Online Marketing News: The Importance of Developing Buyer Personas

The buyer persona is one of the most overlooked elements of inbound marketing, and should be developed early on in the marketing cycle. Buyer personas are the general character profiles of your ideal customer (who comprise your target market or audience).

In the past, building or developing the right buyer persona was the sole realm of large companies, as the task could only be done using the vast resources at their disposal. As the online space became more competitive and technology became more accessible, online marketing news sources say that even small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) can now create their very own buyer personas.

Researching for Your Buyer Persona

A Shopify (@Shopify) article called “How to Build Buyer Personas for Better Marketing” said that it’s easier for online marketers from established firms to create buyer personas because they already have existing customers to work with. To learn more about your buyers, you may use tools from your online channels, like Facebook Insights or Google Analytics Audience Reports. For more psychological depth, you may choose to personally interview your shoppers or use online survey tools like Survey Monkey to canvass their interests, preferences, and other similar attributes.

If you’re a newcomer in your industry with a start-up venture, you may observe or analyze the visitors of your largest competitors. You may look into these using services like SimilarWeb or Compete to view their website traffic. The comments section on your competitors’ pages are also excellent places to learn from.

Buyer Persona Basics

A buyer persona consists of details beyond the basic demographics of age, address, and social status. According to a HubSpot article, entitled “9 Questions You Need to Ask When Developing Buyer Personas,” this should also include psychological traits or more personal characteristics of the average consumer.

Imagine a run-through or general overview of a day in their lives to piece together facts like their hobbies, TV show preferences, the outfits they normally wear, the people they’re closest to, etc. The idea in building a buyer persona is to imagine an actual living and breathing person. The significance of the data you gather will, of course, depend on the type of services or products you offer.

For more tips about developing buyer personas, you may read online marketing insights from large digital publications like Marketing Digest. These publications offer key takeaways from your fellow marketers, industry practitioners, and entrepreneurs.

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Brian Gelfer

CEO at Lead Infusion

An entrepreneur, coach, and growth marketer, I started my first business "Name That Toon" after working at Barclays Bank PLC as an analyst for a couple of years. I grew the business to over $2 million in revenues within 5 years at which point I sold the business.
My passion has been helping entrepreneurs, SMB's and not-for-profits with great products and services grow their businesses and marketing operations.
We love the creative and analytical side of marketing! Building better campaigns, lead generation and client generation processes is just the beginning. We are here to help you transform, optimize and grow your business, marketing and profitability!
I am a people person, so my best work arises out of interactions with my clients and team.
Originally from London, I now live in the San Francisco Bay Area. After a couple of 110-degree days, I am starting to think the UK climate is actually not so bad!
I am a proud father to a great daughter who inspires me every day!