All brands want to be recognized and remembered. Business growth is the goal of marketing and sales. But before expecting people to know your brand, you need to get to know people. 

Now more than ever, businesses need to develop human to human relationships with their customers. The only way to do so is to have the people at the center of your strategy and develop long-term business goals. 

But how do you get to know the right people to be your customers? The answer is to create Buyer Personas.

Why Does Sales Need Buyer Personas? 

Buyer personas are your guide to understanding your audience. This fictional representation of your ideal customer embodies their demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. Your buyer personas become the focal point of your inbound sales strategy, tied to five vital factors. 

People are at the core of the Inbound Methodology, but which people? Various factors will determine who will represent your ideal customer, and that includes how they will interact with your sales strategy.

Let's start with what you should take into account as you build buyer personas through the five factors:

1) Economic Factors

Things like a person's income, level of education, and household size affect their likelihood to purchase your product or service. Understanding this will help you establish in which level of priority your brand is in your customers' life. 

2) Time Frame 

Is your product or service time-sensitive? It can be a season that benefits your product like Christmas or a moment in a person's life that makes them more likely to purchase from you. This information should be part of your creation of a buyer persona.

3) Market Segment

Things like occupation, lifestyle, and personal interests can be critical factors when someone is considering options to fulfill their needs. The tone you use in conversations or the sale tactics you put into place will change according to these factors.

4) Location

Does your product have geographic limitations? Is it easy for your customers to reach you? These are some questions that will create a guideline for your brand's scope.

5) Legal Standards

Knowing the legal restrictions or requirements needed to become your customer will save you from including in your buyer personas the wrong people and will help you avoid awkward interactions as a salesperson.

How To Use Buyer Personas in Inbound Sales

Once you have your buyer personas created, what you have to do next? Here is how the buyer persona plays a role in each stage of your inbound strategy.

Attract Stage

As a salesperson, your role in this stage is to make yourself available for the prospects. Having a deep understanding of the buyer persona will let you choose the best tools to start the conversations. Maybe a chatbot on your website will be more useful than an email subscription for your ideal customer.

Engage Stage

The use you give your buyer persona will make the difference in this stage. It's not possible to engage will something you can't find relatable. Knowing your audience can change things from the tone you use to the solutions you give when they face a challenge.

Delight Stage

Think of it this way, to give a present you need to know the person first. The same happens when you are looking to delight your customers. For some people being part of an exclusive community will mean everything. For others, what matters is to know the brand takes their opinion into account. 

Maintaining Buyer Personas

Every part of your inbound strategy will evolve as your business grows. Your concept of an ideal customer will change as well. Use every interaction, challenge, and milestone you meet as a source of information to understand your audience better. Remember, buyer personas aren't static.

Be realistic about what your buyer persona can be. Having inaccurate representations of the people interested in your business will give you a biased point of view. Do research, use your data, and observe human behavior. The more you know, the easier it will be to create buyer personas.

If you need to know more about how to develop buyer personas, check our blog post How to Build Effective Buyer Personas.