A Buyer Persona is a detailed description of who your ideal client is. Not just one person, but a subset of people that you identify as your best clients. By identifying them first, you can then build your entire persona based marketing strategy around attracting, nurturing, and converting them. We always recommend starting any marketing strategy with identifying your target buyer persona. Developing a buyer persona will give all of your plans and decisions clear direction.
This article will cover 3 Different Strategies on how to research and identify your ideal Buyer Persona.
Interview Past Clients
If you have been in business for a while, then you are fortunate to have a list of clients that can help you. We recommend going through your entire list of current and past clients and identifying who your top clients are. The term “top clients” is a bit subjective, so that will be up to you to determine how you define which of your past clients qualify for this title.
Questions you may want to consider are:
– How profitable was their project?
– Did they pay on time?
– Were they easy to communicate with?
– Did they hold up their end of the project timely?
– Did you enjoy working with them?
– Were their expectations realistic?
Once you identify which clients fit the qualification of your ideal Buyer Persona, then you can start to schedule interviews. When you initially call your client, we recommend that you take a soft approach. We suggest that you ask if they would be willing to answer a few questions for your market research, and that they were identified as one of your top clients. This will show that they are a valuable asset to your company and they will be more likely to participate.
Ask Your Sales Representative
Your Sales Representatives are probably one of your best resources when identifying your ideal Buyer Persona. Sales Representatives often build rapport and trust with your clients. By doing so, they gain a lot of valuable information that can help you. They will also be able to identify which projects went well from their perspective and why. You can utilize a lot of the questions listed above with your Sales Representative to determine who fits the criteria of the ideal Buyer Persona.
Survey Another Business Within a Parallel Industry Who Has the Same Client Base
Of the three strategies in this article, this one can be the trickiest to execute. What we are suggesting is to find a business that works with the same client base as your company, but does not compete with you directly. An example of this would be a high-end home remodeling company vs. a high-end pool company. You are both looking for the high-end homeowner but don’t actually compete. If anything, you may become power partners and refer business back and forth to each other.
We have had clients in the beginning stages of business that did not have a list of clients to interview, so they went with this strategy. Once they were able to find a company that was open to partnering up, they would ask the questions to build a buyer persona profile properly.
You can choose any one of these strategies, or you can choose to try a couple of them. The critical thing to remember is that you start with building your persona’s first. Do not attempt to work on any other part of your marketing until your persona has been adequately identified.
