Most people agree that not every product or service is meant for every person. Yet, many marketers, designers, and product teams make the mistake of making assumptions about their customers’ needs due to an inadequate understanding of what those needs really are. Consequently, they spend time and resources on the wrong projects and campaigns.
That’s why buyer personas are so important. As a marketing strategy, buyer personas help you understand your customers, their interests, motivations, and characteristics. And since buyer personas are based on market, customer, and competition research, they can be relied on to guide product development.
If you’re a student in a digital marketing school, understanding what buyer personas are is a vital part of your training. Here’s what you need to know.
What is a Buyer Persona?
Based on the information you’ve gathered from user research and web analytics, a buyer persona is a semi-fictional archetype that embodies the essential characteristics of a substantial portion of your audience. It provides you with information about the thoughts and actions of your potential clients as they consider different solutions to the issue they’re trying to solve.
A buyer persona helps you step into the minds of your target audience. It helps you target and tailor your marketing and production efforts to the specific needs of your target audience. On the flip side, buyer personas will prevent you from targeting the wrong customers, helping you save resources and time.
Steps for Creating Buyer Personas for Students in Digital Marketing School
Buyer personas are based on raw data, so one of the first things to do when creating a buyer persona is to conduct in-depth research. You can start by looking inwards by examining your audience’s reactions to ongoing campaigns. Use analytical tools to gain insights on which product or service is proving a hit with the audience and which requires more work.
To gain more first-hand insights, you may interview your customers, especially those you consider ideal. There are several ways to do this, but asking the right questions is more important than choosing the right interview method or platform. Asking the right questions will open the door to your customers’ thought patterns.
In digital marketing school, the importance of conducting a competitor analysis is often emphasized. At the research stage of developing buyer personas, you’ll gain a lot of useful insights by looking at the customer base of your closest competitors.
Putting Your Buyer Persona to Use
One of the most fundamental concerns of any digital marketing course is showing how to effectively put the insights derived from buyer persona research to good use.
Once you’ve crafted the ideal buyer persona, you can proceed to create marketing campaigns that target the persona specifically. Don’t forget to keep these personas at the top of your mind while designing marketing campaigns across all your marketing channels.
Your buyer personas and their interests, qualities, and behaviours should be kept in the back of your mind while creating blog content, social media content, digital and print ads, and other marketing materials.
Are you ready to start earning your Digital Marketing Diploma in BC?
Contact Cumberland College to learn how you can get started.