Since I probably delete several hundred words per post on this subject, I decided to do an entire blog on it. I’ve touched on some points related to buyer personas/ideal avatars before, but today I want to simply give you a good, workable framework that will help you construct one that gets you results.
#1 – Determine Your Persona’s Gender
You have to be able to visualize what your ideal customer looks like and, yes, you should have a female and a male persona, not an androgynous amalgam. Whether the ideal customer is male or female (or both), it is important to know as much about him or her as possible. Men and women think differently. They have different buying habits. They respond differently to emotional language and power words. But, I’m getting ahead of myself…
#2 – Determine Your Persona’s Age
This is really marketing 101: Age makes a difference to as great or even greater an extent than gender. Both genders eat ice cream, for example, but how much more excited does an 8-year-old get about it than a 30-year-old? Factor in differences like that when deciding how old your ideal buyer persona should be.
#3 – Determine Your Persona’s Profession and Social Status
Is your ideal customer an employee or an entrepreneur? Does he or she have above-average ambition or is the status quo sufficient? In what kinds of social circles does this person move? Would you be more likely to find him or her at a Polo match or a wing-eating contest? The answer to that question and others like it apply to a huge range of products and services, even those that don’t revolve around equestrian or epicurean sporting events.
#4 – Determine Your Persona’s Financial Status
Is your ideal customer entry-level, mid-career, financially independent, or something else? Does this person have enough money to comfortably give some of it up to try your product? Will this person see the perceived value of your product based on his or her means, or will it come across as either too expensive or too cheap? Your job is to fine-tune and discover the “just right” frequency that will result in a conversion.
#5 – Determine Why Your Persona is Your Customer
I’ve said repeatedly that you have to not simply tell people what to do but also give them a good reason to do it. In this instance, the ultimate call to action is to make a purchase. Why would your ideal customer do that? What’s his or her motivation? Once you know that, you can play to those reasons in all your marketing endeavors.
#6 – Determine Your Persona’s Education Level
Age plus education are huge factors when determining who is your ideal customer. If you want to appeal to someone with a high school education, you can’t go all Quantum Theory in your marketing and content. You also can’t speak to a neurosurgeon the way you would to a 17-year-old getting ready to enter college. They have different levels of intellect, and different details matter to each. The key here is like with everything else on this list: finding the fine balance between simplicity and clarity that appeals to the exact intellect and education of your persona.
#7 – Determine How Your Persona Spends His or Her Leisure Time
Are you targeting people who backpack across Europe or those whose idea of adventure is closing their eyes and clicking on something random on Netflix? Both behaviors speak volumes about how aggressively you will need to market your product or service, so decide which end of the spectrum (or what middle point) on which your ideal customer falls.
#8 – Determine Why Your Persona Buys Anything
Forget your own product for a minute and let’s ask ourselves what prompts this particular customer to buy. What appeals will you have to make to your persona to elicit a click-through to purchase your product? What is it about that person that causes him or her to make a buying decision? Is it simply the power of suggestion? Is it detailed analysis? Is it raw emotion? You need to delve a little deeper than that, but you get the idea…
#9 – Determine How Your Persona Shops
On a final note, you need to know how your ideal customer is prone to shop for whatever it is that you are selling. Is your persona more into upscale boutique websites with expensive niche products, or will he or she aim directly at Amazon or Ebay and look for the best possible deal? Does your ideal customer quickly get frustrated with the checkout process on the average e-comm? What kinds of visuals stimulate a buying response? Again, you’ll need to ask a few more complex questions here, but this is the foundation.
As a final takeaway, I want to encourage you to have fun with this. Get all Anthony Michael Hall in “Weird Science” over it because, with all due respect, you’re doing the same thing, just without the crop top. Then again, maybe your ideal customer wears one… It’s possible…