Identifying Your Buyer Personas
Buyer personas and demographics are similar. However, demographics only include basic information like age, gender, income bracket and so on. On the other hand, buyer personas look into what motivates a person to make a purchase; buyer personas take a deep dive into the personalities of your purchasers, not just their income brackets.
Demographics will help you find your targets; buyer personas help you know how to sell to them, how to help them choose the products and services they need.
Letโs do a quick overview of developing buyer personas for your business.
Brainstorm
Letโs imagine your business sells baby shoes. Who might purchase your products? Hereโs a list.
- Young moms
- Young dads
- Older moms
- Older dads
- Aunts
- Uncles
- Straight parents
- Parents who are LGBTQIA+
- People who donate to clothes banks
- Churches and religious organizations
- Grandparents who are caring for grandchildren at home
- Grandparents who are shopping for a gift for their grandchildren
- Women attending baby showers
- Creators of OOAK โrebornโ dolls
- People who shop to resale clothing items online
Through some prior research, you might also be aware of certain demographic information. Such as, that your baby shoes typically appeal to people of a middle-income level or that even though some purchasers are male, most are not.
Creating Buyer Personas
Now youโll try to create the buyer personas for this product by grouping people who have similar motivations to buy.ย Your buyer personas will only become stronger as you learn more about your customers through in person conversations, emails, surveys, and other ways they can tell you for themselves why they buy.
For example, one buyer persona could be Petra, a young woman purchasing shoes for her child. Petra is buying these shoes not only because her child needs shoes but because Petra loves shoes. She has many shoes for herself for all occasions and is likely to be motivated to buy possibly more pairs of baby shoes than her child strictly needsโif theyโre super cute!ย
Another persona might be Nicole, a no-nonsense mom who buys the baby shoes on sale and is interested in making sure theyโre of a quality that could be passed on to younger siblings.
Tom is a stay-at-home dad who is organized and makes lists. His babyโs pediatrician says that a baby should have at least two pairs of shoes at that age, so heโs going to buy the shoes based on that recommendation.ย
On the other hand, you may have Gary, a grandparent who loves to spoil his grandchildren by buying them their favorite cartoon-themed shoes. Heโs retired and has a large amount of disposable income that he uses to buy gifts for his grandkids.
You also have Raven, who crafts fantasy reborn dollsโvampires, zombies, or even fairies. She buys many plain shoes on retail and adds โglamorโ with her artistic eye and imagination: pearls, glitter, rivets, spikes, buckles, and more.
โฆ and so on.
List out all your buyer personas and determine what motivates their purchases.
Marketing to your buyer personas
Create a backstory for your buyer personas. Figure out how old they are, what kind of jobs they may hold, how much theyโre willing to spend. This can help you find what they are looking for.
One thing to consider is that some buyer personas will represent the vast majority of your sales. However, even without buyer personas, you may realize from demographics that most of your sales are from moms, age 22 – 29, with all the other categories falling further behind.
But what you may not realize unless you break down into buyer personas is that among young moms, you have both Petras purchasing your shoes and Nicoles. And what motivates those two to buy are very different.
Raven is also a young momโbut most of her copious purchases of your shoes are not for her child but her business. Sheโs also not primarily motivated by what Nicole and Petra are interested in.
Maybe itโs time to calculate if you might want to provide price breaks for Petraโs bulk purchases, even if itโs not a persona you want to wrap a whole ad campaign around. Knowing what could motivate more purchases of your products and determining if itโs worthwhile to pursue will help you improve your business.
Knowing all about your buyer personas is essential because it gives you more information about marketing your business. You want to target motivated peopleโor those who could be motivatedโto buy your products. And you want to target the persona that gives you the best ROI first and go from there. Determine where itโs wisest to put your money, yes, but also where there is growth potential.ย
If you donโt advertise to this group of people, you could be missing out on potential salesโand if you market to Nicole, Petra, and Raven as if theyโre all motivated by the same things, youโre also missing out!
This is absolutely something you can do yourselfโbut we have the experience and expertise to walk through it all with you and help you create and realize an effective marketing strategy for your businessโone that will reach and persuade your buyers. Contact us to help you make your business’s buyer personas.ย
