A step-by-step guide to creating and using buyer personas (with templates and examples)

"The aim of selling is to satisfy a customer need; the aim of marketing is to figure out his need." - Philip Kotler, Father of Marketing

When you're marketing, you must understand your customers so well that you can communicate exactly how your product or service meets their needs. If you do this well, selling is much simpler.

With this understanding of marketing, let's consider this scenario: Two marketers are each trying to sell helpdesk software, and each has a different audience in mind.

Marketer 1 targets anyone who needs helpdesk software.

Marketer 2 targets directors of customer success at mid-level firms who want to streamline customer support, improve response times, and increase customer satisfaction.

Which marketer do you think has better chances of proving that their product accurately addresses the customer's needs?

While Marketer 1 might initially get more traction, if the leads can't see how the software will solve their problems and add value to their lives, they're not going to be convinced to make the purchase.

Whereas Marketer 2 might draw in fewer leads due to their more specific positioning, they'll be higher-quality leads who have higher chances of conversion.

A properly defined buyer persona is the difference between marketing blindly to your total addressable market and a targeted marketing approach that appeals to an ideal buyer profile.

What is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is a fictionalized persona based on real data from your customers. The buyer persona should describe your ideal customer's background, fears, motivations, interests, problems, and solution approach. 

You may have more than one buyer persona for the same product or service. If the same product can be used for different needs by each audience segment, or if it has different variations according to the needs of each user group, you can create a different buyer persona for each segment.

Why do I need a buyer persona? 

Nobody wants to narrow down their target market. The more people you target, the more customers you get. Isn't that true?   

Well, buyer personas aren't about narrowing down your target audience. Instead of targeting the wrong audience, or a very wide audience in which your actual target audience is only a small part, you can use buyer personas to identify the ideal customer profiles you want to target.

Regardless of whether you have a niche customer group or a very large target market, buyer personas help you understand your customers better and enable you to appeal more effectively to their needs.

Buyer personas provide several tangible benefits for different teams within your organization:  

Organizational cohesion for higher conversions

Buyer personas help every team in an organization stay on the same page. If every department speaks the same language and solves the problems of the same buyer persona, then the organization as a whole is working towards creating value.

➤ The product team creates features or tailor-made solutions to meet the needs of ideal buyer personas.

➤ The marketing team creates campaigns that appeal to ideal buyers and generates high-quality leads.

➤ The sales team addresses potential customers' requirements more effectively and closes more deals.

Campaign personalization

When you have better information about your ideal buyers, you know which channel your buyers use the most and what drives them towards making purchase decisions. You also know what problems they face and how you can solve these problems.

Leverage this information to create personalized content that's optimized for different personas. Then you can run go-to-market campaigns that convey the right message to the right audience at the right time, and through the right channels. 

Customer loyalty

With the understanding you gain through your buyer personas, you can empower your customers to make better use of your products. Enabling a deeper mutual understanding between the organization, potential buyers, and customers alike through buyer personas increases conversions, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty.

In other words, because your positioning and messaging are so clear, your product can effectively sell itself. By showing the value that you're delivering to them, you can't help but attract an audience that's willing to stay.

Buyer persona template 

The major components of any buyer persona are demography, geography, psychography, behavior, goals, and pain points. 

Your buyer personas can be as simple or as detailed as you like. Your persona is good as long as it works for your business needs and helps you achieve your goals. 

Here's a buyer persona template you can fill in when you start doing your research:

Buyer persona template 

Demography

• Gender
• Age
• Occupation
• Income
• Education

Geography

• Region
• Country
• City

Psychography

• Values
• Interests
• Lifestyle
• Personality

Behavior

• Purchasing habits
• Brand preferences
• Channels and touchpoints

Goals

• Personal goals
• Professional goals
• Aspirations
• Decision-making drivers
• Success metrics

Pain points

• Problems
• Frustrations with current solutions
• Obstacles in achieving goals

How to create a buyer persona 

Creating a buyer persona isn't about imagining the answers to the questions in the buyer persona template. Rather, you use a mix of customer research and market research to answer the questions and put together the buyer's persona. 

