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How a Buyer (or User) Persona Can Improve Your Business

September 28, 2021
By James Gussie

Businesses are always looking for ways to improve their customer experience, but how do you know what will work? A buyer persona is a tool that helps identify the type of person who might be interested in your product or service.

This post is part of our Business Startup Guide, a selected collection of our articles that will help you get up and running quickly!

Here’s the basic reality about business: you won’t earn any money unless you have consumers willing to purchase your goods. Almost every choice you make—what you offer, how much you sell it for, where you position your shop, who you hire—is made with the goal of attracting as many people as possible to your business and increasing the chance that they will purchase your goods while they are there.

Many companies create personas to assist them in making the best decisions when they start, expand, and market their company. A buyer or user persona is a fictitious figure that portrays a company’s consumers or prospective customers based on demographics, habits, and motivations.

Although “buyer” and “user” personas are quite similar, the titles assist distinguish the kind of personas you’re developing. The individuals who make purchasing choices are known as “buyers,” whereas “users” are those who actually utilize your goods. Buyers and users are often the same individual in many companies. However, in certain companies, the individual who makes the buying decision and the person who uses the product are not the same person.

Table of Contents

I’ll go through the following topics in this article:

What exactly is a persona, and how do you go about creating one?

A thorough knowledge of your target client is essential for marketing and product development success. Your ability to step into your customer’s shoes and comprehend their pain spots, requirements, desires, ambitions, work and home environments—indeed, every element of their lives—will determine your success. It’s crucial to be able to think and act like your consumers if you want to connect with them successfully.

This is why many entrepreneurs are encouraged to start companies that help them address issues they are experiencing. When you know precisely who your client is and how they will respond to various types of marketing, it’s much simpler to create a product and plan marketing content and campaigns. You have a big edge when marketing to yourself and others who are similar to you since you know precisely how you and your consumers will respond.

What if, on the other hand, your company is addressing an issue that you don’t have? What if you’re not the intended customer? How can you begin to view your company through the eyes of your customers?

We may address this issue in marketing and product development by doing appropriate user research (market research) and creating fictitious characters that are highly detailed representations of your intended consumer group. These characters are known as personas, and just like in plays and movies, they need a complete history in order for you, as a company owner and entrepreneur, to completely comprehend their objectives, motives, and issues.

Personas of the buyer (or consumer) and user personas are the two most frequent kinds of personas. However, depending on the kind of company you operate, you may just need one persona for the whole operation. Let’s take a look at the various kinds of personas to determine whether you need more than one.

Buyer (or customer) personas

Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal client. The customer, often known as the “buyer,” is the individual who decides to purchase your product over one from a rival. However, this individual isn’t always the same as the person who utilizes your product.

A business looking for new customer relationship management (CRM) software, for example, may have a top executive make the purchase decision, even if she won’t be using it on a daily basis. In this instance, you’ll need a persona that defines the kind of individual that makes the purchasing choice.

A buyer persona will assist you in making marketing and sales process choices. When you’re considering a new marketing strategy, ask yourself, “Will my customer enjoy this?”

Personas are fictional characters that represent users.

Companies that create and customize their own goods or services must use user personas. These businesses must guarantee that what they are creating is precisely what the product’s consumer need and desires. At Palo Alto Software, we created a character called Garrett who is in charge of the majority of our product choices.

User personas have long been used by designers of software, shoes, kitchen appliances, websites, and pretty much anything else. The concept is simple: if you design with a specific user in mind, you will not only create a product that meets that user’s real needs and wants, but you will also create a product that that person will purchase (i.e., a product that gets you customers).

Buyer and user personas are extremely similar, and the words are often used interchangeably, particularly when the buyer and user are the same individual. However, if your company sells to one individual and then sells to another, you may need both kinds of personalities. The distinctions between the two kinds, however, are less essential than knowing how to build a buyer (or user) persona and how to utilize it to your company’s benefit.

How to develop a customer or user persona for your company

It is not difficult to create a persona, and it will result in a better product, better marketing, and a better company. To put it another way, it’s a little investment with a huge payoff.

A user or consumer persona is made up of ten fundamental elements.

In a moment, I’ll offer you some ideas for developing your character, but first, let’s go through what makes a good persona:

1. A name

While it may seem self-evident, giving your persona a name is a critical step in making your character a reality.

When you give your persona a name, it’s simpler to connect to them as a “real” person and discuss them in marketing and product development conversations.

2. They have a professional and personal history.

These two components complement each other. You should explain what your target client does for a livelihood and where they are in their career in particular.

You should also include a brief overview of your target user’s interests, educational background, likes, and dislikes. This background has an impact on your persona’s discretionary money as well as their brand preferences.

3. Demographics: Age, gender, educational attainment, ethnicity, marital status, and so on.

Avoid categorizing your character into age groups or percentages of male/female. For this activity, you’ll be inventing a fictitious character, so be precise about age, family status, and other characteristics.

After you’ve developed one persona to represent your core consumer, you may want to consider developing secondary personas to represent other types of customers. However, for the time being, simply make one persona with as many precise characteristics as possible.

4. Goals

What are the objectives of your persona? User objectives are often unrelated to the current issue that your business addresses.

While we offer business planning software, our clients’ ultimate objective is to build a successful firm.

