The Buyer persona is a fictional profile portraying in a customized, detailed fashion, the most important features of a typical client of a product or service. In other words, it describes a character that doesn’t exist but represents an ideal buyer or some of your ideal buyers.

Building a Buyer Persona, as well as defining the target audience, means that we’ll consider factors such as socio-demographic, economical and behavioral patterns. But also their motivations, preferences, dislikes and personal goals –even their perception of your brand and products.

We can say that while the target audience constitutes a list of features shared by your typical clients, the Buyer persona is an accurate x-ray of the most representative element of that sample.

What is the Buyer persona for?

Targeting young men aged 20 to 24 is not the same as targeting older men aged 30 to 35 with kids: that age difference only is enough to figure out that consumption patterns of both groups will be pretty different.

Defining the profile of your Buyer persona (or your Buyer personas) will give you a strong starting point and help you shape the content of your marketing campaign according to your needs, and decide which aspects you should focus on.

For instance, the personality of your Buyer persona can give you some clues about the type of radio stations they listen to or the language they usually manage. Counting on this piece of information is important to avoid wasting your marketing budget on radio stations where your ad won’t be reaching the proper target, and also to set your message in tune with the voice and tone of your prospect client.

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What types of Buyer persona exist?

The main distinction made at creating a Buyer persona is between types B2B and B2C –that is, from business to business and from business to client.

• Within B2B, the business model targets other companies, but the Buyer personas are not companies themselves but people responsible for purchasing decisions. The final goal of the Buyer Personas is satisfying the needs of your company in the best possible way, which does not mean they lack the tastes and likes of individuals.
• Instead, a B2C Buyer Persona is a direct consumer who wants to purchase products to satisfy their own needs, fulfill their wishes and solve their problems.

There are other secondary classifications of Buyer persona types, such as the primary goals and the secondary goals.

How is a Buyer persona created?

Defining a Buyer persona is not easy. It involves long hours of statistic research, surveys, observation and analysis, so it should be carried out by a professional.

All this information can be obtained in two different ways: directly or indirectly. In the first case, current clients are interviewed to establish what they have in common, although that will only be possible if your company already counts on a client database who are willing to collaborate.

In the second case, tools such as Google Analytics or Google Insights database are used to obtain demographic information on those interested in your content. Google is not the only to have tools for demographic analysis. Facebook and Twitter also use these characteristics to support their own advertising platforms.

You can also study the audience of your competitor with tools such as Alexa to get an idea of their Buyer persona, but you need to be logged in to access those functions.

This article may be helpful: How to take the first step in using BIG DATA with help from a freelancer

Examples of Buyer persona

A Buyer persona type B2C is built based on market research and statistic methods. Among industries and even among companies, the way to present the Buyer Persona changes, but in general it looks something like this:

Buyer persona for a small cafeteria chain: Ana – Student

Personal background:

•  Age: 21 years old
• Geographic location: Valle Dorado, Estate of Mexico
• Income: Depending on her parents / Gets $2,000 pesos weekly.
• Academic degree: Student at a private college
• Marital status: Single/Casual dating

 Financial behavior:

•  Willing to start a business
• Preferred payment method: credit card
• Good control of personal expenses

Behavior in social media:

• Spends at least one hour a day on Facebook
• Uploads pics of their meals to Instagram
• Uses Pinterest
• Reads fashion blogs

Brand affinity:

• Buys clothes at American Eagle and Old Navy
• Prefers “organic food”
• Likes Apple products

Interests:

• A quiet place to get relaxed after class
• A place to study out of her home
• Gourmet experiences
• Discovering exotic flavors
• Travelling to national destinations

Life goals:

• Graduating
• Getting a full-time job
• Becoming independent
• Travelling to international destinations

Concerns and fears:

• Failing her classes
• Losing status
• Undermining her image in the social networks
• Not having internet access

Services used:

•  Mobile telephone and internet
• Fixed telephone and internet
• Music streaming
• Video streaming
• Private transportation (Uber)

As you can see, the Buyer persona may seem an archetype, and though pretty related to it, they go beyond that, as they include all the statistic information possible.

A Buyer persona type B2B needs more information –who the decision-maker is and also about their company, for example:

Buyer persona for a construction materials company: Alejandra – Contractor

• Demographic sector: Women aged 35 to 45
• Type of company: Construction/remodeling works of a house, less than 30 workers.
• Events and seminars attended: Expo Lighting America, Expo CIHAC
• Professional membership: Associated to CMIC
• Client profile: Partners of local medium-size enterprises, yearly revenues above 3 million pesos, average two properties in the city and three in the interior of the country.
• Work areas: Administrative and high-end in the city center.
• Academic degree: Diploma in Architecture. Workshops at BIM
• Position in the company: Direct head
• Mostly used software: AutoCad, Sketchup, Photoshop, Illustrator, NeoData, Excel.
• Responsibilities: Purchasing materials and tools. Outsourcing and managing third parties such as builders and specialists.
• Reports to: Final client
• Subordinates: Assistant resident officers, master builder, work officers, builders.
• Professional background: Architecture degree, 5 years of experience as resident officer, 5 years at quantification of executed works, 10 years at remodeling and developing executive projects.
• Working at areas: Urban
• Annual revenue: $1,000,000 annual after taxes
• Current objectives: Keeping updated and enlarging her client database.
• Problems being faced: The flow of information related to quantification, budget and orders is slow and needs to be elaborated manually. Following client requests, she has to search through catalogues from many different providers in order to find what she needs. Demands from unions are increasingly less sensible.
• Consumption patterns: She tries to make the most of personal use tools before purchasing new tools. She prefers loaning semi heavy equipment –groundbreakers, compactors, grinders) to purchasing them. She prefers renting scaffolds, cranes and hoists to purchasing them. She buys new tools for every work site and dismisses or distributes the waste.
• Preferred means of communication: Whatsapp, email, phone
• Preferred sources of information: Empiricism of her employees, experience of colleagues.

Learn more about the buyer persona

The Buyer persona is a complex concept since it relates very closely to other key terms of marketing, and it is sometimes difficult to see the difference between them. If you want to learn more, check out these resources we’ve selected for you:

• How to Create a Concrete Buyer Persona (with Templates & Examples) – Optin Monster
• Buyer Persona 101: The research and Insight for success – By Stephen Zoeller
• 5 Free Tools For Creating Buyer Personas – by Nativ3
• The B2B Marketer’s guide to buyer personas – By Capterra
• How to design a buyer persona for social media networks – by Learn Inbound
• 5 Google Analytics Reports to Help Build Your Buyer Personas – by SEMrush

Do not worry, this is no easy task and it usually takes a professional to do it properly. Workana is a platform where you will find thousands of remote workers widely experienced in marketing strategies planning.

Find more tips in: How and where to find a freelance digital-marketing-expert for your enterprise

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