Are you having trouble creating your buyer persona? We'll help you better visualize what a well-developed persona can look like.
In the world of marketing, knowing your target audience is essential for success. This is where marketing personas come in. By creating a detailed profile of your ideal customer, you can better understand their needs and purchasing behaviors. In this article, we'll present some examples of marketing personas to help you better apply this essential method. You can then use our models as inspiration to build your own.
Buyer journey: understanding the buyer persona's path
How can you talk about personas without mentioning the importance of the buyer journey? It's simply impossible. The buyer journey, or the persona's purchasing process, is a crucial element to analyze. As a company, you need to build this journey, but above all, understand it. This will allow you to track the different stages the persona goes through as they interact with your brand. How did they become a brand ambassador from a simple website visitor ? How did that simple visitor become a loyal customer who recommends you to others? You need to analyze and understand all these elements.
Next, you can offer content tailored to each stage of the buyer journey for your potential customers. This will allow you to improve the reach, impact, and effectiveness of your message. Understanding the buyer journey is one of the first fundamental steps if you want to develop a strategy adapted to your audience.
Modeling your persona: what do you need to do?
The first step is to gather as much relevant information as possible about your persona. There are several ways to do this, but here are the most common methods.
1 – Gather information from your internal teams
Internal teams, such as customer service, sales, and marketing teams, often have direct interactions with customers and prospects . They can provide valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs.
For example, customer service can provide information on the most common customer problems and frequently asked questions. Sales teams can provide information on the characteristics and decision-making criteria of prospects who made or declined to buy. Marketing teams can provide information on customers' preferred communication channels and which advertising campaigns performed best.
2 – Directly question prospects and customers
Their comments, opinions, and behaviors can provide valuable information about their needs, motivations, and preferences . This will allow you to gather several crucial pieces of information, such as:
- Customer objectives, challenges and motivations
- Customers' preferred communication channels
- Frequently asked questions from customers
- The purchasing decision criteria of prospective customers
- Customer product and service preferences
- Information sources used by customers and prospects
This information, in addition to helping you build your buyer persona, can be useful in several different ways. For example, it can help you improve your product or service . But it can also help you create more targeted and effective marketing messages.
3 – Use the data collected on your website
If your business has a website, you can use specific tools to gather information about your target audience . Google Analytics or Google Search Console, for example, can provide you with data on users who interact with your business. These tools allow you to collect, analyze, and even download relevant data about your audience. For example, you can find out what searches they performed before visiting your website. How did they find your business? Through social media? By filling out a contact form on your website? The possibilities are numerous. You can also analyze their socio-demographic characteristics and much more.
After data collection, the second step is to compile all the information onto a persona profile. This document details the typical profile of your ideal customer. It generally contains information such as the name, age, gender, profession, interests, purchasing habits, communication preferences, goals, challenges, and motivations of the ideal user or customer . It may also include a photo to personalize and humanize the description.
Examples of personas (Digital Business Leader)
Let's take the example of a company specializing in digital marketing and SEO. This company aims to grow its business by selling its support services to other companies. Furthermore, the company helps very small and small businesses (VSEs/SMEs) to increase their visibility and boost their revenue.
One of the buyer personas that could be suitable for this company is the manager of a small e-commerce business that sells cosmetic products.
1 – Persona presentation
Pierre is an entrepreneur between 35 and 45 years old. He graduated from a top business school and has several years of experience in digital marketing and e-commerce . He founded his own company two years and manages a team of 10 people . Pierre is ambitious and passionate about his work. He is constantly looking for new opportunities to grow his business and increase its revenue.
2 – What does a typical day look like for him?
Pierre typically starts his day around 8:00 a.m. by checking his emails and having a coffee. He then spends a large part of his day overseeing his team and planning projects. He attends meetings with his employees and business partners , and may also meet with potential clients . At the end of the day, he takes time to catch up on his emails and plan the tasks to be completed the following day.
3 – How does he obtain information?
Pierre uses a variety of tools to gather information about his market and competitors. He is also very active on professional social networks LinkedIn and Twitter . He stays up-to-date on industry news by reading specialized blogs online publications . He also uses data analytics tools to monitor trends and consumer behavior
4 – What are his professional priorities?
Pierre's professional priorities are focused on developing his business. He strives to constantly improve the quality of his products and services. At the same time, he also aims to increase revenue and strengthen brand awareness . Advertising on major e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Cdiscount is of great interest to him for promoting his products. He is also very attentive to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5 – What are its biggest objectives?
Pierre's main objectives are to become a leader in his field, to expand into new markets, to broaden his range of products and services, and to significantly increase his revenue . Pierre wants his brand to be known to a wider audience, even on the international market. He wants to launch his business through Amazon Advertising .
6 – What are its problems?
The main challenges Pierre faces are increased competition in his market, the need to stay at the forefront of technology and innovation , and managing his team to achieve company objectives. At the same time, Pierre's business lacks visibility, causing him to miss out on numerous sales .
7 – How can you help him?
The company can help Pierre by providing him with information on market trends and competitor activity. It can also offer training to keep him up-to-date with the latest developments in his business. Finally, the company can provide him with customized solutions to meet his company's needs and help him achieve his goals. The company can offer Pierre advertising services, various marketing monitoring services, and even automation tools that could simplify his daily tasks.
