and Values)
Demographics
This is pretty well known as it is often asked when completing a survey. This includes the segments of Millennials, Baby Boomers or Gen X. This is typically used to determine what life stage someone may be in but not necessarily their motivations.
Firmographics
This is important when creating B2B messaging because it helps you identify decision-trees, gate keepers and influences. It is important that you communicate to all stakeholders in a way that is meaningful so that the value you are presenting is easily understood. Too often, we focus to much on the “decision-maker” which is important however the successful adoption of a product/service is ultimately in the hands of the user.
Psychographics
We talk a lot about the key to creating a strong brand is delivering a “brand experience”. This category of segmentation often creates the most relevant and meaningful connections. Regardless if you are selling in a B2B or B2C, you are always selliing B2P Business-to-Person. It is shown time and time again that people make emotional decisions and then justify them through rationalization. Proper psychographic segmentation is of the utmost importance when creating a buyer’s journey. It is also the most difficult to obtain but the sooner you start looking for it, the sooner you can start creating better communications with prospects and clients!
