Persona (user experience)

A buyer personais a research-based profile that a company might use to represent its ideal customer. More than just a compilation of demographic information, buyer personas are typically a more fully fleshed out representation that are quite realistic despite being fictional. Well-formed and effective buyer personas accurately reflect the goals, behaviors, needs, and other important attributes of a business’ existing and potential customers. In short, buyer personas provide companies with a useful look at who their customers are, how they spend their time, what challenges they face, and how they make important decisions. Typically, buyer personas are created through market research, customer data, and various educated assumptions about prospective customers. Utilizing buyer personas helps companies better understand and empathize with their target customers, which in turn allows companies to excel at both serving their existing customers and attracting new ones. For this reason, buyer personas have increasingly come to be seen as a critical tool for modern businesses.

Background

In order to understand the function and importance of buyer personas, it is first necessary to have a basic familiarity with the concept of marketing and marketing research. The term marketing refers to the act and process of communicating, delivering, and exchanging various goods and services of value. With that in mind, marketing research is an apparatus that allows the marketer to connect with customers and the public through information. The information in question is used to identify marketing opportunities and problems; generate, evaluate, and improve marketing methods; monitor performance; and improve the company’s understanding of marketing as a process. Ultimately, marketing research yields critical information needed to address those issues, provides key insight on how best to design information collection methods, analyzes the result of information collection efforts, and provides important details about the findings and what they mean.

There are many forms of marketing that companies use to reach customers and sell products. One of the most common forms of marketing is influencer marketing, which relies on the use of individuals who have the ability to influence the decision-making of potential buyers. In influencer marketing, companies partners with an influencer—often a celebrity or some other recognizable person—who helps spread word about whatever goods or services the company offers. Another form of marketing is relationship marketing, which involves the use of various strategies and promotions aimed at building customer loyalty. In practice, relationship marketing makes use of database marketing, analytics, and behavioral advertising to precisely target customers and create effective loyalty programs. Viral marketing is a means of transmitting a marketing message by encouraging people to pass on that message themselves. This type of marketing is referred to as “viral” because it mimics the way a virus or other infection is transmitted through a population. Keyword marketing is a common form of Internet marketing in which a marketing message is delivered to individuals based on the particular keywords or phrases they enter when using a search engine. This approach allows marketers to reach potential customers with a precisely crafted message at just the right time. Other forms of marketing generally viewed an unconventional or “outside the box,” are often referred to as guerilla marketing.

Overview

Buyer personas are mostly fictional representations of a company’s ideal customer(s) that are based on in-depth marketing research and what the company in question already knows about its existing customers. In essence, buyer personas are a depiction of a company’s target audience. Rather than being a simple amalgam of general information that only offers a basic description of customers, buyer personas use detailed demographic data to provide a more complete picture of who those customers are and what information they are seeking.

Buyer personas are valuable because they help a company ensure that everything it does is aimed at meeting its customers’ needs. This is important because customers are more likely to do business with companies that they can trust. In turn, a company that can show it understand and care about its customers is more likely to attract more customers. In short, buyer personas are a good way for companies to get to know customers and earn their trust.

One example of a successful company that makes use of buyer personas is the mammoth athletic gear retailer Nike. In 2018, Nike used data culled from its NikePlus loyalty program and app to create a trio of buyer personas that represent its key market segments. These buyer personas included the Weekend Runner, the Style Shopper, and the Dedicated Sneakerhead. The Weekend Runner is a young woman who loves to run and frequently used the Nike Run Club app. The Style Shopper is a young woman with an eye for fashion who wants to look good while exercising. The Dedicated Sneakerhead is another young consumer who is primarily interested in Nike’s sneaker lines. All three buyer personas help Nike to better understand and market to their target audiences.

Creating a buyer persona is a multi-faceted task that requires a company to take an in-depth look at who its customers are, what their lives are like, and what information, goods, or services they are looking to acquire. More specifically, companies may need to gather information on customers’ role within an organization or family, their personal or professional goals, the challenges they face, how they overcome those challenges, their motivations, where they typically go to fulfill their needs, and many other personal details. Once all this information has been gathered, it can be analyzed and used to create a buyer persona that accurately represents a company’s typical customers.

The information that a company gleans about its customers through the use of buyer personas can be beneficial in many ways. Product development departments can use buyer persona data to identify and enact changes to a company’s product line to better meet customer needs. Marketing professionals can use buyer persona information to craft new marketing strategies that more directly and effectively target customers. Sales teams often study buyer personas to improve their rapport with potential customers. Customer support teams can use buyer persona data to get to know their customers better so that they can provide the best possible customer service experience.

Bibliography

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Gamble, Jessica. “What Is a Buyer Person – And Why Is It Important?” Huble Digital, 10 Sept. 2018, www.hubledigital.com/blog/what-is-a-buyer-persona. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.

O'Brien, Clodagh. “The Beginner’s Guide to Defining Buyer Personas.” Digital Marketing Institute, 9 Sept. 2024, digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-defining-buyer-personas. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.

Wright, Amy. “What Is a ‘Buyer Persona’ and Why Is It Important?” Social Media Today, 17 Oct. 2017, www.socialmediatoday.com/news/what-is-a-buyer-persona-and-why-is-it-important/507404. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.