Why Buyer Personas are an Important Part of Inbound Strategy

In both the book and movie adaptation of the brazen and adventurous Alice, more popularly known as Alice in Wonderland, she had chanced upon the clever but mischievous Cheshire Cat as she was wandering around the magical land. Lost and unsure where to go, she asked the cat with the widest grin on its face, where she must go. The cat then said, “It depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

Alice then answered, “I don't such care where.”

To which the Cheshire Cat replied, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

It was a fascinating exchange between two fictional characters that might have appealed to readers and viewers because of its seemingly wise message. But as wise and poetic as it may have been, the aimless sort of mentality that their brief interaction seems to promote doesn’t work in the real world, more so, in the world of business and marketing.

Any enterprising individual would argue that to actually grow an enterprise, specific goals must be set. Before achieving your goals you must first identify what they are.

In the ever evolving world of marketing, coming up with Buyer Personas is similar to identifying these goals.

Sounds very interesting, right? But what are buyer personas, and how are they relevant to you and your business?

Let’s dive in!

What are Buyer Personas

As defined by HubSpot: “A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal buyer based on data, interviews, and some educated guesses. Essentially, it’s a definition of your ideal buyer represented in such a way that it sounds like it’s talking about a specific person.”

It is basically an avatar of sorts that reflects the aggregate information of your ideal buyer. These avatars are often given names that are catchy, alliterative and descriptive of who the ideal buyers are and what they do. For example, “Corporate Coney”, a persona who is a high ranking official in a successful corporation who is looking for a web service provider that could provide her company with a time tracking app for all of its employees. There is also “Sporty Suzie” and “Buff Brandon”, both gym and fitness enthusiasts who like to invest in duffel bags, comfortable workout apparels, as well as environmentally friendly water tumblers.

The list of examples can go on and on. With a seemingly endless list for possible personas that describe ideal buyers of various companies and brands, one might think these might all just be made up and won’t always work. But that can’t be farther from the truth.

Let us tell you why.

Buyer Personas are Products of Research and Study

Buyer personas may be made up and semi-fictionalized. But these personas are not just pulled out of thin air. They are patterned after results of extensive research and study. Marketing teams develop these buyer personas, utilizing their collection of demographic information and personal references gathered from customer interviews, surveys and recently, polls conducted across different social media channels.

Their aim in doing this is to have a guide– a target where they can gear their marketing efforts towards. This also applies to your sales and service teams. It functions as a unifying end goal for all your teams, essentially.

How are they Created

The creation of Buyer Personas entails a long process. Normally, marketing teams do this by looking into historical data, performing customer interviews, or making educated guesses based on a great variety of data at hand.

You must be keen at spotting patterns while conducting all this. For example, while looking at sales data, be able to identify what sort of people buy or use  your products, what sort of people remain loyal to your brand over time. While looking at your marketing data on the other hand, check for the most and least popular content pieces and type of audience who consume them and through what channels.

Once you have gathered relatively sufficient data, you may also start conducting interviews with customers— nothing beats first hand information from avid consumers of your brand. In this process, you might want to ask useful and relevant questions like their experience of the brand, why they use it, why they prefer it, how they came to learn about it, etc. The information you extract from these encounters with your customers will provide depth to your research and findings.

It is also very important that you involve all of your teams in the creation of your buyer personas as every team’s experience and actual encounters with people hold significant information that can be a crucial detail in the creation of your persona. Moreover, your marketing team is not the only team that will be using your buyer persona as a guide, your sales and service teams will, too.

Importance of Buyer Personas in Inbound Strategy

The importance of buyer personas in inbound strategy is unquestionable, and we dare say, obvious. The very purpose of having a strategy in the first place, is to be able to meet a goal. Buyer personas guide your business in achieving your goals. It may even make sense to say that buyer personas are technically the goal, the target– the bull’s eye.

Towards these personas, you direct all of your efforts. When you are able to create a robust enough persona, you get to unify your teams. If you have a carefully constructed buyer persona and your teams have studied this persona you created, then they all know the ins and outs of the psyche of your ideal buyer, so in whichever stage these buyers are in their buyer’s journey, your teams will have a good understanding of how to deal with them and get them to buy or take delight in your brand.

In the creation of the buyer persona, you also go back to your company’s purpose, which is reflected in the made up circumstance that your buyer persona is in, this helps your teams commit to their memory, your company’s purpose, which thereby helps employees in performing their jobs well.

Verdict on the Importance of Buyer Personas in Inbound Strategy

Buyer Personas are very important in implementing an inbound strategy. Without Buyer Personas, you will be like Alice in Wonderland, confused and unsure where to go.

To know which way to go, you have to first know where you want to go.

Buyer Personas will help you in figuring that out.

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