Everything You Need to Know about Buyer Personas

A strong component of any marketing plan is understanding your target market. But what is the best way to understand them? This article is dedicated to breaking down the who of our marketing strategy — meaning finding out who your target market is and focusing your marketing efforts on attracting them to your brand. The key is building buyer personas.

Understanding your target audience using buyer personas

To be blunt, if you don’t know who you’re selling education to, you’re wasting a lot of time, energy, and resources. One of the best ways to break through to a target market is by creating buyer personas. Essentially, a buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. They are easy to build. Here’s a quick example:

Let’s say you’re a university trying to reach potential students. How could your buyer persona shake out?

Buyer persona name
Senior Sam

Demographics
18-year-old, Caucasian male, attending Student Persona High School, Illinois. Lives with family (2 parents, one younger sibling)

Educational background
Will graduate high school in May

Career path
“Traditional” career path, intends on attending a 4-year university, graduating and finding a full-time position after school. Undecided what school he wants to attend

Where he gains information
Has TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and just started a LinkedIn. Spends most of his time on Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, and TikTok

Goals
Wants to graduate in 4-years with less than $35,000 in student loan debt and get a job that pays 60K a year working as a financial advisor

Challenges
Concerned about paying for school, doesn’t want to be too far from home, transition issues, worried about maintaining good study habits, fitting into college life, and creating relationships

Interests/values
Enjoys video games, watching football, hanging out with his family, and cares about doing well in school

Publications they read
Reads the WSJ occasionally, but gets most of his news from TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat Stories

Preferred interaction with vendors
Chatbots if he has a question online and in-person to get a direct answer

So, this is a very basic example of what your buyer persona might look like from your university’s marketing research. For the sake of this example, let’s pretend we’ve already validated our research, have interviewed students like Senior Sam, and have analytics to back up our findings (yes, creating personas is a process that requires accurate information). Now we will use what we know about Senior Sam to shape our content.

Now, pair this concept with all the people you want to attract to your business. Make as many buyer personas as suit your brand. A college wouldn’t speak to an incoming student the same way they’d speak to a new professor, would they? Of course not. So, why sell your business the same way across the board?

That’s why it’s important to create buyer personas. It puts you in the shoes of your buyer. It is your guide to creating content that will attract, engage, and delight your real buyers. Understanding your buyer is at the core of your entire inbound strategy.

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Putting your persona to use

First, you need to define your goal or objective. Let’s use our university example again and be as specific as we can. Yes, you’re selling an educational experience, just like every other college and university in the world. But, rather than selling to every other 18-year-old male looking to go to school, let’s sell to Sam. Here’s where you can start:

1. Segment your contact database by Sam’s persona
2. Stress personalized communication by targeted emails
3. Tailor your writing for your persona to make yourself visible in SEO and keyword searches
4. Create a call-to-action page centered on them and adjust your content offers
5. Meet your persona on their platforms

For example, when we’re looking at the content we’re creating we may want to:

• Write blog posts on our website where copy is tailored towards Sam. “10 Tips to Make College Feel Like Home,” “5 Ways to Boost Your Study Game,” “How to Pay Off X Amount of Loans in X Months,” etc.
• To most people, emails are perceived as just plain spammy. But if you’re going to send them out, be sure to use language that draws Senior Sam in after you’ve captured his information as a lead. Sam’s not just another senior you’d send, “Hello future freshman.” No! He’s your Senior Sam. Keep your subject line short, sweet, and personalized. Hey Sam, want a debtless degree? You can also borrow from your blog posts, add visuals like emojis, and incorporate words that spark conversion rates into the subject lines.
• We know Sam spends time on Instagram and Facebook — so, let’s meet him there. It’s no secret that social media is the place for universities to be. In fact, students expect colleges and universities to be on social media. In short, social media is a must. For Sam, you can meet him on Snapchat by adding a geofilter, create an Instagram ad that shows him what campus life is like, or show him what your business program has to offer on TikTok.

These are just a few examples of Senior Sam’s persona in action. Meaning the possibilities are endless for content creation. Now it’s your turn. What personas are you going to build for your brand?

Conclusion

We understand that understanding your audience can be a struggle. It helps to look at who you’re marketing to as a person rather than a statistic — and that’s where your buyer persona can help.If you have more questions about how to build a buyer persona or content creation, feel free to shoot us a message!