Buyer personas can be developed through research, surveys, and interviews with your target audience. This includes customers, prospects, and people outside your contact database who might be a target audience.
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These practical methods will help you gather the information you need:
Examine your contact database for trends, such as how certain leads or customers find and consume your content.
Use form fields to collect important persona data if you use forms on your website. For example, if your buyer personas vary in company size, consider including a question about company size in your forms.
Incorporate feedback from your sales reps to find out which leads they engage with most frequently.
Ask your sales team what types of customers are currently using your offering. Can shareholder data you derive general information about your buyer persona from this?
Conduct telephone or in-person interviews with your customers to find out what they like about your product or service.
Let’s just focus on this step for now.
How do you find the right interview partners when researching buyer personas?
It's important to find the people who can tell you exactly what your buyer personas look like right from the start. Asking lots of questions is the best way to get to know your target audience. But how do you find the best interviewees? There are several ways to get started:
1) Customer personas as buyer personas
Multi ethnic group of successful creative business people using a laptop during candid meetingYour current customer base is ideal for initial interviews. These people have already purchased your product and interacted with your company.
At least some of them should match your target persona(s). Talk to both "good" and "bad" customers. Don't just talk to people who rave about your product. Dissatisfied customers will provide you with completely different information—but these, too, can be used to create personas.
For example, you might discover that the dissatisfied customer works with larger teams that rely on appropriate tools for effective collaboration. Perhaps "bad" customers simply find your products too technical or complicated. In any case, you'll gain a better understanding of your products and your customers' needs.
Another advantage of these conversations is that you usually don't have to offer your customers a reward for their cooperation. These customers are usually happy to explain their problems and what they think of your product during the conversation. Customers also want to feel like they have a say in the development of the products they use.
This type of conversation can help you retain them longer. So, when you approach customers, explain right away that the conversation is intended to gather feedback that will be very valuable to your entire team.
2) Buyer personas based on potential customers
Create a buyer personaOf course, you should also survey people who have not yet purchased your product and do not yet know your company.
Who better to reach out to than your current leads and potential customers? After all, you already have their phone numbers and other important contact information.
To find out who a good target persona is, collect all the information you can about these people (e.g., through lead generation forms or web analytics).
3) Suggestions for Buyer Persona Research
Handshake in front of business peopleIn this context, recommendations from existing contacts are another important source for identifying people who could potentially belong to your target group.
These contacts are especially useful if you're new to a market or don't yet have any leads or customers. To connect with people you'd like to interview or meet, reach out to your existing network of employees, current customers, or social media contacts.
This has less to do with the number of interviews you can schedule. What's more important is finding interviewees who will provide you with useful information.
If you're stuck for ideas, you can search LinkedIn for people who might fit your target audience. Are there any profiles there with whom you exchange contacts? If so, you're in luck! To make the first contact, reach out to your existing contacts.
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