As a marketing person, you know too well that the brand you’re managing should always remain relevant to your customers. It should act as a big brother, a friend, or a mentor that your target audience can always rely on. With this in mind, it is only right that you also know your customers too well. But that would be a tall order, knowing that there are thousands or millions of people using your products or services. You can’t possibly know them all.
But this problem can be solved by creating customer personas. Customer personas are basically representatives of your target audience. They are fictional characters that embody the main characteristics of your core customers. Creating a persona will make it easy for you to remember who you’re talking to and develop products that will best suit your customers.
Usually, this method is used by brands, marketing companies, and advertising agencies. Here’s a quick guide on how you can create on.
Always refer to your data
While fictional, your buyer personas should always be based on hard data. With this in mind, consider the following details for averaging and determining the median from which your persona can be derived: age, language, location, monthly income, occupation, education, and interests. You can also try to figure out which social media platforms they’re using, so you can identify which avenue will be ideal for communicating your marketing message.
Understand their goals and troubles
You need to remind yourself that your customers are not just buyers of products. They are humans who have motivations, goals, and fears. Identifying these factors will help you humanize your personas, which in turn will make them easy to relate to and talk to. You can track their conversations through social listening and analytic tools.
Determine the areas where you can make an impact
When you happen to know what motivates and scares your customers, you also find it much easier to identify the right time your brand should enter and help them. For instance, if you’re running a loan company, you might notice that household managers usually have little spending power after Christmas. From this insight alone, you can offer pocket-friendly lending packages to help your target audience. Your marketing messages should also be leaning towards their pain points and issues. That way, your advertising campaign will be relevant.
Give them a name
Your buyer personas are still humans, and they feel more real when they have a name. So you can give them a name. To avoid stereotypes, you can choose a random name – this should be easy as there are random name generators online.
Updating is necessary
Creating a buyer persona is an important exercise for making your brand more approachable and friendly. However, you need to remember that the rules are not always set in stone. You can always make adjustments, depending on the needs and objectives of your brand. Such changes are also necessary, knowing that customer behaviors also get shaped by different factors over the years – so always be ready to adapt.
