Buyer personas help you better understand your ideal customers. These semi-fictional characters reveal insight into things like demographics, challenges and behaviors, allowing you to tailor your promo solutions to your target customers’ specific needs. Buyer personas are especially handy to help you find the right customers. You can use them to ensure you’re spending time on leads that are most likely to convert.
Naveen Gabrani, a B2B sales expert and speaker, has put together an overview of how to create a buyer persona in just 5 steps. We share his guidance in this issue of PromoPro Daily.
1. Begin with data and research. Gabrani says a buyer persona should always begin with the basic work-life characteristics of your ideal customer. Knowing the basics like their age, gender, industry, title and education makes it easier to go over a large volume of leads and identify which prospects to focus on and which to rule out.
2. Dig into your persona’s daily work. Your objective, Gabrani says, is to discover the elements of their job description so you can speak more intelligently to their goals. These elements might include their daily responsibilities, professional challenges and how they define success. You can search job listings to learn this information or survey your current clients within this role.
3. Use interviews to understand their psychology. This is your chance to get even more personal and learn what drives your ideal customer. Gabrani says you’re on a mission to discover their motivations and challenges. To discern this information, he recommends going to subject matter experts who know this persona inside and out or reaching out to target customers themselves.
4. Make your persona easy to reference. Once you’ve completed all this valuable research, compile into one accessible place so you can use it while prospecting and selling. Gabrani says you may want to organize it like an infographic, with easily skimmable insights and bullet points. Or, you may want to put your findings into a slide deck so you can expand your research in greater detail.
5. Update your personas as you go. Gabrani recommends making buyer personas a part of your sales enablement program and pulling them up before every customer interaction, from email outreach to calls and meetings, to remind yourself of your buyers’ needs and preferences. Review your buyer personas often and update them periodically, especially when you become aware of new types of customers interested in working with you.
Follow the steps above to craft a new buyer persona or refresh ones you’ve already created. When you have a deeper understanding of your ideal buyer, you can pursue the right prospects and communicate in a way that truly resonates.
Compiled by Audrey Sellers
Source: Naveen Gabrani is the founder and CEO of Astrea IT Services, a Salesforce partner. He speaks at international events like Dreamforce and TrailblazerDX.