You can create your ideal buyer persona in four steps: 

1. Assemble your dream team

Building a buyer persona isn't a one-person show. To build a comprehensive buyer persona, you need a cross-functional team. Choose members from every department who directly or indirectly interact with customers or customer data. 

Include the following departments:

• Sales: The sale steam interacts with potential customers, so they know what makes your buyers tick. They'll be able to provide valuable insights into buyers' goals, problems, objections, decision-making drivers, and purchase behaviors. 

• Customer Success: The customer success team regularly helps your customers achieve their goals, so they understand customer challenges. They also know what it takes to achieve customer satisfaction—something that will really come in handy when you're building your persona.

• Marketing: Market research, website analytics, social media buzz—marketing is the one-stop shop for all this information. They understand not just your customers, but also your competitors and their customers, so don't forget to include marketers from different stacks in the persona-building team. 

• Product: If you're a service company, replace the product team with the service team. This team understands how your customers use your product or service and knows its benefits, features, and uses. This will help you position the product for your ideal buyer personas more effectively.

2. Conduct qualitative and quantitative research

Quantitative research will help you get an overall sense of who your customers are, how they behave, how they make purchase decisions, and what queries they have.

Qualitative, on the other hand, will help you dive deep into your buyers' motivations, where they come from, and how they feel through different stages of the journey. 

Conducting research through multiple sources will help you build well-rounded buyer personas that resemble the majority of your customers. 

Here are some sources to consider when researching to fill out your buyer personas: 

• Behavioral data: Product, CRM, website analytics

• Social listening: Social media, review sites, community discussions, competitor reviews 

• Interviews: Surveys, customer interviews, helpdesk tickets

3. Craft your buyer persona

Now that you have your research data, it's time to collate! 

Giving your persona a name and a face (a picture of a celebrity or a fictional character will do the trick) helps youvisualize and better understand the persona so you can connect with them more effectively. It's also easier this way to discuss multiple personas and create different plans for each persona. 

Start with demographic and geographic data such as age, location, income, location, and job title. These should be based on quantitative research of things like CRM data. 

Next, you can use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to paint a picture of the buyer's psychography and behavior. Explore their personality traits, values, channels, and purchasing patterns.

Finally, use data from customer interviews to fill in what their goals are and how your product helps achieve them. Include the problems they face and frustrations they experience with or without your product. 

As a bonus, adding direct quotes from your real interviews will make your personas all the more real.

4. Unleash the power of buyer personas

Your personas are here, and it's time to start using them. 

Customer journey mapping: Map the journeys of your different buyer personas and identify the touchpoints that will increase conversions. 

Product development: Align product development with the needs and goals of your buyer personas.

Sales: Create sales collateral that addresses the problems and objections of your buyers. Reach out to them through their preferred channels and offer deals that they can't refuse. 

Digital marketing: Run targeted campaigns with copies that speak your buyers' language. 

Email marketing: Create personalized content for different audience segments based on buyer personas. Leverage your understanding about each segment to create relevant emails that appeal to your audience. 

As you continue using buyer personas to gather more data and feedback, continue updating them to reflect the latest business dynamics. 

Mistakes to avoid while creating buyer personas 

• Don't create too many or too few buyer personas. 
  
  There isn't a fixed number of personas a business should have; the number varies based on industry, purchase value, and number of the stakeholders involved in decision-making.

• Don't let your personas go stale.
  
  As the market evolves along with consumer needs, your products and services also evolve. So you need to revisit your personas occasionally and update them using the latest data points from your customers.

• Don't let limited data or personal bias cloud your judgment.
  
  Conduct proper research and don't resort to assumptions. You can't predict the intent behind a buyer's decision based on quantitative data or intuitions. You need adequate qualitative research information as well to truly understand your buyers.

• Don't treat buyer personas like a silver bullet. 
  
  Sometimes, we tend to create buyer personas based on what we want our ideal buyer to look like rather than who the current buyers are. If enterprise customers are your target, but only small businesses buy from you at the moment, then it's not a problem of the buyer persona. Rather, it's indicative of a much larger problem. No amount of well-researched buyer personas can solve organization-level problems.

