6 MUST-HAVE Elements for Sketching Customer Persona

6 MUST-HAVE Elements for Sketching Customer Persona

In the process of developing a business strategy, have you ever asked yourself: Who are your customers? What is their personality? What are their hobbies? How much do you understand about the customers?

If the answer is no, you should worry now! 

A comprehensive buyer persona plays a vital role in driving conversions. They enhance customer experiences in a structured way, which results in more effective sales and marketing output. User personas, according to research, make websites 2 to 5 times more effective for users, and result in a 100% increase in page visits! The only problem is, 85% of businesses don’t make the most of their user personas.

So what is a customer persona? How to build it? 

And why is customer persona so important for a business? 

Let’s find out with D4E Media through the article below.

So What is a Customer Persona?

A buyer persona is a fictional representation of the ideal customer based on qualitative and quantitative data from market/competitor research and existing customer profiles. 

However, creating a buyer persona is more than just defining a company’s prospective purchasing audience. It’s also about providing a set of insights that marketing, sales, and product teams can use to make better decisions and investments. 

The Power of Customer Persona that you might not know…

In marketing terms, insights from defining buyer personas are utilized to design more relevant messages, adjust content strategy based on the persona’s buyer’s journey, and create more personalized brand experiences.

Buyer personas help marketers in better understanding their consumers (or potential customers), revealing what makes them tick and why they pick one brand or service over another.

Every aspect of marketing should benefit from awareness of the key features of the persona: email, digital, content, and social. But how do marketers make use of these insights?

• Better customer segmentation: marketing to everyone is ineffective, wasting money, and not good for business. Even if there is a ready-to-use definition of the target audience, buyer personas can add essential details to the marketing plan, allowing it to generate more qualified leads.

• Personalized brand experience: with deeper understanding about the potential customer’s pain point, marketers can create more targeted messaging, more efficient content delivery, and tailored offerings.

• Finding high value leads: content creation is only the tip of the marketing iceberg – distribution and reach are equally (if not more) important. The buyer persona profile should also include information about where this crowd “hangs out” in order to help determine which channels and platforms to target with highly focused content.

• Cross-marketing alignment: to maintain alignment across various marketing teams, marketers can always go back, and revisit defined buyer persona profiles to make sure their efforts are meeting customer needs.

Let’s Draw Customer Persona Now…

Before gathering information, it’s vital to establish what characteristics the consumer persona profile (also known as a buyer persona template) should include. Any piece of the puzzle, from demographic data to values, will help marketers gain a better understanding of the “ideal” customer.

Marketers usually start by giving their customer persona a name and a fictional avatar (picture), and then fill up the blanks:

1. Demographics

This is the most basic level of data that should be included in the buyer persona profile. 

• Age/Gender (try to be as precise as possible here as this may guide copywriting and design teams towards using the right language and style)
• Level of income (including annual income)
• Location (urban/suburbs or actual city/country)
• Family status (especially important for B2C consumer brands)
• Level of education (particularly important for content marketing teams)

2. Professional status

Both B2B and B2C companies should pay attention to this part as they often have to determine whether they target decision-makers or actual product or service users. 

• Job title and level (manager, professional, specialist, etc.)
• Industry

3. Psychographics 

Psychographics refer to the persona’s values, perspectives, and objectives. This is an important part of the profile as people are increasingly insisting that companies share their values, express their opinion, and join global conversations.

• Professional/personal goals
• Beliefs and values

4. Pain points and challenges

This is the section where marketing and other teams should focus the most. A corporation can only design and give the most suitable solution by learning about client concerns and obstacles.

• Biggest struggles and pain points
• Obstacles to overcoming the challenges they are facing
• Irrational/rational fears

5. Influences and information sources

To determine the ideal customer journey, the team should find out who they listen to, who they trust, and where they look for solutions. This data is useful for guiding influencer marketing, communication, public relations, and ad and content placement activities.

• Preferred blogs, social networks and websites
• Favorite media (digital and print)
• Influencers and thought leaders they trust and look up to 
• Favorite events, conferences (online or offline)

6. Purchasing process

The final piece must explain how the target persona makes purchasing decisions. This information can help digital teams design trigger events and improve the customer journey and sales.

• The persona’s role in the purchase decision-making process
• Potential lifetime cycle (how frequently do they buy the product or service?)
• What stops them from making a purchase?

Final Words

Knowing ideal customers and their behaviors are always a key part of any marketing and business plan. Buyer persona definition is one of the essential first steps towards making better business, product, and marketing decisions and investments. Instead of guessing, your team should create a comprehensive buyer persona profile to implement more strategic and targeted marketing practices.