It often pays to have a detailed understanding of what your typical customer looks like in terms of their characteristics and buying patterns and this is primarily what a buyer persona is all about.
It is a profile of a fictional customer who is typical of the sort of person who buys your products or services and the fundamental point of putting this information together is to use the data to target your marketing at potential customers who fit the same typical profile.
For example, a leading gateway for online payments in India would be able to collect enough customer data to be able to understand their target audience and create a buyer persona.
Here is a look at how to harness that data.
Look for trends
It is critical that you utilize the information at your disposal in order to spot certain trends that appear regularly amongst your existing customers.
Spotting patterns and shared demographics will help you to build a clearer picture of what your typical customer is looking for and how they behave when they are on your website.
This can be any number of different signals and trends that you should be able to identify once you have enough data and a pattern emerges.
Get feedback
It makes perfect sense to try and get the data you are looking for from your existing customers and you will often find people will be willing to tell you about the positive and negative experiences they have had with your business.
It is just as important to take on board the negative comments as well as the positive ones, as the adverse feedback can help you identify what your customers don’t like so that you can align your offering to deal with those issues.
Getting feedback is easier these days as you don’t have to rely on direct feedback to build your buyer persona. Social media platforms are often great sources of valuable feedback that will help you to build a profile of your typical customer.
Ask the right questions
If you want to get the right data to help you build an accurate buyer persona it stands to reason that you have to make sure you ask the right questions.
Make sure you don’t waste the opportunity to obtain some valuable and informative insights by asking too many questions that don’t give you the sort of feedback that you can really use to your advantage.
One of the most insightful questions you can ask when engaging with a customer who has bought from your company is to confirm why they purchased the product or service.
It is a simple question, but it reveals so much about what specifically motivating the customer to go ahead and part with their money. If you can build up a picture of what it is that makes people buy from you it will help you to use demographic data to build a profile of your typical buyer persona so that you can find other like-minded consumers.
Without the marketing advantage created by an accurate buyer persona, how well do you know your target audience?