What is a negative persona and why do I need one?   

In addition to identifying your ideal buyers using buyer personas, it's equally important that you also define who your ideal customers are NOT. A negative persona is a fictionalized persona of someone who's unlikely to buy from you or someone to whom you don't want to sell. 

Oftentimes, organizations spend entire chunks of their marketing budgets chasing the wrong target group who never convert—or the customer acquisition cost for certain customer segments is higher than their lifetime value, which results in a net loss for the company.

In such cases, having negative customer personas can help companies focus their efforts on more ideal personas who are more likely to yield better results. 

Buyer persona examples 

Healthcare industry buyer persona example 

Buyer persona of a diabetic patient using a continuous glucose monitor

Name: Raymond Holt

Gender: Male

Age: 58

Location: Suburbs of a major US city

Occupation: Retired police officer

Family: Married with two grown children who live in different cities

Income: Upper middle class

Health: Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes five years ago

Technology usage: Comfortable using smartphones and other gadgets for daily needs

Goals

• Maintain blood sugar levels.

• Prevent complications.

• Manage health independently.

• Lead a long and healthy life.

Purchasing behavior

• Actively searches online for the latest tools and applications to improve health.

• Looks for validation from healthcare providers before trying anything new.

• Is willing to invest in quality products that offer good value.

Challenges

• Has difficulty adhering to dietary restrictions.

• Is worried about spikes in blood glucose levels.

• Finds it tedious to measure independently.

• Dislikes having to access healthcare professionals every time there's a scare or question.

Needs

Raymond needs a continuous glucose monitoring device with a mobile application that has the following features:

• Tracking: Regularly monitors blood glucose levels.

• Alerts: Sends alerts in case of spikes in glucose levels.

• History: Maintains history of tracked data that can be shared with healthcare providers.

• Reminders: Provides medication and mealtime reminders to ensure consistent blood glucose levels.

Influences

• Brand reputation

• Ease of use

• Reviews and testimonials

• Recommendations from friends and family

• Customer support with availability of human agents

Food industry buyer persona example 

Buyer persona of a busy professional using a meal kit service

Name: Eleanor Shellstrop

Gender: Female

Age: 32

Location: Large city

Occupation: Sales head at a tech startup

Marital status: Single

Income: $85,000+

Goals

• Eat healthy and nutritious meals throughout the week.

• Reduce reliance on takeout and convenience food.

• Explore new and exciting cuisines.

• Minimize food waste.

• Impress friends and family with delicious home-cooked meals.

Lifestyle

• Has a fast-paced and busy work schedule with long hours.

• Likes exploring new places and trying out new cuisines.

• Enjoys an active social life and often hosts friends and family.

• Travels often for work to attend events throughout the country.

Values

• Health and wellness

• Convenience and time-saving solutions

• Quality and variety

• Sustainability and ethical sourcing of products she uses

• Supporting local businesses 

Challenges

• Finding time to plan meals and shop for groceries

• Maintaining a healthy diet 

• Adjusting portions for solo dining vs. hosting people

• Accommodating guests' dietary restrictions

• Finding high-quality ingredients and tasty recipes

Needs

• Easy-to-prepare, healthy meal kits with clear instructions

• Customizable meal plans to accommodate guests' dietary restrictions and preferences

• Flexible subscription options with the ability to pause or cancel when traveling

• Larger portion options to cater to gatherings with friends and family

• High-quality ingredients with clear labeling and sourcing information

Purchasing influences

• Recommendations from food bloggers and health influencers

• Online advertisements

• Social media marketing through posts showcasing meal kit varieties

• Positive reviews on social pages

Next steps? 

Buyer personas help you understand your target audience and connect with them through the right messaging. Investing in buyer persona research isn't a frivolous expense; think of it as a preliminary investment in order to ensure that your future marketing investments are targeted, relevant, and impactful. 

Now that we've covered all the basics of buyer personas, it's time you go create one!