Buyer Persona Definition

A buyer persona is a fictitious “ideal buyer” crafted by a company based on researching the company’s ideal customers. The persona is supposed to represent the kind of person who would be highly likely to purchase a product or service, thus enabling the company to better market to real people matching that description.

Buyer personas typically include characteristics of the fictional shopper which might include:

• Age, gender, or other basic demographic data
• Education history
• Income level
• Location
• Relevant behavior

Creating a persona of an ideal buyer helps businesses better decide how to create marketing materials which will resonate strongly with their target audience, since they effectively “know” who they’re trying to connect with.

Buyer Persona Example

Most online marketers understand that providing genuinely useful and relevant information on a website is of vital importance. One of the ways they can determine what content fits that description is with a buyer persona.

Imagine that a company has decided that they need to improve the quality of the content on their website to better attract leads and sales from visitors. They decide to create a buyer persona for their most critical products or services. Utilizing the research data used to create the buyer persona, they revamp the content on their website to speak more directly to the buyer persona, thus creating a deeper connection with site visitors matching that description.

Why are Buyer Personas Important in Strategic Marketing?

Strategy

A buyer persona can help businesses maximize the efficiency of their marketing efforts, since they’ll be more likely to create content more directly in line with what their buying audience cares about. Personas can also give businesses an edge when historical marketing data is sparse, such as when launching a brand new product.

Customer Experience

Content created with a buyer persona’s characteristics in mind can help improve how well-received it is by real customers; members of the target audience are more likely to find relevant, useful information.