When it comes to any sort of retail or business where selling is the game, it is essential to do a few different things. The first, is to clearly and accurately define and identify your market and your Buyer. So how do you do that? Creating a Buyer Persona is the best way to define exactly who it is that you are selling to.

What is a Buyer Persona?

So what is a buyer persona? Much like a composite sketch or a list of details that you would compile when explaining a person, a buyer Persona is just that. You need to take all the details about your target market based on real facts and commonalities to create the persona of the average buyer for what it is that you are trying to sell. This helps to not only push sales, but also helps to push the relationship and the awareness between the buyer and the seller so that you get an accurate picture of the people that you cater to each and every day.

How to Create a Buyer Persona

It might seem like a difficult task to take all the composite information that you have about your target market to create one profile but there are a few tips and tricks that can help make the process much simpler. Here are five steps to creating the perfect buyer persona.

1. The average day- you first want to imagine what they would do with their average day. This helps because it helps you find out where you or your product figure into their every day life. What type of job might they have, how do they spend their free time, how do they budget time with the family and so on. These are all aspects that will help you determine how your product or your company is going to figure into the every day life of the buyer persona that you are creating. This will also help you get a better look at what the persona really does and help you to really understand your target market.
2. Lay out objectives- the next step is to lay out the specific objectives of the persona that you are creating. What is the persona or the person trying to accomplish in their day to day life and how is your product or service going to figure into that bigger picture. Do they want to speed up their time to market, do they want to eliminate inefficiency, setting these goals is going to help you to really hone in on how your product figures in and how you want to approach the sales aspect of your product or service. One of the best ways to get your persona going is to think about what they want to accomplish so that you can think of the best possible ways to get it done.
3. State the problem- your persona should help your team to work together and to get things done so that you can get the most benefit possible from your product and from the people that you have brought together. You should take the time to outline any major problems you are having and help others to understand what problems you are facing as well. Make sure you are specific with the problem that you are dealing with. If lack of productivity is pushing back your release dates then state it. If you are dealing with issues in the production process, make them known. This is the step of the persona that allows you to address issues and come up with possible solutions for what you are dealing with.
4. Talk about obstacles- you also want to talk about any obstacles that your buyer persona is likely to come up against. You want to think about both larger obstacles and smaller ones that hold up the process of production and the persona from moving forward. You want to make sure that you are as specific as possible so that you really get to the root of any problems that are going to be addressed. This is going to do a few things, for starters it is going to help make sure that your persona is able to move forward and that progress can continue to be made.
5. Questions- make sure you take the time to outline and list any questions that the buyer persona may have at any stage of the process. Make sure you include both general and specific questions that are geared toward what the persona might ask. This is going to open up not only the avenues for debate and growth but also help prepare you for any potential questions you might come up against. One of the worst things that can happen is that you start out thinking that you have all the questions answered only to find that you have left something out. Take the time to think of all possible questions and all possible answers so that you are fully prepared and ready to take on any task.

The process of creating a persona should take time and effort. Without the proper time and dedication to your persona you are going to have to work even harder in the latter stages. Taking the time to create a thorough and in depth buyer persona is going to give you the insight and the forethought to really get the target audience in mind and do everything you can to appeal to your buyers in the most efficient way possible every time.

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