No business can predict who will be buying their products with some certainty. For instance, you might think that a child’s toy is going to be purchased by children, but of course not, it’s their parents or guardians who will be making those decisions, and those people can come in any shape and size. But how can you build that capable persona of your model customer? After all, just guessing who, how and when that person is most likely to give you their cash isn’t enough. We need hard data or context to make those decisions. But what does that creating a ‘customer stereotype’ process actually look like? Let’s plan that below with these 5 tips.

By Team Savant

In today’s world, it’s still appropriate for a business to consider exactly who may be most interested and able to afford or use their products. For instance, a luxury health drink that can be purchased after a gym session in an upscale cafe that sells brunch will likely appeal to professionals between the age of 25-45, and may even be targeted to a particular sex.

That’s not to say these will be the only people buying your product, but the most likely type of person to do so, someone who will benefit most from how you arrange your marketing and structure your promotional content.

Source Some Genuine Data

Learning about customers can be surprisingly fun and interesting, and you could even consider it akin to detective work. That’s because customer feedback often affords you unexpected gems of information, while website data shows how people actually behave online, and managing all tools at your disposal, such as these two, can help.

Social media has opened up a whole new window into customer interests and preferences — that doesn’t mean you have to spy on people of course, but it can certainly help you see the surrounding discourse and purchasing data around your competitors. Sales teams often have amazing stories and insights from their daily chats with customers that add real color to the research too, so be sure to speak to your customer service leads and those who understand your existing audience to see if they’d be suitable for a further extension into a new line of products you may wish to release.

Figure Out Their Common Patterns

It’s important not just to think about who your potential buyers are, but what kind of lives they lead and how that relates to you. Some customers might share similar morning routines, and others might face the same challenges at work — your job is to determine how you’ll come in to resolve those pain points with your product.

So, for example, advertisements targeted to those who may be searching for heartburn relief can show your supplement that helps with it, and you can market how quickly the product works after consumption, how long it lasts, and how herbal or healthy it is. With that effort, you’ll have acknowledged the difficulty your persona is going through, the needs they have for a product like yours, and the assurances you can make to motivate trust.

These shared traits and behaviours help you get a clearer picture of different customer groups. You might even run focus groups to get a more direct understanding.

Generate Detailed Profiles

Now, it’s important not to rely solely on stereotypes to assume what people are like. Really build this profile out to seem like a thinking, breathing human, even if they’re just a profile on paper. In other words, a good customer persona feels like someone you might meet at a coffee shop. Giving them a name and backstory helps bring them to life, so adding details about their daily life, the things that bug them, and their hopes for the future, all of this helps makes them feel real.

You’re not writing a novel here of course, but you may be able to distinguish between how your messaging might go. For instance, what social media platform might this type of person be on? This helps you identify where to target your ads. Are they a parent, or not? What kind of industry or field could they work in, or what kind of working schedule could they keep? These little details help everyone in the business understand who they're trying to help. Don’t worry about being relatively specific. Sure, a man who works construction 60 hours a week might certainly wish to start ballet and be absolutely great at it, but it’s not dismissive or even discriminatory to suggest that this isn’t going to be a common scenario, nor will they expect you to target their marketing directly to them. There’s some value in that lesson.

Consider Their Technology Usage

Now, it’s important to note that digital marketing and website usage is so central to modern life that you should consider how your buyer persona will engage with it. Different people use technology in different ways.

Some love trying the latest apps, while others prefer familiar tools they've used for years and may not even install a different browser to the one their phone came with. Learning about these preferences helps businesses create better digital experiences, especially through the best web design they can possibly find. This knowledge shapes everything from website layouts to how companies stay in touch with customers, to loadability on different devices. Even if a customer is more likely to use iPhone or Android will count here, for instance determining which storefront you should target app development for first of all.

Keep In Mind Customer Journeys

Think about the customer journey your persona might go on to find your brand. Think about the degrees of resistance they might have to purchasing your product. So for instance, if you’e a fishing brand, you might think about if they’re new to fishing or not. If they are, do you suspend some of the jargon for accessibility? You might then think about how to put together a starter kit, front and centre on your website, that they can purchase if they need a quick kit to vacation with. Each customer takes their own path to finding and choosing products or services, so do some research and surveys to figure out what might inspire a purchase, and fuse that into your buyer persona profile.

With this advice, we believe you’ll be more capable of building a capable persona of your model customer going forward.