Buyer personas can help streamline sales efforts. But for it to work well, salespeople need to build the right buyer personas based on their company goals, products offered and target industry. Not everyone at a target account will match your target persona. For instance, the person or teams evaluating what salestech to adopt in a company would largely differ than the persona or decision maker who handles adoption of fintech products within the same company.
Not every product or service will resonate with everyone out there. Without a proper buyer persona and aligned marketing and sales effort when building this out, sales teams can end up using the wrong messaging and tactics when prospecting because they will be reaching out to the wrong audience.
A proper buyer persona helps align marketing and sales efforts because collaterals and outreach themes can be crafted to suit those specific target personas and their core pain points. For instance, what keeps marketers up at night is not the same for a sales person.
What is a Buyer Persona?
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer based on market research and real data about existing customers. It helps sales teams understand the needs of the customer and what they are looking for based on their profile.
Having buyer personas helps sales teams understand the target customer’s needs better. Salespeople can create tailored messages for each persona, allowing them to connect more deeply with prospects. It also helps sales reps better understand the needs of their buyers and provide better customer service across the different buying stages.
How to Create Effective Buyer Personas
Creating effective buyer personas requires research and collaboration between sales and marketing teams. The process should begin with a deep dive into existing customer data. This data should include demographic information, such as age, gender, occupation, even location. It should also include customer behavior, such as purchasing patterns or past customer service interactions.
When building buyer personas, sales teams should start with the basics: age, gender, location, interests, and job title.
From there, they can get more specific and explore the customer’s needs, wants, challenges, and goals. It’s important to note that a buyer persona is not a one-size-fits-all representation of a potential customer.
Instead, it should be based on real data from existing customers and potential customers to some extent. The goal is to create a persona that accurately reflects needs and interests.
Once the data is gathered, the next step is to create a detailed profile of the customer. This persona-profile should include needs, wants, goals, challenges, and pain points. It should also include insights into how this type of profile makes decisions and their preferred communication channels. The last step is to create a customer journey map. This map should show the customer’s journey or behavior from awareness to decision. It should include touchpoints, such as advertisements, emails, website visits, and customer service interactions. The goal is to create a comprehensive view of the customer’s journey and how the sales team can best reach them eventually.
Read More: AI in Retail: Redefining The Industry
How to Use Buyer Personas Effectively
Once the buyer persona is created, the next step is to use it in regular outreach. Sales teams should use the buyer persona to create targeted campaigns, content, including customer service strategies.
Buyer personas can also help sales teams create more deeply targeted campaigns. By creating campaigns tailored to the customer’s needs, sales teams can optimize their outreach and increase conversions. Finally, buyer personas can help sales teams create more effective content. Sales reps can create content that resonates with the customer’s needs and interests. This can help sales teams convert more leads into customers and increase sales.
By creating buyer personas based on customer data, sales teams can increase conversionsÂ
The first step is to create targeted campaigns based on the built out buyer persona. This could be relevant emails, advertisements, and other materials that are tailored to the customer’s needs and interests.
This is what can fuel increased conversions and sales. The next step is to create content that resonates with the customer. Sales teams should create blog posts, videos, and other materials that address the customer’s challenges and pain points.
This will help sales teams build trust with the customer and create a long term connection with them.
Finally, sales teams should use the buyer persona to provide better customer service down the line.
Sales reps can use these personas to craft impactful tailored responses to inquiries and issues. This can increase customer loyalty over the years because it will give the customer the sense that the brand they are dealing with understands them, their challenges and goals.
Read More: SalesTechStar Interview with Ang McManamon, VP of Sales at Crunchbase
