How to build your buyer persona in four steps
As we have mentioned in previous articles, one of the basic steps when creating a B2B marketing strategy is to define your buyer persona. But what exactly is a buyer persona and what do I have to take into account to create it? Here we leave you a small guide to understand everything you need on the subject.
First of all, the definition: a buyer persona is a detailed semi-real representation of a member of your target audience. The representation is semi-fictional but it must be a faithful representation of said audience, whether they are your current clients or the ones you want to obtain.
It is important not to confuse the buyer persona with the ideal customer profile. They are two different concepts and you can learn more about them with our Ultimate Guide to B2B Lead Generation.
Step 1: Know your customers
The first step in defining your buyer persona is to collect information about your current customers. To do that, you can look at your database to understand what kind of clients and prospects you have so far.
Try to understand what they have in common, ask yourself questions that you have not asked yourself until now, such as what size of companies they are. Review the forms that have been filled out for you on your website, and update the fields to answer these new questions that you have asked yourself.
Step 2: Talk to sales
It’s also important to talk to sales to understand how qualified the leads we typically receive are and any other feedback you may receive from them about your prospects and customers.
Step 3: Talk to your customers
Finally, one of the most important steps in this process: talk to your customers to understand their opinion about your product or service and ask them what areas of improvement they think are on your side.
Step 4: Create the profiles
Once you have walked this path, you should be able to define a profile of your consumers. This profile (or profiles) must contain:
- Demographic data: gender, age, location, family situation.
- Employment data: job function, responsibilities, career.
- Key values and objectives.
- Needs.
- Pain points.
After developing the profile of your buyer persona, you will be able to understand what pain points your target audience has. And, in this way, you will be able to understand their objectives to offer them the service in the way that best suits them.