5. Statements such as “I require/desire”

What does your persona desire and/or need in order to achieve the objectives you’ve set for them?

6. Concerns or aches and pains

What are your persona’s main concerns? Are they concerned about safety? Are they worried about the possibility of tough returns? How essential is it for your product or service to be reliable and accessible for a long time?

7. Previous purchasing habits

Do the majority of your consumers purchase from you on a regular basis? Is it a one-time buy for them? Is your client loyal to your brand? How have they handled issues and met their objectives in the past?

8. Physical, social, and technological environment

Your persona’s surroundings is a crucial element that determines who they are, yet it’s often neglected. Would the actual individuals you’re targeting use your site mostly from home if you’re developing an online application? Is it from work? Is it possible that they’re on their phone? What kind of atmosphere do they have at home or at work? Is it a loud or calm environment?

After you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have a complete image of your character and how they’ll engage with your site.

9. A quotation that encapsulates what is most important to them

A user quote should be no more than one or two lines long and should summarize the most important aspects of your character.

“I want a straightforward planning solution that will impress my investors but not taking too much time away from really developing my business,” our character Garrett, for example, says.

11. a photograph

Add a photo to round out your character. After all, adding a photo to your buyer persona makes it more genuine to you and your team.

Focusing on only one client who is a solid representative of your core customer group may seem paradoxical, but it will make your marketing and product development much, much more successful.

There are five stages to creating a buyer or user persona.

It’s time to construct a persona now that we know what one is. To build your persona, follow these five steps:

1. Conduct a survey of your current consumers.

If you have consumers, create a survey, call them, or speak with them in person to learn more about them.

You may also utilize services like TowerData to collect demographic data for your clients if you have their email addresses. If you don’t have any clients yet, speak to individuals who you believe will become your consumers.

2. Leave the premises as soon as possible.

This may seem self-evident, yet it may be a major roadblock for many marketers. The best way to beat the competition is to get to know your consumers in their “natural environment.”

Seeing where your consumers live and work may provide you with a realistic view of how they will make choices. You may also look at what other brands your consumers choose to associate with them.

3. Conduct internet research

Investigate the market. You can get a lot done online if your clients all come from the same place or work in the same sector. Wikipedia is a fantastic resource for learning about the area your consumers are from if you’re looking to learn about a place. Is it true that they reside in a college town? Where do the majority of people work? What are the current political trends?

Turn to YouTube if you’re looking for information about a certain industry. You’ll discover footage of businesses, locales, and other aspects of the industry, as well as interviews with industry professionals.

4. Examine the information you’ve gathered.

After you’ve gathered all of your information, you’ll need to combine it into one identity, like I said before.

You may end up creating several personas over time, but even having just one persona to work with offers you a significant edge over many companies that conduct marketing and product development “on the fly.”

5. Share

Now that you’ve put in the time and effort to study and create a character, it’s time to share it with the rest of your team.

This isn’t something that should be given exclusively to the executive team. Everyone in the business should have a good understanding of who your ideal client is, how they make choices, and what sort of interactions they anticipate from you. Some businesses have even printed posters depicting their personalities and hung them on the workplace walls so that everyone knows who they should be designing for, marketing to, and selling to.

Avoid these common character blunders.

Finally, here are some blunders to avoid while developing your first identity.

Do not create a consumer persona based on a single actual customer. It’s tempting to go out and meet one customer, then create a profile for your character based on that meeting. A good persona is made up of components from several actual customer profiles and is a composite of all of your key consumers.
Make sure your customer persona isn’t based on stereotypes. This is identical to error #1, but you may not even be aware of it. Do your research and allow your consumers tell you about themselves instead of making assumptions about their interests and requirements based on their age, gender, or region.
Your persona will become unrealistic if there are inconsistencies. Avoid discrepancies in your character to make it as genuine as possible. If your character is a Portland hipster, they probably don’t drive a BMW—maybe a vintage one that’s been hand-restored, but not a brand-new one.
Don’t be a cliche. Contrary to error #1, while creating your identity, don’t be too generic. Your persona shouldn’t be “between the ages of 30 and 45.” They should know their precise age, as well as their particular hobbies. It’s possible that you’ll need to develop several personas to reflect various consumer groups. Just make sure that each one is unique and represents one of your most important client segments.

Your marketing, sales, and product development activities will be accelerated if you take the time to build a client persona. Making the time to develop a strong persona will pay off many times over in terms of business development, so put in the effort and watch your company soar.

Have you created a persona for your company yet? I’d be interested in hearing your suggestions for developing a persona. On Twitter, I’m @noahparsons.

A buyer persona is a tool that helps businesses understand the needs and wants of their target market. This can be used to help create products or services that meet those needs and wants. Reference: business persona examples.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a buyers persona help increase sales for businesses?

A buyers persona is a set of descriptive information about the individual who will be purchasing something. The buyers persona can help businesses understand their target market, and increase sales by marketing to that specific group.

How does creating a buyer persona benefit a company or business?

Creating a buyer persona is important for any company or business because it allows them to understand who their customers are, what they want, and how to market themselves.

How do buyer persona help you?

Buyer personas are a tool that helps us understand what our customers are looking for. We use this information to create content and marketing campaigns that will target the right people.