Buyer personas at first glance may seem confusing; however, if you own a small business, it’s best to think of them as a fictional, generalized representation of your ideal client. They help you understand your clients or prospects better. This makes it easier for you to tailor content to the specific behaviors, needs, and concerns of different groups you service. The strongest buyer personas are based on market research and insights you gather from your existing client base through surveys and interviews; for most small businesses, one or two buyer personas may suffice to start. As you get more extensive, or if you have broad service offerings, you may need more. However, if you are just starting to think about buyer personas, then start small! Trying to do them all at once will do nothing but frustrate you. Remember, you can always build more persona later if needed.
What are negative personas?
Whereas a buyer persona represents your ideal client, a negative buyer persona represents who you do not want as a client. I like to think of them as that demanding client that no matter what you do or did, are impossible to please! Yes, we have all dealt with them, and if you haven’t, I guarantee you will!
Take these personas for example:
- Professionals who are too advanced for your services
- Students who are only engaging with your content for research/knowledge
- Potential clients who are just too expensive to acquire
How can you use personas?
At the most basic level, personas allow you to personalize or target your sales and marketing efforts for different audience segments. Instead of sending the same lead nurturing emails to everyone in on your email list, you can segment by buyer persona and tailor your messaging according to what you know about those different personas.
For example, if they own a diesel work truck, why waste time sending them an update about preparing the family car for summer vacations.
Pro-tip: Take the time to create negative personas; Creating them will set you up to be at a substantial advantage as it will allow you to segment out the “bad apples” from the rest of your contacts. This can help you achieve a lower cost-per-client and cost-per-lead and see higher sales productivity.
When combined with how far along someone is in your sales cycle or lifecycle stage, buyer personas also allow you to create targeted content for your specific clientele.
How do you create buyer personas?
While one can guess and attempt to build your ideal client profile, it is best if they are created through surveys, research, and interviews of your target audience. It will often include a mix of prospects, clients, and those outside of your contact list who might align with your target audience if available.
Here are some practical ways to gather information to develop your buyer personas:
- Interview clients either in person, over the phone, or video call to discover what they like about your services.
- If you have a HubSpot account and the HubSpot tracking code installed, you can use it to monitor your website traffic. Browse through your account to uncover trends about how specific leads or clients find and consume your content.
- Utilize form fields that capture important persona information on contact and inquiry forms.
- Work with sales (if that isn’t you). Either ask them or think about which types of leads you or they interact with the most. Which ones wind up being the best fits. Which ones become the “difficult” ones.
In summary
One of the critical things to ensure your marketing is on point is to utilize buyer personas. As the saying goes, specific is terrific, and developing a good buyer persona is no different. Therefore we are offering you our free buyer persona template. It will let you easily organize your research to create your very own buyer personas. If you market with buyer personas, you are not only marketing smarter but selling smarter!
